1P1S – One photo one story – A series of articles in which I will tell a story related to a photo. I’ll start today with Seattle, an article which could also have been titled ‘a new beginning’, if we had been in an episode of a great saga..
I first visited Seattle in February 2008. After a 16-hour and two-stop trip, I landed at the end of the day and was in juste in a foggy state, completely disconnected from my internal clock, and had only one idea in mind: get to my hotel and sleep until the next day, despite a huge desire to discover the city. Unfortunately, at the airport, I looking at the luggage belt which had been running empty for a few minutes, when a friendly employee approached me to ask if I was Mr. Losberger, and to inform me that my suitcase was somewhere in London. Change of plan: after checking in, there I go in zombie mode to buy some clothes to make myself presentable at the conference at I was attending the next day.T
The sun was still shining a bit and I took with my Nikon D300, the first ‘serious’ digital camera that I had just bought a few months earlier, wishing to start photography again which I had neglected a little for a few years. After buying some clothes at GAP and as the sun was starting to get down on the horizon, I headed for the nearest touristic site, the famous Pike Place Fish Market. I was in Seattle only for a few days, and despite my lethargic state of the moment, I felt it was probably worth effort.
As I arrived at the top of slightly downhill street, very close to the original Starbucks, I suddenly saw this magnificent view with the neon lights, the sea and islands in the background, and this perfect light and perfect moment to press the button. My slow mind also woke up during these few moments admiring the scene. I only took 4 or 5 shots with slightly different angles, then the light decreased, the fatigue stroke back and I returned to the hotel to crash in my bed.
In the end it was really worth making that effort because in the following days the sky of Seattle was cloudy, foggy or loaded and I never had again the opportunity to shot a sky as blue as the one I had taken on that first evening. This photo is certainly nothing extraordinary and thousands of tourists probably have the same, but for me it remains something very special and the signature of my return to photography.
