A stark and lonely parking garage looking over the port in Portland. Canon EOS 7D EF-S 17-85mm at 70mm f/5.6 1/500 ISO 100

I walked into this parking garage in Tacoma because the walls were coved with graffiti and I love photographing graffiti. I spent about 40 minutes photographing the art and talking with and filming the artist who was painting there. As I was about to leave I looked up towards the back wall and for the first time I noticed the very interesting way that the screen covered window was framing the loading cranes in the port of Portland. When you are focused on photographing a certain subject you may miss some other pretty remarkable images. It wasn't until I allowed my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the outdoor light that I saw the potential in the image. I exposed for the blue sky, throwing the walls and floor of the garage into darkness, creating a very interesting, urban frame for the image. I increased the contrast of the image to bring up the reflective portions of the floor. Without the black portions of the photograph this is a very boring image, with them we introduce some drama and a stronger sense of place.

-Russell Berg