Every work day I pass by the enormous cement factory and kilns of the Ash Grove Cement Co., just west of Highway 99. You can’t miss the factory and its two enormous kilns. The facility, owned by a Kansas-based firm of the same name, is as much a Seattle landmark in my eyes as the more famous Space Needle. I finally took a bike trip there this weekend and snapped a few pictures. I love the designs of industrial facilities and how function dictates form.
As I get older, I think I fall more deeply in love with the works of William Shakespeare. It is his 450th birthday today. Happy birthday, oh great master of the human condition. I took this picture at a wonderful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Seattle’s Discovery Park. The play was performed by Seattle’s inimitable GreenStage theatre company, who perform the Bard’s plays every summer at many amazing outdoor venues throughout Seattle and beyond. These plays are one of my favorite things about living in Seattle. (Click on the photo for a larger image on a separate picture page.)
I always seem to discover something new, peculiar, and definitely quirky in south Seattle, particularly the industrial area called SoDo. The Vac Shop eluded my attention for years, until today. How could I have missed this? I have no idea what creative inspirations lie behind these pieces, and I do not think it matters. And, Bibles are apparently in the shop too. Full service, it appears. (Click on each photo for a larger, full-sized image on a separate page.)
Spring continues to have lovely surprises less than a block from my house. Yeah cherry blossoms. (Click on each photo to see a photo page for each image.)
The Duwamish River, in south Seattle, is a U.S. federal Superfund cleanup site and one of the most developed industrial landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. The area is dotted with cargo container barges, cement factories, shipping and receiving warehouses, and other industrial facilities. Believe it or not, fish swim up this river to spawn, and people fish on this waterway every summer.
I frequently go for walks in Seattle’s Discovery Park, one of the country’s best metropolitan parks. It is a true gem. Even knowing every corner of this place, I still discover new ways to see what is very familiar, and also beautiful.
A couple of months back, I took a late afternoon photo outing to capture some industrial scenes in Seattle’s Interbay railyard and the always photogenic Elliott Bay and Puget Sound, adjacent to Seattle. More of this ongoing series can be found on my photo gallery.
BNSF Locomotives, Interbay Railyard
Pier 91 at Elliott Bay, Looking on to the Olympic Mountains
One of many grain ships filling its hull for the global market
Rush hour in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. It used to be sleepy back in the late ’80s. Now it is home to Adobe, Google, and bars a aplenty. I have biked through here hundreds of times. I took two views, using my beloved GoPro Hero 3 edition video camera. There will plenty more videos to come with my GoPro.
What Beautiful Light 