The Phoenix Financial Center is one of my all-time favorite pieces of Phoenix architectural history. This modern International style complex was designed by Wenceslaus Sarmiento and completed in 1968. Many folks here in Phoenix know this place by its nickname, the Punchcard Building, as it resembles a punch card from early computers.
My favorite piece of the Phoenix Financial Center are these dendriform style coverings over the drive-up teller machines along Osborn Road. They remind me of the dendriform columns used in Frank Henry’s Dendriform Column Bank on Camelback Road. Often overlooked, two or three of these UFO-like structures stand right along the sidewalk as if about to land in the parking lot. While I shot these cool structures, I felt as if I was witnessing an alien invasion.
If you are in Phoenix looking for a cool midcentury modern building to Photograph, stop by the Phoenix Financial Center on Central and Osborn. I suggest shooting from the sidewalks along either road because I’ve been asked to leave by security guards for photographing the building from its main parking lot.
Drive north of Camelback on 7th Avenue in Phoenix, and you don’t see much. It’s a common sort of suburban highway-street formerly lined by orchards.
Really, that describes most of North Central Phoenix: Similar FHA ranch homes on large lots greened by flood irrigation, and gentrified by two — now going on three — generations of young professionals. Farm roads once carried citrus to market. Now wider and smoother, they carry accountants, lawyers, and cardiologists to downtown office buildings. It’s very nice, but all rather ordinary. Certain conveniences have been added over the years — at least at the major intersections. Pass the Circle K at Bethany Home Road, go about half a mile, and . . . your heart stops.
Suddenly, you’re in outer space.
First Christian Church is an actual, honest-to-God Frank Lloyd Wright design. Yes, it’s necessary to point this out: Many “Wright” designs in the Valley are actually tributes, or the work of understudies. The Arizona Biltmore is probably the best-known Frank Lloyd Wright building in town — or at least the best-known FLW building that wasn’t designed by him at all. Onetime understudy Albert Chase McArthur gets the credit in that case.
But in the late 1940’s, Wright himself was commissioned to design a church that would anchor a Bible college. The venture went bankrupt before the church could be built. Wright died in 1959. His designs sat on the shelf until 1970 or so, when a minister named Boyce approached FLW’s widow and offered to buy them. By 1973, the fantastic 120-tall bell tower had risen over the low, unsuspecting tract homes around it. It’s a mid-century modern masterpiece that always takes newcomers by surprise.
I’d like to say Frank Lloyd Wright’s First Christian Church serves as an anchor for the neighborhood, inspiring residents with its cosmic, sacred, modernist poetry and serving as a beacon for a sort of bohemian, artistic renewal. This doesn’t seem to be the case. Seventh Avenue is a fast street. This historic midcentury icon is passed by thousands of distracted drivers each day. This is sad in a way, but at least keeps it from being overrun by visitors. If you’re in the neighborhood — especially on a morning or early evening the cooler months — drop by and slowly soak in the vision of one of America’s great originals: himself a monument towering over a sea of the ordinary.
Multnomah Falls is a two-tier 620 foot waterfall located just east of Portland in the Columbia River Gorge. I actually took this photo in near darkness. It was foggy, raining and the sun had set about 30 minutes prior. Luckily my camera did pretty well in the low light and I was able to bring out a beautiful photo from the dark. My wife was right next to me wiping off the spray from my lens as well. Couldn’t have made this shot without her!
I remember visiting this beautiful waterfall when I was about ten years old. My parents and I were driving from Spokane to Cannon Beach, Oregon in our 1978 Commander motor home. We had already seen beautiful mountains, a few other waterfalls and even a moose along the freeway. However none of that could have prepared me for seeing the huge Multnomah Falls high above me.
Since that first visit, I do my best to stop by Multnomah Falls whenever I am driving through the Columbia River Gorge. It’s always busy, sometimes parking is a nightmare. But like many incredible things in life, it’s always worth it.
I took a wrong turn leaving my hometown of Spokane and didn’t realize it for a couple hours. After finally noticing, I was pleased to find out I was a few miles from the beautiful Palouse Falls. After photographing the waterfall I kept meandering down my accidental highway and stumbled upon this incredible abandoned school bus in a field. What a treat! After a vigorous u-turn I found a small dirt road leading to the field, then walked the rest of the way.
Over the years since I visited this abandoned school bus, this photo has turned into one of my most popular online and in print. One person commented that it reminded them of the bus from Into The Wild.
This amazing sunset caught my eye while my future wife and I were zipping down the Oregon Coast in January 2012. We found a great place to pull off the road and take in the sunset. While I was shooting, a couple in a van parked near us, opened the door and about 5 Jack Russell terriers hopped out and ran over to me barking their heads off! It was hilarious. My dog Ashley wasn’t impressed, but I was!
It was a chilly spring morning when my fellow photographer buddy, Steve, and I woke up early to meet our Navajo guide. All bundled up with our trusty Canons we made it to the parking lot and climbed into our guide's pickup to head deep into Monument Valley. In total darkness we setup our tripods aiming at blackness, our guide told us to “just wait”. We did, anxiously. A few minutes later, we were awarded with this spectacular cloudy sunrise behind the Yei Bi Chei and Totem Pole formation. Lovely.
The Buick in Bluff is an old friend of mine. Each time I pass through Bluff Utah, I have to take a photo of the old car sitting at the Oak Canyon Trading post where highways 191 and 162 intersect.
Christine Falls was the first of many waterfalls I found while driving through Mt. Rainier National Park. As I reflect back on this trip, I think this waterfall was my favorite as it had many tiers, it was easy to get to and was quite tall at 69′ in total!
