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After you leave Doc Maynard’s pub at the start of the underground tour, the tour group breaks into three sections to visit the underground. Each section of the tour has different parts and has different parts to play in Seattle’s history. This section of the tour, now a couple of storeys underground, used to be the street front to Seattle’s old Cavalier Inn. It’s crazy to think that at one point, this was all outside! It’s a very different place now – in the middle of winter it was dripping with water and quite cold in there.
The image today features this “external” area of the Cavalier Inn. On the left of frame, you can see a walkway leading into a building. At one point, that wall was an exterior facade. Now, it’s the way through the first part of the underground tour. There are some pillars in there now that support the “roof” which is actually the city footpath up above. I was drawn to this pillar with the power switch connected to the underground. It felt to me like such an interesting contrast between the city that used to exist and the tourist attraction it is today. It’s funny that it’s now powering both the old Seattle underground as well as the tour of the city.
Nikon D700, Nikon 16-35mm f/4, 35mm, f/11, ISO 200, 7 exposures
This is the first image I’ve processed using a piece of software I’ve really come to love – Focal Point by onOne Software. It allows you to selectively adjust the point of focus on an image. I’m a fan of this not for what it is actually capable of (you can really focus on minute points of an image if you want) but instead for its subtle application within the image. I was able to create a really “loose” focal plane down the pillar which give the out of focus effect around the edge of the frame. If you haven’t given this software a try, I encourage you to do so. It can really add to your images.
