The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

“Not bad, right?! It even has roof access. Hey, let’s go up there.”

Roof access? Nice. Not seeing a stairway anywhere, I start walking towards the door. Sharat beckons me to come into the other room, “Roof access is in here.” I walk into Caitlin’s bedroom and see Sharat sliding out of a window onto a fire escape. Roof access? Shit.

Sharat scurries up the iron ladder while I contemplate hanging off the side of a building. After Sharat reaches the top, I diligently begin my slow ascent. I am not sure if 26-year-old-Andy would have been any less cautious, but the newly 27-year-old-Andy did not have any rush. “Three points of contact, yall!” Thanks for the tip, Sharat. The vista that awaits me on the roof is worth the moderate anxiety of climbing an old ladder. The Puget Sound, Olympic Mountains, Space Needle and Seattle skyline contrast prominently with the gold September sky.

Sharat offers to run down and grab my camera after I realize I should have brought it. I am grateful to him for this since I did not want to climb that ladder anymore than I had to. To avoid photographing electrical lines, I positioned the camera several inches from the surface of the roof. Since Program Exposure or any automatic mode always ruins sunsets; I took a meter reading of the sky straight above my head, switched to manual, plugged in the settings and worked from there. Since my Dell (loaded with Photoshop) insists on showing me her Blue Screen of Death, I could not edit this photo. This image, for all intensive purposes, comes straight out of my Nikon D300. I promise to repost a cleaned up image once the Dell is fixed or I drop $2.5k and finally get a MacBook Pro.

The fifty degree weather of clouds and rain that plagued Seattle through May seems long behind us. Atmospheric conditions in the Pacific Northwest are nearly perfect right now. Seattleites don rain jackets and pour coffee down their throats during the winter because they know life in July, August and September is unrivaled anywhere else.

Throughout much of the year, The Puget Sound withholds its beauty; only occasionally does it allow un-overcast glimpse of mountains, water and sky. About a week ago, I drove along 10th Avenue in Capitol Hill on my way back to Wallingford from Volunteer Park. The view looking west was striking: Lake Union, The George Washington Bridge, Gas Works Park, Queen Anne, Ballard and The Olympic Mountains. Expansive vistas like these boldly contrast with the limitless gray endured during the winter.

I decided to return to the 10th Avenue vantage point with my camera on a clear night to catch the sunset. Unfortunately, there weren’t too many clouds in the sky to play with the light, but this image conveys the absolute wonderful climate we are experiencing here in the corner of the country. Let me know when you’ll be visiting.