John Small. Photos.

Currently Showing: Commuters.

This print is currently on display at Herkimer Coffee on University.  Go see it!

Commuting seems to be a way of life in the cities of Japan.  The flow of people at train stations is astonishing.  Here, outside a station in Hiroshima I followed cycling commuters threading their way among pedestrians, in an unspoken order that seemed precarious.

This one came as a late surprise in my selections for the Herkimer show.  I'd been wandering around Hiroshima, had accidentally ordered sake instead of beer at a Ramen place because the pictures on the menu weren't quite lined up with the words, and was ready to give up for the day (a little drunk) when I started taking panning shots of people on bikes.  Chance is always a factor.  I took dozens, and only while reviewing these recently did I find this composition of compressed figures and this kid smiling as he heads home from school.

People really like this print.  I'm glad I included it.

Currently Showing: Golden Leaves, Cold Day

This print is currently on display at Qliance.  Go see it!

Just right of center, about a third of the way from the top is one particular leaf resolutely holding onto its green.  The lake behind is frozen, Phinney Ridge is blue-gray band, the sky is a completely featureless watercolor wash.  On the one hand this sounds desolate but the thing I love about Winter is its design clarity.  Easier to see what's there without all the flashy colors!

Sometimes it's just mood, feel, atmosphere, flavor. 

Currently Showing: Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy

This print is currently on display at Herkimer Coffee on University.  Go see it!

On Lantau Island, north of Hong Kong, there are six gorgeous Bodhisatvas holding up offerings to the Tian Tan Buddha.  On a day trip out of Hong Kong, for sheer visual impact, one can take a half hour ride over mountaintops to reach this destination.  I went twice.

This photograph, like the one of the orange Torii at Fushimi Inari, belies the crowd that was pressing all around me when I took the picture.  

I'm not the best note-taker when I travel.  If I continue to travel and take these thousands of photos I might benefit from a camera accessory that adds GPS coordinates to the image so I can remember just where I was.  I had to read for a while to determine that "Guan Yin" was the appropriate spelling for this figure, based on where I was in the world.  In Japan she would have been Kwan Yin.

Currently Showing: Falls and Fog

These two prints are currently on display at Qliance.  Go see them!

I wasn't planning to hang these two together, but when I started to arrange the framed prints at Qliance the inspiration came to me, and there was a pairing. 

The above photograph is, in a way, a snapshot.  I'd call it an educated snapshot.  Any time I find myself near Snoqualmie Falls I have to stop and take a look from the observation platform.  This time the air, even out to the parking lot, was completely filled with a thick, wet mist that soaked every surface.

I pulled my camera out from under my coat, took half a dozen shots to work out the exposure.  The lens was completely covered with water droplets, but I got the settings right, ducked over my camera, wiped the lens as dry as I could then quickly made one more exposure and got out of there. 

Another day I hiked down the boardwalk along the river, climbed over the railing and scrambled out among the boulders.  Looking into this crushing wall of water through a fully zoomed 200mm lens for any length of time is dizzying.  Take your eyes away and the stationary world seems to be sliding upward.  For some this is not a pleasant experience.

This is one of those images where I start to tunnel in and see features, shapes, patterns, details.  Interesting to see composition and subject in something so constantly changing.

Currently Showing: The Blazing Tokyo Streets

This print is currently on display at Herkimer Coffee on University.  Go see it!

Wandering the Akhibara area of Tokyo at night is an immersion in color and crowds in motion. Wedged between two trash cans I found a calm back-eddy in the flow of people and slowed down to capture this vibrant sense of it all. There aren't many places a person can stand still.  If you stop moving you might notice just how fast everything else is going and get hit with vertigo.

The quality of the night light there is palpably different than here in Seattle.  The sign lighting is dominated by LED's and daylight spectrum florescent lights.  Cool white light backs all of the colors you see, making it all crisp and somehow sharply penetrating to your eyes.  Of course, there is also much more of it.

Currently Showing: Fog, Tree and Shack. Point Reyes California.

This print is currently on display at Qliance.  Go see it!

I lived in Berkeley.  Point Reyes Lighthouse was a mecca. I visited again last year on a road trip.  Often, especially when long drives are involved, the expectations of particular photos, weather, light conditions, etc. arise.  This creates a very different state of mind than the receptive seeing state I prefer. 

This time, the fog was a problem.  The lighthouse is perched on a rocky point at the bottom of narrow staircase.  In fog and high winds, the gate is often locked.  I could not see the lighthouse, could not see the ocean, could not see much of anything.  Expectations were dashed.  Walking back to the car, having given up photography for the day, I started to see what was there.

This happens all the time. I have to give up before the good stuff happens.

Currently Showing: The Torii of Fushimi Inari

This print is currently on display at Herkimer Coffee on University.  Go see it!

As with all popular destinations in Japan, this shrine near Kyoto was quite crowded.  I quickly set up my tripod and began taking five to ten second exposures in this dimly lit, glowing orange tunnel of shinto gates.  After several frames I turned to discover a pile-up of patient Japanese tourists politely waiting for me to finish.

This is the first print I made on my new printer.  I ran to the neighbors' house with it. They're photographers.  Brigitte and I just sat there in a bit of awe. 

I've seen all kinds of images of this site, often with funky angles and zoomy distortion.  I'm grateful that I shot straight down the middle and didn't try anything fancy.  I mean, really, what more does a photograph like this need than what's there?

Currently Showing: Branches and Ice

This print is currently on display at Qliance.  Go see it!

I love Winter.  Green Lake froze completely over last Winter.  Sometimes I wonder if there's something other than trees I should be photographing, but, then that sort of nonsense evaporates and I just let my senses lead.  When Cristi invited me to do this collection, there was a unifying theme where there hadn't been one before, and these images awoke from their digital sleep.

This is simply scenic on the one hand, and then a surprisingly emotional story: loss, reflection, winter, sleep.  The arc of seasons.  Maybe, when asked, I might say I'm a nature photographer and leave it at that.  I photograph the nature of things, as I see them.

Currently Showing: Kiyumizu-dera at Dawn

This print is currently on display at Herkimer Coffee on University.  Go see it!

Kiyomizu-dera at Dawn

I slipped out of the ryokan (traditional Inn) in Kyoto, into the morning twilight, bought two hot, canned coffees from vending machine on street (great hand warmers.  So-so coffee), ran up the hill to reach this shrine before dawn, and was arrested by this scene.  From up the hill came the soft, deep ringing of the shrine's enormous bronze bells. 

Photography is really all about getting up before dawn.

Currently Showing: Space Needle and Fog

This print is currently on display at Qliance.  Go see it!

I rolled out of bed, still in the dark, and there was fog. I raced to put clothes on (I was standing on the balcony in my boxers), and jumped in the car, off to find some vantage point.

Queen Anne Hill was socked in. I drove off the hill and up the Magnolia Bridge to the little park just at the top of the bridge.  It was about six am.  Another photographer was there already. 

I'm learning to keep moving. The layers of a scene... trees, background, buildings, clouds, all realign into new compositions.  Cramming myself into the bushes in the upper corner of the park, this arrangement of tree and Space Needle came into view.

I took votes for this one.  This one feels a little "post-cardy" to me, but those who've seen it really respond to it, so I kept it in the show.  Sometimes an image being a little "commercial" is OK, I think.