Spokane Night Scenes gets slammed

Spokane Night Scenes gets slammed

At the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (MAC) (http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/macstairwell.htm)

This week’s project began at the MAC, as I wanted to inspect the premises to see what might have changed since my last visit. A lot had, and the sights were dismal. I spotted some interesting lights and shadows only on a stairwell that ran along the east side of the MAC. Since there was a guy running up and down the stairs for a workout, I put that on things to do in an hour or so. He told me he would be done momentarily. When I did manage to shoot a series of exposures at the stairwell, it was fun to shoot a plain, everyday, nothing special, stairwell. Only the lights made this any different than any other set of stairs, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

John A. Finch home (http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/finch.htm)

I walked over to the Campbell House to see if I might find any interesting light challenges, and once again I found little to shoot. To give the guy on the stairwell more time, I walked over to the John A. Finch home and shot a series of exposures over there, perhaps an hour after sunset.

Dwight Merkel Sports Complex (http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/merkelcolor.htm)

One of my targeted locations for 2011 was the skate area at the Dwight Merkel Sports Complex in NW Spokane. I had previously shot the skate park in Hillyard (http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/hillyardskatepark.htm), and I wanted to take a look at this area for a potential light painting shoot. Upon arrival I parked east of Assembly, and began to haul gear out of the car as the Merkel complex was totally in the dark. I must have gotten in a hurry, as I forget to remove my right thumb from the driver’s side door of the car as I slammed it shut. Yep, stars were in vogue that night, both in the sky, as well as my brain. Man, did that hurt…..what a dumb thing to do. A great way to ruin what was a fun night, up to that point. So, I sucked it up and went out to the skate park area, and tried to forget about the prior stupidity. I used red, amber, and blue lenses on the Big Max flashlight, and shot a series of over and under exposures using color. It was so dark out there, that only the colored lighting made any sense at all of the surrounding objects. The headlamp helped, but this was totally dark.

Francis and Crestline, Northeast Spokane (http://www.spokanenightscenes.com/napa.htm)

My wife and I were headed back home one night from a friend’s house, when she saw this lighting distortion in the windows of a somewhat large building occupied by the State of Washington. The windows had a distorted view of a Napa store across the street, and at this location it was the only organized splash of color to look at. I thought I would take a look at this window distortion to see if the yellow was as bright as my wife thought it was. After a series of shots at this location, I headed back home for an ice wrap for my right thumb.

John D. Moore, CPP
Spokane Night Scenes
http://www.spokanenightscenes.com