Shooting in Hillyard

This week I visited Hillyard, and it was a tough photo op. Tough for a number of reasons, which included three or four drunks in the street screaming at each other. STA mercifully came by and picked up one of the drunks, and the others wandered off westbound from Market Street.

After getting the cameras and tripod out of the truck, I noticed an absence of color. Other than high pressure sodium street lights, there was not really any illumination to speak of. So, it was going to be a challenge to find some shots. Let’s remember, Hillyard is a historic community…..and I was determined to try and capture some of the buildings, poor lighting or not. Hillyard holds some historic moments for me, too…coming from my days at Spokane PD.

I captured some views of the Alaskan Lounge (Tavern), and then moved south shooting some angles of the street scenes. I found one well placed Mural, and that was about as far south as I made it on this visit.

Editing posed some challenges, since what I had really captured was an absence of color. So I began to layer each series of images, and I converted the top layers into black and white versions. As a result, I could then bring out any objects with color from the background layer. Mostly, it was the interiors of the buildings with large windows that offered some color. A few signs, and voila, some image captures in Spokane’s historic Hillyard.

I’m not done shooting in Hillyard, and perhaps there are a few locations I need to visit the next time out. I think I will try and make some contact with representatives of the Hillyard community and see if they have any ideas. One thing still holds true, as far as night shoots go. Some historic buildings that look great in daylight can look absolutely horrible after dark. Conversely, some things that are as ugly as the day is long (in daylight), can look vastly superior after dark. Only one way to find out which, is to go and take a look when the sun goes down.

So, at this point, I have added 4 images from the nights visit to Hillyard. They are largely grayscale, but as I mentioned previously, they are not totally black and white creations. Image number one is located:

http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/alaskan.htm

JDM