(Photos taken a couple weeks ago at Golden Gardens Park. Layout done with Comic Life — neat little program!)
Photos
Photos, usually taken by me. May be mirrored or imported from other services.
July First Thursday
A few shots from tonight’s ‘Electric’ Seattle Photobloggers exhibition at Art Rage Studios, as part of this month’s First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square.
“Skin Trade” by Duran Duran from the album Decade (1986, 4:28).
MiS Day Two: 2005 Seattle Gay Pride Parade
Day two of the “MiS (Men in Skirts)” weekend has come and gone. Rick, Kirsten, and Kory joined Prairie and I to head up the hill to this year’s Gay Pride parade.
We staked out a spot right about where I was last year, just in front of Seattle Central Community College. Over the past couple years, that’s become my favorite place to set up for the parade — wide sidewalks, so you don’t get too claustrophobic from the crowds if you’re on the sidelines; and a median divider running down the street that I like to hang out on, as it’s a great spot for getting photos as the parade goes by. Chas was just a bit up the street from us, and he came down to say hi before the parade and then again after everything was done.
I always forget how long this parade is. It started right on time (a pleasant surprise for Seattle), and wrapped up three hours later! I ended up filling three of my four Compact Flash cards (one 512Mb, one 256Mb, and one 32Mb) with photos, topping out the day at around 550 total. I’ve culled out about half of those for my Flickr photoset — I didn’t see any “oh wow” shots this time around, but there’s still a lot of fun stuff in there.
www.flickr.com
|
Once the parade was done, we all went down to Charlie’s for lunch, then split up. Rick went up the hill to the rest of the Pride celebration at Volunteer Park; Kirsten and Kory went off to go shopping, and Prairie and I came back home, as she had to head back out to Ellensburg. I grabbed a nap for a bit after she left, then spent a few hours working on getting photos ready until Kirsten and Kory came back.
After they crashed out for a short nap, the three of us headed back up the hill to hit the Vogue‘s Sunday night fetish night. Bounced around for a bit, saw some people I’d met a while ago but hadn’t seen in a good year or so (Toni and Deandra, and met their friends Kane and Teresa), and then headed back home round about midnight.
And with that, the Men in Skirts weekend is done. I’m blearily making my way through the morning, and the work week is about to begin.
Of course, on the bright side, there’s a three-day weekend coming up next weekend thanks to the Fourth of July….
“Leather” by Amos, Tori from the album Little Earthquakes (1991, 3:12).
MiS Day One
Today was day one of what I’ve dubbed the “Men in Skirts” weekend, with a jaunt out to Golden Gardens Park for the Utilikilts 5th Anniversary party.
Prairie and I had a lot of fun exploring the park. Neither of us had been there before, so we bounced back and forth between the picnic and wandering up and down the beach. While clambering over rock piles and underneath a pier, Prairie got to show me a lot of sea critters that I hadn’t seen outside of aquariums before, from huge starfish to tiny rock crabs that skittered away from us after she kicked over the rocks they were hiding under.
The picnic was also quite fun, with really good sausages and other potluck goodies to munch on, and quite a few Utilikiltarians (some of them employees, others, like me, customers and fans) chatting and playing. I spent some time playing frisbee out on the sand with Steven, Jenniviere, and Ben‘s daughter (amusingly, Ben and I know each other from Anchorage — long time ago) until my feet couldn’t take the hot sand anymore.
We ended up bailing out around 4pm, as there were chores to putter with at home (fun things like laundry and a little bit of straightening up for visitors tomorrow). Good day, a park that we’ll definitely be heading back to so we can explore it in a bit more detail, and much fun meeting some of the people behind the Utilikilt empire!
www.flickr.com
|
“Phorever People (D’s Mellow)” by Shamen, The from the album Phorever People (1992, 4:52).
Goth Pride fundraiser
Last night I made a rare mid-week visit to the Vogue, as they were having a fundraiser for the local goth community’s entry into this Sunday’s Pride parade. It gave me a chance to play a little bit with low-light photography, experimenting with various shutter speeds to see if I could get anything decent at the club.
Some shots worked better than others, of course (trial and error will do that). I brought along a monopod, which allowed me to me to go for two- to four-second exposures without too much camera shake. A tripod would have been better, but it would have been a lot bulkier and a lot more difficult to adjust quickly. The resulting shots aren’t my greatest, but I’m not unhappy with them at all — it was fun to try, and I’ve got a better idea of what settings to use the next time I get a chance for something like this.
The one bummer was that as the actual fundraiser part of the show started late (scheduled for 10:30pm, they didn’t get going until about 11:15pm), I only got a chance to shoot three of the burlesque dancers before I had to leave. By the time I had found settings that were working pretty well (half-second exposure, front-curtain flash, focus fixed at just over two meters), the three of them were done and I needed to be getting home.
Still, it was fun to experiment with, and I got some time to bounce around on the dance floor for a bit. I’d been missing that, as the past two weekends have been too busy for me to make it out on Saturday night, and I don’t think I’ll be making it out this Saturday, either. Sunday’s the Pride parade, and Prairie and I will be heading up to watch that along with Rick and Kirsten and her husband; and on Saturday we’re planning on heading out to the Utilikilt Anniversary picnic.
Looks to be another busy weekend lined up. Yay for summer!
More old Gig’s photos
I’ve updated my photoset of old photos from Gig’s Music Theatre with shots of a lot of my friends from that time period. I’d held off on uploading those, as I don’t have a way to contact most of those people to be sure they won’t mind, but tonight I figured that as most of the shots have been on my archived Gig’s Music Theatre site for years now — and had been donated to me for public use — that it would be okay.
Of course, if anyone finds them and says “Hey! Get me offa there!” I’ll oblige. Hopefully that won’t be the case, though.
www.flickr.com
|
“I Showed A Caveman How to Rock” by US3 feat. Def Jef from the album Flintstones, The (1994, 5:19).
Fremont Favorites
My top three favorite photos from yesterday, in reverse order:
“Butterfly Girl,” as we ended up nicknaming her. She rode with the naked bikers, though she chose to stay dressed. Quite pretty, and I love her mask.
One of the floats had a group of people dressed in bride and groom costumes, running around and “marrying” anyone who asked. This green-haired bride ended up as my second favorite shot.
My favorite shot, as often happens, was pure luck. I was trying to get a picture of one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as they walked by. My camera was being a little slow, probably having a tough time auto-focusing on moving people and trying to adjust exposure all at the same time. I wasn’t sure quite when it was actually going to take the shot, so I just stayed crouched down to the ground, aiming the camera as the Sister as she walked past me, hoping that something useable would come out.
What I ended up getting floored me.
So much better than what I was expecting to end up with, or even hoping for. Hooray for luck!
As before, the rest of my shots are in the Flickr photoset.
www.flickr.com
|
“Peace, Love and Grease (Hot Tracks)” by BT from the album Roadkill 2.19 (1997, 6:48).
2005 Fremont Solstice Parade
A selection of most of my favorite shots from yesterday’s Fremont Solstice Parade and Festival (the best three will be coming in my next post):
Prairie and me at the start of the parade. We got a spot almost exactly where I was sitting for last year’s parade, which worked out really well — not too crowded, fun people around us, and a good view of the street.
Semen
I’m not sure what amuses me more: that someone would take the time to write ‘semen’ out with chewed gum, or that I’d spend the time to turn it into a cutout.
Yes, I have no life.
“One World One Sky” by Covenant from the album United States of Mind (2001, 5:01).