A Jewel in the City: Lake Union, Seattle, Washington (Sea 12)

 

Lake Union in June, 1995, view northeast from the Space Needle (Kodachrome 25 slide)

 

Overview

 

Lake Union is a freshwater lake entirely within the city of Seattle. The lake is a glacial basin, scoured out by the Vashon Glacier about 12,000 years ago. It receives fresh water from Lake Washington to the east and discharges to Puget Sound via the Lake Washington Ship Canal that leads west. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks (Ballard Locks) maintain the level of Lake Union and allow boat traffic to transit from salt water to fresh water. 

 

Lake Union view NW with Queen Anne Hill to the left.

(2004 panorama taken with Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera with 40mm lens)

Lake Union view west towards Queen Anne Hill

(2004 panorama taken with Hasselblad XPan panoramic camera with 40mm lens)

 

November on Lake Union, view west to Queen Anne Hill

(Kodak Ektar 100 film, 50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens at ƒ/2.8)

East Side  

 

When I lived in Seattle in the early 1970s, much of the shore around Lake Union was industrial, with shipyards, warehouses, a power plant, and miscellaneous boat activities. Today, the area south of the lake has transformed into condos, hospitals, cafes, and tech worker office buildings. The west shore below Queen Anne Hill has condominiums and restaurants.  

The east side of Lake Union along Fairview Avenue East is still industrial and interesting. Let's concentrate on this area. We will start near the Silver Cloud Hotel and walk north.

Seattle Seaplanes with Queen Anne Hill in the background

Seattle Seaplanes (Kodak Tri-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E Xenotar)

You can rent a seaplane for a tour. The office is on the old yacht. 

 

Shed (floating?) at 1501 Fairview Ave. E. (Fuji Acros II, 25mm ƒ/4 Snapshot Skopar lens)

Lake Union Drydock Company

It looks like a homeless person occupied this old camper.

Howe and East Blaine Stairs

 

Seattle is hilly. The glaciers left drumlins throughout the Puget lowland. Early in the 20th century and continuing to recently, the City built stairs on the edges of many bluffs and hills. Sometimes, a street stops, and the stairs ascend or descend to the continuation of the street at a different elevation. Seattleites in the know use the stairs for exercise. 

A handy book, SEATTLE STAIRWAY WALKS, An Up-And-Down Guide To City Neighborhoods by Jake & Cathy Jaramillo, lists 25 of the best neighborhood walks in the city. 

If you are exploring east Lake Union, take the Eastlake, North Capital Hill, and Portage Bay walk. You walk under the I-5 pilings and ascend the East Blaine steps. Then you walk to the top of Capital Hill, past magnificent early 20th century mansions, descend to Portage Bay, then reascend and finally descend to Eastlake via the Howe steps. 

 

Underneath I-5 below the Howe steps (25mm ƒ/4 Snapshot Skopar lens)

East Blaine steps at Lakeview Blvd. E., 

Garage on Broadway East (50mm ƒ/2 Summicron lens)

Après Exploring

 

 Exploring the shore and walking 3.2 miles and about 800 steps is tiring. What do you do? Well, of course, you go eat seafood at Duke's Seafood South Lake Union. And drink a pale ale or two. Ahhh...

 

Health food Seattle style

 

The 2004 panoramas are from a Hasselblad XPan camera with 40mm lens. I had rented it at Glazers Camera for a project. I should have kept it longer and taken more panoramas around the city. The 2024 and 2025 photographs are from Rolleiflex, Pentax MX, and Leica M2 cameras with Tri-X and Fuji Acros film.

 

Ai Statement

 

The photographs and text above are mine, complete with flaws and strange syntax. I am not using Ai for any verbage. And all photos are from some place on earth with no Ai manipulation or removal/addition of "features." I consider that intellectual fraud. Here on Urban Decay, you will see the setting with all its warts and excess power lines and trash. I sometimes clean lint and chemical blobs from scans due to processing errors, and, of course, I crop frames as needed. But the scene in the frame is genuine, the photons that fell on some place at some time.

 

Dear Readers, thanks for your support. All comments/criticisms/scorn welcome. 

 

 

 

 

More of South Park and the Duwamish Waterway, Seattle, Washington (Sea 10)

Each time I drive to Seattle, I find more interesting industrial and commercial topics to photograph south of the city and along the Duwamish Waterway. Let's start with another look at South Park and proceed north along the waterway.

South Park

14th Ave. South near South Cloverdale Street, South Park

14th Avenue is the main road running north-south through South Park. Many of the restaurants feature Hispanic foods.

 

Not much cooking any more in this taqueria

 

Industrial Zone 

 

Drive northwest, staying on the west side of the Duwamish, and you enter an industrial area. Many companies here serve marine activities and construction.
 

Duwamish Waterway from Overlook Park at South Portland Street

Debris, South Portland Street

(28mm ƒ/2.8 Vivitar lens)

Wire spools, South Fontanelle Street

(35mm ƒ/2.8 Pentax-A lens)

South Fontanelle Street (28mm Pentax Shift lens)

Rail cars, 4260 West Marginal Way

(Sears 50mm ƒ/1.7 lens, yellow filter)

General recycling of Washington, 4260 West Marginal Way

(Sears 50mm ƒ/1.7 lens, yellow filter) 

This ends out quick look at the west side of the Duwamish Waterway. Standby for more Seattle in the future.