Experiencing Mt. Rainier National Park was an unplanned excursion while on a road trip with my wife-to-be. We were driving from Phoenix to Seattle to get married and happened to be a day ahead of ourselves when we hit western Washington. So we took a little adventure to the east to visit. Though it was mid-June, there was plenty of snow and winter-like conditions present. But also since it was mid-June, lots of the snow was melting, resulting in some awesome waterfalls to see.
Visiting Christine Falls is quite easy. The photograph you see here was shot from the main road going through Mt. Rainier National Park. Simply park somewhere along the road and safely walk across to see the falls. There is also another viewpoint on the south side of the road which requires a small walk.
Christine Falls is named after Christine Van Trump, the 9 year old girl who climbed most of Mt. Rainier with her father in 1889.
Where is the best place to photograph Seattle’s skyline? That is what I asked myself the day after I got married. My new wife and I decided to spend our first day as a married couple driving around the Seattle metro area seeing sights and eating eats. I Googled around, I looked at maps, I even asked my uncle who has lived in this awesome city for 40+ years. Almost all of my search results pointed to Kerry Park. As great as Kerry Park is, it felt sort of… typical. The Space Needle is everywhere in photos of Seattle. So I tried to find another viewpoint to photograph Seattle’s skyline.
Finally in the evening, I ran across a photograph of Seattle with intertwined freeways, some mountains, the Seahawks’ stadium, some buildings, and no Space Needle. It was easy to tell from where the photo was taken, so I headed to Google Maps and found where to go… Beacon Hill.
We parked at Dr. Jose Rizal Park and walked back to the old green 12th Street Bridge spanning Interstate 90. I feel it is the best place to photograph Seattle if you don’t want to see the Space Needle. You still have iconic Seattle landmarks including the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums, the Olympic Mountains, the Columbia Center and Elliot Bay. Plus if you are here at night, you have the added bonus of light trails.
If you’re looking for the best place to photograph Seattle aside from Kerry Park, then head over to Beacon Hill’s 12th Street Bridge!
If you time your visit right — and there aren’t too many clouds — you get to see not only the iconic Space Needle and Seattle skyline, but also Mt. Rainier in the background. This is the postcard view favored both by visitors and locals who are dying to convince themselves that Seattle is still actually an interesting place.
I suppose Seattle is still kind-of interesting. They’ve got Boeing and Microsoft and now, Amazon. Lots of things are always happening in Seattle. They even still have some live music there, I hear. But not like in the early ’90’s.
The reason the Seattle grunge sound took off was because Seattle didn’t get visits from “good” bands back in the 80’s. Tours from cutting-edge punk acts would start in the Northeast in Boston or NYC, then sweep down in a southwesterly direction, ending in LA, with maybe a few dates in San Francisco and a detour to bury a dead drummer or or groupie or two. The Jet City was too far North. Rockers in Seattle had to make their own scene. And they did.
So, if you’re in Seattle, you’re definitely going to want to check out the Space Needle. Kerry Park is the best place to do it. It’s popular, but not overrun. You can usually find a place to park on the street.
Near Seattle’s Magnuson Park sits this lovely piece of public art created by Doug Hollis. The Sound Garden sculpture is not necessarily a sculpture. It is twelve metal towers with large tubes that catch the wind to make eerie low tones as the wind blows through them.
Unfortunately public access to the Sound Garden sculpture was restricted after September 11th. Now visitors need to check in at the adjacent NOAA campus by 3:30pm weekdays only.
I’ll never forget the day I heard Kurt Cobain died. I was getting ready for school with M-TV News playing in the background when I heard Kurt Loder announce it. I stopped whatever I was doing and just watched the TV. To me it was one of those situations I couldn’t believe happened, yet something I wasn’t surprised about either.
I’m a 90s kid. I grew up in Washington state and absolutely love what I call “the big four” bands of 90s Seattle grunge: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. During my trip to Seattle to get married, I made sure to visit some local grunge era landmarks. I visited Doug Hollis’ sculpture “A Sound Garden“, Discovery Park where the “Hunger Strike” video was filmed and I even drove to Aberdeen to see the Young Street Bridge which Kurt Cobain mentioned in the song “Something in the Way”. I couldn’t leave Seattle though without seeing this infamous house where Kurt died.
Kurt Cobain’s house is located due east of downtown Seattle in the Denny-Blaine neighborhood along Lake Washington. The exact address is 171 Lake Washington Blvd, Seattle, Washington 98122. Next door to the south is Viretta Park where this photo was taken. There are two benches which fans have nicely dedicated to Kurt. Some leave objects and some carve or write things on the benches. Getting here is easy but parking can be a small problem as there is not a dedicated parking lot for the park.
Rialto Beach is one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited in the National Park system. When I think of beaches I think of soft sand, tourists, garbage and resorts everywhere. Rialto was different. I was alone, walking on pebbles and climbing over huge trees now driftwood. The sunset was amazing this evening and I simply did not have enough time to take in everything Rialto had to offer. The driftwood trees are amazing and mostly unmolested. Next time, I’m camping here!
This was by far my favorite place in the Hoh Rain Forest area of Olympic National Park. It is actually located about 5 miles west outside the main section along the road. I parked the car on a wide shoulder and walked in just a few feet. I suddenly felt cutoff from the rest of civilization among a thick forest of skinny moss-covered trees as far as I could see. What was so unique were all the short branches on all the trees.
This is the entrance to the popular Upper Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. Typically this place has a dozen trucks parked here and hundreds of tourists inside. However this time it was different. I was fortunate enough to experience Upper Antelope Canyon virtually alone in the middle of the night with my friend Steve and Lionel Bigthumb, our Navajo guide.
