This week my Kelby Inner Circle group got an assignment: take a building and turn it into something bold and contemporary. I didn’t have to think hard about where to start. There’s a building in Bellevue, Washington USA (just east of Seattle across Lake Washington) I’ve been eyeing for the past few years; tall, glass, a mixture of angles. I always told myself if I got close enough with a camera, I’d shoot it.
Saturday I finally got my chance. I pulled up, grabbed the shot from the car, and went straight into editing once I got home. Following the Kelby technique, I stripped it down to black and white and pushed the shadows hard. What came out the other side is a building that looks almost sculptural, all steel, glass, and deep black sky.
I’ve always been drawn to buildings that way. Give me a big structure early in the morning or late at night, when the light is low and the shadows go deep, and I’m hooked. It’s not really about the building itself. It’s about the contrast.
That’s part of why this shot from the Dakota Creek Shipyard here in Anacortes has stuck with me too. It’s not architecture in the traditional sense, but a ship in dry dock at night is the same kind of subject: a massive structure, hard light, deep shadows.
Even something as familiar as the Downtown Anacortes arch fits the same idea when the light hits it right.
Four structures, four very different feels: a Bellevue high rise gone dramatic in black and white, a fishing vessel lit up at night, and an arch that’s watched over Commercial Avenue since 1891. That’s the range I love chasing with this camera.
What’s the building or structure near you that stops you in your tracks?
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