While Strolling Through the Park One Day

It's interesting what you can find out here in Seattle.

While I was wrapping up a shoot with a friend of mine who is helping me with a project for class, we stumbled on a group of people getting a portrait done on Occidental Avenue S., near Occidental Park - a back street makeshift "park" where the street has been made into a short promenade between S. Washington Street and S. Jackson Street in the Pioneer Square district of old Seattle.

Occidental Park, Seattle, WA

As you can see by the map above, there are quite a few galleries in the area, which is very much slanted towards the art enthusiast of just about every flavor - from more traditional oil on canvas, to pottery, glassworks, sculpture, antiques, and photography.  Within the photographic galleries I've found that it runs the gamut as well - from modern digital prints to - and get this coolness - glass plates.

As I had stated earlier, my friend and I stumbled upon a family getting their portrait done . . . by a photographer using a glass plate camera!  The thing was manufactured in the late 1800's and was a very beautiful specimen of craftsmanship with brass lens, leather housing and a black velvet screen under which the photographer viewed the image that was to be exposed.  It worked by manual bulb depression that opened a shutter for as long as the photographer held it open - so his expertise as to the amount of light he was to let in to expose the glass plate was paramount to the success of the shot.

Photographer Daniel with the glass plate image

Once the photographer, Daniel, took the image, he said it would take a few minutes to run the glass plate through the chemical baths to expose the shot and judge if another image would have to be taken.  From the looks of the initial image, it was good enough to go with and keep.

Passing by and seeing the process was not only fun, but a bit of a learning experience and a reinforcement of the photo history lessons we've gone through in class.  In this digital era, it's sobering to witness the process and labor of love our predecessors took to create their artwork and imagery.