I took these pictures on Fuji Acros II film with a Pentax MX 35mm camera and 28, 35, and 50mm lenses. Glazers Camera developed the film, but some part of the process resulted in tiny white spots on the film. I suspect it was from gas bubbles in the developer, or possibly the film was not agitated properly, leaving tiny spots undeveloped. They are barely visible on this scale. I will return to developing black and white film myself again. 

2025 E. Washington Road Trip 02 - Murdock, Wishram Heights, and Kahlotus, Washington

Heading east towards eastern Washington on our May 2025 road trip, we passed through some picturesque small towns. Here are some examples.

Murdock

Murdock is a hamlet on the north (right) bank of the Columbia River just north of Dallesport. We drove through en route to the bridge that crosses to the Oregon side of the river. Murdock looked a bit tired, with some good motor transport parked on the grass and in driveways. 

Wishram Heights

Continuing east on the Lewis and Clark Highway (Washington State Route 14), you reach Wishram Heights. The main part of town is down the hill next to the Columbia River, but the Heights is along Route 14. The impressive Oregon Trunk Rail Bridge crosses the Columbia about a mile downstream (west) of Wishram. 

The Heights was not too inspiring. The dead cars and rather beat-up cottages/houses were interesting.    

The Road North, Pasco-Kahlotus Highway

This is lonely open terrain, with an occasional barn and crossroad. In May, the temperature was comfortable, but it gets hot here in summer.

Kodak T400CN film, Leica IIIC camera, 50mm ƒ/2 Jupiter-8 lens, yellow filter

Kahlotus

Kahlotus is in Franklin County at the northern end of the Pasco-Kahlotus Highway. The population is 147? The town is in the Palouse terrain, with its gently rolling hills. 

Eastern Washington offers a wealth of interesting topics to photograph and explore. To be continued...

I took the color photographs with Kodak Portra 160 film using a Pentax MG camera and various Pentax K-mount lenses. These are still inexpensive and totally capable. Eventually, the inventory of these cheap 1980s and 1990s lenses will run out. Please click any photo to expand it and see details.

The black and white photograph of the highway is on Kodak T400CN film with my 1962 Soviet Jupiter-8 lens. My sample has pristine coating and seems to be a particulary good example of this lens type. Brian Sweeney (a Soviet lens expert) adjusted it to focus correctly on Leica cameras. Thanks Brian!

2025 E. Washington Road Trip 01 - The Dalles, Oregon

Road Trip! A chance to explore, see new places, learn about new geography. 

Ready to roll in a rented minivan (it is not tall enough for bikes)

We headed east in May of 2025 with a rented minivan, bicycles, and cameras. For our first stop, we crossed the Columbia River at Dallesport and stayed in The Dalles.

The Dalles is a city on the on the left (south) bank of the Columbia River in Oregon. The city has a dramatic setting as the gateway to the Columbia Gorge. The site was a historic trading center for native Americans as well as European travelers on the Oregon trail. It is still a major rail junction and center for agricultural products. 

BNSF rail yard (135mm ƒ/3.5 Pentax-M lens)

The city has a historic downtown with early 20th century commercial buildings. We walked around town and looked for the typical topics that interest me.  

Alley facing Wasco County second courthouse

Wall art, 1st Street

Warehouse, Jefferson Street (50mm ƒ/2 Rikenon lens)

Sunshine Mill, view east from 1st Street

Where are the cars? Jefferson Street (50mm ƒ/2 Rikenon lens)

Time for a breakfast coffee and croissant, 2nd Street (50mm ƒ/2 Rikenon lens)

Where is the horse? View east from Jefferson Street

This ends our all too short stopover in The Dalles. Nice town, and I want to return. 

I tool these pictures on Kodak Portra 160 film with a Pentax MG camera and several lenses. The 50mm scenes are from my $25 Ricoh 50mm ƒ/2 Rikenon lens. This is a compact mostly plastic lens that was sold with many K-mount Ricoh SLR cameras in the 1980s. It is a light weight 6-element double Gauss design, and the optical quality is excellent. No complaints! Please click any photo above to see more details.

Tourist Notes

Restaurant: The Dalles Thai Cuisine is excellent! We were surprised considering what rotten food we have had in many Thai restaurants in the USA. We had the roasted duck.

A comfortable place to stay downtown on W. 2nd Street: The Dalles Inn

The Mississippi Delta 40: Crenshaw

Dear Readers, I plan to review my older negatives from Mississippi as I have time. The Delta offered a wealth of photographic subject matter. In the future, you will see occasional articles based on early 2000s road trips around the state.

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Crenshaw is a small town (population 210?) in Panola and Quitman counties. It is typical of many Delta agricultural towns that once had a thriving commercial strip but has fallen on hard (very hard) times. It looks depopulated, and most of the stores are empty or collapsing. These photographs are from April, 2018. The town probably does not look too different today (2025).

MS Hwy 3 comes right through town. This is the main road along which the commerce was once concentrated

The commercial strip is rather sad. Most (all?) of the stores are closed. The soul food restaurant looked like it did not operate.

There was once a public drinking fountain on the sidewalk in front of one of the stores. I wonder if it was once restricted for white or black users?

The police station was in a modest modern building. They were well-equipped with the big old Crown Victoria police cruisers.

William Stokes Street

This ends our quick pass on Hwy 3 through Crenshaw. It was a glarey day with harsh light. I wish I had made more time to explore the Delta, a unique cultural and architectural part of the USA. To see more towns, please type "Mississippi Delta" in the search box.

I took these photographs on Kodak TMax 100 film with a Pentax Spotmatic camera and various lenses. The TMax is very fine grain, but I think I prefer traditional cubic grain films.