01_06_2008_the long trip home_bv

--01_06_2008_the long trip home_bv--

Live in the moment.

My brief time here in Seattle has come to an end, for now. I honestly can't even begin to describe my feelings of leaving this place. I feel as if I am leaving something just as I was beginning to truly appreciate and understand some of it's intricacies. The hardest part is not the city, place, or the things here that this place has to offer that I have come to love, it's the people. I'll be leaving great friends and fresh friendships that I have developed in my time here. Feeling more and more at home as everyday passed while realizing it can only last a certain amount of time.



Today I embark on my journey home across the wide open tundra of the midwest to Illinois for a week with friends and family. From there I'll head off to Hutchinson, Kansas to begin my spring internship with The Hutchinson News.





Moving onto Kansas will be eye opening, foreign, and creativity inspiring place to this fresh-eyed wanderlust who'll be stomping its ground for the first time. I am really looking forward to making pictures and developing friendships in this new place. But for now I can't help but feeling the tug on the heartstrings as I leave this place, with people who've impacted my life so much.



I'll be back Seattle, one way or another. But for now this bird has a little more migrating to do before planting his feet. After all, it's the journey and the stops along the way, not the destination.

Stay tuned, the tide is changing.






Best,

Brad Vest

listening to: Once Around the Block, Badly Drawn Boy

Thanks for the drawing Anne, it was a fantastic 'last' night in Seattle. Time to go rock out in Kansas for a while and make some wonderful americana images.

--12_18_2008_S(n)O(w) it begins--

--12_18_2008_S(n)O(w) it begins--

An epic snowstorm his Seattle this past Thursday. Well, epic for Seattle standards. Due to the fact that Seattle pretty much has zero snow plows combined with more hills than MTV. With those two factors it's a mixture to paralyze a city. Just to let you know how scared Seattle is of snow, on Wednesday there was just a chance that it may snow.... cancel school, everything. It didn't snow, it was pretty funny. Then of course the snow came on Thursday with a vengeance.
Due to the fact that I live on Queen Anne HILL I haven't been able to move my car in two days. If you don't have chains in this neighborhood don't even think about it. So I've been walking miles a day up and down the slopes of Seattle making pictures along the way.
It's great here to see how the kids react to snow since they don't usually get to see it, let along 6 inches of it. Everyone seemed to be having a great time as long as they weren't trying to get anywhere.

Thanks for looking.

Stay safe out there,

Brad Vest

Listening to: Flying Lotus, RobertaFlack (feat Dolly)

Apparently this snowman has no interest in the great view from Kerry Park. I guess he could have just been posing for a photo. Only in Seattle have I found snowmen with eyes made from coffee beans, fitting I guess.


The storm parted for an instant and the sun bathed down on Eliot Bay for a brief instance.




These kids were catching some massive air cruising down 11th Avenue in US Post Office boxes. Even the parents got into it. It was great hanging out for a while.


There are a lot of these little berry trees all over Seattle. The deep red really popped out against the stark white snow.




Pretty much every bus trying to get into my neighborhood was stuck on a hill, somewhere. Luckily this morning on my way back from a friends the bus was running all the way up. Actually the first one to go up the hill was the bus that I caught, I know lucky. They had just sanded the hill and the buses were outfitted with chains around their tires. Here a resident asks a driver if he wants anything to drink or eat while he was stranded in his bus waiting for a tow off the hill near the end of the storm.


All the hills make for fantastic views. I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe having chains for my car.






Snowman numero dos.

--11_27_2008_Helping to discover a park--

--11_27_2008_Helping to discover a park--

One of my favorite parks in Seattle is Discovery Park in the Magnolia neighborhood. Discovery park is a large park that used to be a military base for the United States. However, with the base gone the public has been left with a huge swath of land that hugs the Puget Sound just miles north of Seattle. Discovery is not your usual big city park. If one were dropped in blind folded it would be easy to forget that you are only 15 minutes away from one of the US's larger cities, Seattle.

My sister Colleen and I explored the park early on Thanksgiving day before heading over to a friends for a great Thanksgiving party later that day.

Here are just a few shots from the park.

Thanks for looking,

Brad Vest