I've lived in West Seattle now for 1 whole year and we feel right at home. I think we've met more people and more friends in one year here than we ever met in 5 years in Vancouver. Not sure why that is because Vancouver is a really friendly place, but alas. We've become close with our neightbours and they all seem to like us and it feels so good to live with friends to your north, south, east, and west. I'm right now in two bands, writing music, and loving our additions...The dogs. I'll do a blog post on them one day. But alas, I digress.

Driving to West Seattle via the Spokane Viaduct there are a lot of people that live/work under there asking for money etc. I sort of never really knew if I should look at them or not or give them something or not. A lot of people say don't give them anything, but then if your heart says to give something etc etc. Ahh, you gotta love the moral hazards. Don't get me started on the bailouts! But again, I digress. So I went down there with my camera and decided to start chatting them up and lo and behold, I met some truly genuine and nice people that like chatting and talking to me. Their lives are open books and they sincerely love it when someone listens to them. I'm not sure if they hope that I give them money. I haven't yet, but they don't seem to expect it. I've absolutely loved the experience and I have some decent shots already. Here are a few. I'll return with some more of these over time. Here's two I took yesterday that I really enjoyed.



This is Bullet's little Chihuahua. A wonderful skiddish little puppy that was intrigued by me probably because she smelled my dogs. I was surprised to see how this shot came out because I basically held the camera down close and pointed it upwards. Shot at F4, if I had this opportunity again I'd shoot it at F8 or 11 so the owner would be more noticeable.



This is Dred. A really great guy who gives me a big hug and wicked hearty pats on the back. He's called Dred because of his dredlocks and he lives in a little abandoned motorhome nearby with his girl Patricia. She was the first person I met. Extremely friendly and introduced me to some of the other transients. Compositionally, I was thinking about doing a whole bunch of portraits this way, with that big looming bridge over their heads and the traffic going on behind them. Here's Patricia.


She's with Timmy. An interesting and quiet fellow that doesn't drink which is quite rare. I asked him why he doesn't drink and he responded "I don't like how it feels". Simple enough. I'll expound more on these good people later. I hoped you'd enjoy these now.