Sudden Flight

Photo & Text Copyright 2010 Seattle Daily Photo. All rights reserved, including reproduction or republishing.

I was taking photos of some 1930s Grotesques by Dudley Pratt on the south side of the University of Washington's Smith Hall when I noticed a a gull land on a terracotta-clad peak. I turned my lens there just as it decided to fly off again and caught its initial drop. It is fun to be able to see its movement frozen, but even more interesting to me were the details the shot helped me notice about the building. I had never noticed before that this building had a slate roof or that there was a copper ridge piece, or that the peak extended higher than the roof line. The bird drew my eye there, but the shot helped me see. Sometimes the people in our lives function in this way. So many things I may not have noticed or appreciated come into focus when observing someone's interests, work, and activities. Makes life very rich! Below are the figures I was first looking at. Pratt depicted many aspects of life, history, famous people and fields of study in these Grotesques. You may remember I showed you this and this from the opposite side of the building a few years ago. More on UW's campus architecture here.