Lana Blinderman | Ex Factory Creative

Urban Wandering

By my own definition, urban wandering photography is a visual exploration of the city. It is similar to documentary photography but less formal. In addition to architecture, it covers street scenes, found objects and various curiosities. It is perhaps closest to street photography, but in my case it doesn’t focus on people and even avoids depicting them.

While urban wandering conjures the images of flâneurs and flâneuses, an urban wanderer is not an idle bourgeois, but an engaged citizen who adores the city and uses photography to illuminate relevant issues, directly or indirectly. It is helpful to occasionally wander off into other neighborhoods, but walking in one’s own neighborhood every day makes it possible to notice and capture fluctuation and change.

Seattle

Pike Place Market lovers and followers of late John Stamets’ work will remember his late eighties photo book Portrait of a Market. In August 2017, the Stamets family and Friends of the Market created an exhibit of John’s panoramic photos, digitally reproduced and placed in the same locations the original photos were taken. The program included a docent-led tour and opportunities to document the Market with our own cameras. This is a snapshot of the market through my lens. John Stamets was one of my most influential photo-mentors, and this essay honors him as well as this important Seattle landmark.

Market Entrance and LaSalle Hotel
Lower Floor Signage
Sosio's Produce
Window on Elliott Bay
Mick's Pepper Jelly Shop
The Main Arcade After Hours
Fresh Fish Signage
Tourists in the Main Arcade
A Shop in the Economy Market
A Staircase Between Levels
Daily Dozen Doughnut Shop
Pike Place
A Mediterranean Corner in Post Alley
Windows of Rachel's Ginger Beer in Post Alley
A Light Fixture in Post Alley
Looking North on First Ave
The Showgirls on First Ave
Looking East on Pike St

Deadpan industrial facades, unexpected splashes of midcentury modernism, and older housing abutting small industry

After years of demolition, construction and gentrification that replaces working class businesses with middle and upper class artisanal productions, Ballard still retains large areas of small manufacturing and distribution. This essay follows my walk in the area between 15th Avenue NW, NW Market Street and 11th Avenue NW, then down NW Leary Way to “Frelard.”

Garage Door Reflection
A Warehouse
Vaupell Plastics Building, Facade
Vaupell Plastics Building, Oblique View
A Flowering Tree
Green Industrial Building
Silent Meeting
Blue House and Flowering Bush
Cinder Block
A Long Industrial Facade
A Pole with Light Reflectors
Loading Dock
Plants Reaching Through the Fence
Modernist Ornamentation
Modernist Ornamentation Up Close
Looking Through a Truck
Seattle Orchid

Washington

Every month I contribute to a group project called Seattle Frame by Frame. Each month we photograph a different 3 square mile section of the greater Seattle area to create a visual record of our region and how it is changing. This is my contribution to the group’s photo documentation of Shoreline, Washington.

Shoreline Full Gospel Fellowship
House with Christmas Wreath
Crest Theater with Bicycle
Crest Theater with Teenagers
Shadows on Crest Theater Parking Lot
Parking Sign Behind Crest Theater
Dry Yellow Tree Behind Crest Theater
Silesia Guitars
The Sadly Defunct Camera Clinic
Shorecrest Shopping Center, Oblique View
Shorecrest Shopping Center, Parking Lot