It's been a while since I have gone out for the pure fun of shooting at night...I think it's been because I've been in a slight funk with my photography and personal life but tonight was definitely needed. But I saw a quote the other day that said... "The only way out is through." and that really struck home for me.

I recently just sold my 5D3 and upgraded to a Sony A7Rii and I think tonight was a good test run. Lots of shadows, lots of highlights, levitating photos, etc. And to sum it all up, it did the job quite well! It's a big change coming from using Canon for 7 years. The buttons are very different and menus are way different. It's a learning curve but the only way to learn is to keep shooting!

Rachel joined me and was my model for the night. Being as she's behind the camera 99% of the time...I think she did a pretty damn good job.

I was contacted a few months ago to collaborate on a project for Seattle Chinatown. The goal was to bring out the feeling of home and also a unique perspective from people eating or working in China Town. Of course that could be done many different ways so we had to sit down together and decide on a specific idea. Tons of ideas were bounced around but then someone said, "we need to show their point of view." and that sparked this idea. I've seen it in videos with guys parkouring all over the place and it looks like a crazy video game. So why not do it with this project? I thought it would be perfect.

So I went to two restaurants, a fortune cookie factory, an old grocery store that is now in a museum to be preserved and a bakery that had burned down. All of these places have been in Chinatown forever and are the heart and soul of the international district. Through these photos...I did my best to capture it all. It was an amazing experience and I was able to have a bunch of awesome food and way too many freshly made fortune cookies. I would love all of my shoots to be like this!

Cheers.

Urban

seattle