Nancy Locke Photography

The freedom of iphonography

2011-12-29T23:24:00.000-07:00

There is something very liberating about taking pictures with an iphone. no dial turning, no focusing, no exposure control - just instinctual snapping of pictures. some are good, some are bad, and who cares. Instagram is a fun little app that allows sharing of photos with like minded friends and colleagues and provides several filters to modify the image before uploading. The thing is, with these filters, the better/more interesting the light the better the filter works. and there it is, the relearning of the most fundamental thing about photography - it is about the light...and it can be very simple and fun.

Seattle Moon

2011-12-09T20:38:00.001-07:00

Seattle sure is a good looking city. Tonight a massively full moon graced the City's skyline while the setting sun warmed the glass on the buildings.

Migration in America

2011-12-01T21:55:00.001-07:00

Jon Bruner created this fascinating infographic illustrating inbound and outbound migration for each county in the US. The data, sourced from the IRS, dates from 2005 to 2009, and shows the booms and busts of our recent economic cycles. Follow this link to explore the interactive graphic: Migration in America

Temporary Monuments

2011-11-29T18:40:00.001-07:00

A temporary monument has been greeting travelers in and out of Seattle. Lopped off, mouth gaping open, the Viaduct is coming down piece by piece. I was intrigued by two views - first, the gaping mouth and looking into the belly of the beast, and second, the architectural perspective of the structure, like something out of one of my architectural history texts...

Shrubbery and the Control of Nature

2011-11-28T14:37:00.001-07:00

Tortured landscapes prevail in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood and many others. There appears to be some fairly intense peer pressure for residents and their plants to conform to very strict grooming standards. Perhaps one in every 100 homes are not quite up to snuff, with ragged foliage, a few weeds and lawn overdue to for a good cutting. Someone once noted that ailanthus (tree of heaven) and sumac are indicators of poverty. What does excessively neatly trimmed plants say about a neighborhood?

New Horizons

2011-11-22T11:28:00.000-07:00

The City of Seattle is undergoing big change, and so am I. The viaduct is coming down, a new waterfront is planned, and I, after 20 years of constant deadlines, am taking a break and thinking about the next 20 years (or 27 years, if you believe in what the astrologers are saying in their predictions of people born around a certain time and in a certain place). So, about the viaduct. Long a barrier between the City and it's waterfront, it's demise has begun. Massive portions were removed during a 10 day closure, leaving a few now untraveled remnants as temporary monuments.

Columbia Street

2011-04-08T13:26:00.003-06:00

Columbia Street ramp at Seattle's waterfront - the ramp will be coming down along with the viaduct.

Alpine Skiing and Big Public Utilities

2011-04-04T13:28:00.003-06:00

I skied at Stevens Pass yesterday, amidst the giant powerlines carrying hydropower from the North Cascades to the metropolitan region of Puget Sound. The crackling of the lines above felt like little pings of frozen snow hitting my helmut.

Seattle's Waterfront

2011-02-18T17:40:00.004-07:00

Seattle's waterfront is getting a lot of attention these days. Currently separated from the city by an two level elevated highway (the viaduct) and with waterfront facing buildings smashed up to the edge of this concrete mass, the city has little connection to the water. By 2016, the viaduct comes down, replaced by a surface street and a newly created public realm. James Corner and his firm Field Operations (FO) have been selected to design this new public realm. After seeing Corner's presentation of the team's analysis, presented last night to a crowd of 960 people, I believe the city made a great choice in selecting FO. The team dissected the waterfront - spatially, historically, ecologically. They described the waterfront as a series of districts defined by the neighborhoods to the east. They spoke of reaching back to these neighborhoods through those grade-challenged and quirky east west connections. They spoke of a gritty, nuanced, complex waterfront.

FO comes back to Seattle in May to present some initial ideas, and I anticipate a lot of attention on those east west connections and some very creative approaches to our very complex topography. I sense that Corner respects Seattle, and is not going to give us easy solutions.

This edge of waterfront, viaduct and quirky connections to the downtown will be transformed over the next 10 to 15 years (or longer, especially given Seattlites propensity to deliberate). Before the demolition begins, Corner has inspired me to get out there, camera in hand and start taking pictures....

Road Tripping

2009-08-28T12:53:00.019-06:00

parts of Utah and Nevada are just so interesting. On my return trip from Seattle via San Francisco, I traveled once again across the great flat stretch between the Nevada border and Salt lake City. Wendover, half in Nevada, half in Utah, is home to a decommissioned air force base and the hangar where the Enola Gay was retrofitted to carry the atomic bomb. Then there are the magnificent salt flats, the Morton salt factory, the enormous Kennecott mine, a russian themed conference center, the Great Salt Lake, and Salt lake City. All threaded along the I80 corridor. Very utilitarian, certainly not scenic, not very habitable....and I want to go back.

Horizons, part II

2009-07-10T17:19:00.003-06:00

A sunset at Deception Pass offered a another flat and beautiful horizon. The simple broad shapes in the foreground somehow created a certain balance in the frame. Simplicity rules. Even brought out the tripod for this particular moment. Recently I have been connecting with my inner landscape photographer....enough with suburbia, failing cities and other cultural fallout, for the moment.

Horizons

2009-07-08T16:42:00.002-06:00

A drive from Colorado to the Northwest recently allowed for the opportunity for an early morning visit to the Salt Flats. The flatness was extraordinary - an expansive plane of light colored salt, a raised highway slicing through, all held by a dark edge of rocky hills. I had the good fortune of the sun peeking in and out of the clouds and an encroaching storm with very black clouds on the horizon, making for all kinds of interesting phenomena. The most striking was the horizon line, where salt met highway, sunshine met darkness and the flatness was made all the flatter.

The salt flats are a lonely landscape, most people just driving through, on the way to more inviting and comfortable spaces. The town of Wendover sits at the edge of the flats, a small city with hotels and casinos. I am curious what kind of relationship the the people of Wendover have with the sublime landscape that surrounds. The character of the development there is quite detached from the place, most of the hotels offering tropical and lush island themes.

I want to go back to this place.

Suburban Renewal?

2009-03-07T17:39:00.002-07:00

I read an article in The New Yorker called The Ponzi State, by George Packer and photography by Robert Polidori. The article explores the communities of the Tampa and Fort Myers area, location of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. Our past obsession with big and bigger houses, our sense that real estate values would forever be on the rise, and our collective belief that everyone should own a home have, in our current economic decline, resulted in more than a few suburban landscapes with a patchwork of pristine and decaying homes, scraped but unbuilt landscapes, and a social undercurrent of renter vs. "original" homeowner warfare.

What is to become of these failing communities built at the outer suburban fringes? As the economy slowly turns around, is it reasonable to think that we will pick up where we left off and continue the suburban expansion? Or, are bulldozers the better option, creating a path to more sustainable patterns of development? Will we enter an era of suburban renewal? I feel that we are living in very interesting times, with front row seats to what could be a transformation of our landscape...

2008-11-25T17:13:00.006-07:00

I ventured to the Richard Misrach show at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle and discovered a new (to me) photographer that I will follow in the coming years. The show, entitled "On the Beach", consisted of a series of beautiful yet disturbing images printed large (6'X8'?) and with excruciating sharpness of detail. Recreating by the sea shore never seemed quite so painful, and I pondered the very survival of these seemingly lifeless grey skinned bodies bobbing about in the vast sea or curled up on tracked but deserted beaches. The photos are stunning, the content intriguing and the technical execution so precise.....I am a fan. (photos by Misrach)