Northwest Exposure
Chase Jarvis made a career with images of fast people in far-flung places. Then he pointed his camera at his hometown.
Rain City raconteur Photographer Chase Jarvis tells us the tales behind his Seattle 100 project.
View Slideshow »BLUE SCHOLARS Hip-Hop Trailblazers
“I was photographing while we were talking and I remember having incredibly deep discussions about hip-hop culture, specifically in Seattle. We talked for so long that I had them stand up after a while. And I just ripped off like 20 pictures. You can see here, I think, MC Geologic [right] is bored in between shots, and he’s like, okay, let’s get to the next shot. And DJ Sabzi is walking to get in a different position. It’s those off moments that really count.”
View Slideshow »CLIFF McCRATH Second Winningest Soccer Coach in NCAA History
“I went to this man’s soccer camp when I was in third grade, up on Whidbey Island. He calls himself Uncle Nubby, and he has an amazing story about growing up as an impoverished kid in Detroit—soccer was his way out of the city. I don’t know the story of how he blew off his fingers with dynamite, but during the photo session I asked, ‘Have you ever posed for a picture with the nub?’ And this was the face that he gave me. It was like, ‘What do you mean? Of course, I fucking pose with my blown off fingers!’ ”
View Slideshow »JEREMY FABER Mushroom Forager
“He’s filthy because he’s just come in from weeks in the Montana woods walking around burned forests collecting mushrooms. And he’s got char marks on him. He’s just filthy. His van was parked outside—a shitty van full of backpacks full of mushrooms. I pinched myself. I was like, He literally came in out of the woods and onto my seamless.”
View Slideshow »LINDA DERSCHANG Owner of Linda’s Tavern, Oddfellows Café, Smith, and King’s Hardware
“Linda brought an amazing array of clothes. She genuinely enjoyed being photographed. I really gravitate towards people like that. We had a stylist for this particular day, and she was really open to being styled. She was probably in the styling chair for maybe 30 minutes, and getting her hair done, and loving every minute of it. And she changed clothes four or five times. I think it’s the culture maven in her.”
View Slideshow »LYNN SHELTON Director of Humpday and a Recent Episode of Mad Men
“Lynn was amazing to photograph. She’s supercharismatic, but somewhat shy. At some point she just started dancing. It was like, Wait a minute. There was this complete transformation. And it’s kind of like this trust that was built between us. I think she was up for the Spirit Award, and then she had just found out she’d won it.”
View Slideshow »JAMES KEBLAS Director of the Mayor’s Office of Film and Music
“An incredibly well-spoken gentleman. And he loves his manhattans—we had several manhattans. And he’s a scooter rider—those are his scooter goggles. I love that he wears a kickass suit. There’s a funny tongue-in-cheek sophistication, and to me that’s very Seattle. The goggles are fuck you. And the suit is I can fit in.”
View Slideshow »LAURA KELLEY-JAHN Poetry-Slam Artist
“I couldn’t take a bad picture of her. And she’s very proud of her wardrobe. So much vintage clothing. And everything had a story—like it would be a 10 minute monologue. It’s not a scarf. ‘It’s a scarf that I bought on a spring day after I listened to poetry.’ And again, anybody could have pointed a camera at her and it would have been beautiful.”
View Slideshow »THE ATOMIC BOMBSHELLS Burlesque Dancers
“Anytime seven burlesque women walk into your studio and take off all their clothes, it causes a stir. And we’re handing them champagne and they’re drinking. I have photos that actually reveal private parts, but we had to choose the one where the feather is very clearly over the right part. Completely impromptu, one woman picked up another and the legs fell open. Maybe it’s a move they do, but I saw it and was just like, That’s a moment!”
View Slideshow »THE BLAKES Rock Musicians
“These guys rolled in and were like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got five minutes dude, hurry up and get this done.’ I fed them a couple cocktails and lunch arrived, and the shoot went on until probably 3 in the morning. I was enamored by the holes in the soles of their shoes, so they started leaning back to show me, and it’s like the guy on the left forgot and leaned back too far. And there’s what Henri Cartier-Bresson called ‘the decisive moment’ of a photograph, where he’s milliseconds away from falling into the seamless and tearing it down. It tells a wonderful story.”
View Slideshow »SHERMAN ALEXIE National Book Award winner and author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian
“This is the part of Sherman that I love, when he’s absolutely bursting with laughter. He’s so dynamic. He went very, very serious to completely emotional, exuberant outbursts of laughter and joy. And he seemed to move back and forth between those things.”
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ANGELA AND ETHAN STOWELL Restaurateurs, owners of Anchovies & Olives, How To Cook A Wolf, Tavolàta, and Staple & Fancy Mercantile
“I think Ethan was late and he rode his scooter rode right into the studio. I was like, perfect, keep driving. They rode over to the seamless. It was fun to photograph a couple because they were goosing each other and being really coy.”
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MOLLY MOON Owner of Molly Moon’s Handmade Ice Cream Shop
“She brought in ice cream for everyone and she was enjoying her own cone when I said, Sit down. And she was like, What? But we haven’t even —and I was like, Sit down. And I began clicking away at her with her ice cream and with her dog milling about her feet.”
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CHASE JARVIS’S GREATEST IDEA came to him in the last place you expect to find Chase Jarvis: in a hammock, his globetrotting momentum slowed to a rare zero miles per hour. Renowned for commercial images of desert runners, rock climbers, and drivers of careening SUVs, Jarvis, like his subjects, is in constant motion. He flies 150,000 miles a year, zigzagging from Dubai to China, New Zealand, and back to Seattle. But in the fall of 2007, while lazing in his Greenlake backyard, the photographer penned a list of Seattleites with whom he’d like to collaborate. But how to choose among the city’s most influential musicians, writers, designers, DJs, athletes, and restaurateurs?
Then, a turn of the notepad. Or a squint of the eye. The idea came into focus. “I realized that the list was the project,” he recalls. He wouldn’t have to choose—he could collaborate with all of them. Jarvis spent the next two years connecting with over 100 people, coaxing them to his north Lake Union studio.
Asked to bring objects that define who they are, the subjects arrived at the studio with dogs, scooters, and ice axes. And as soon as they stepped onto the white seamless backdrop, Jarvis popped off shots. “I didn’t give them an explanation,” he says. “Not with the goal of making them uncomfortable, but with the goal of getting a photograph that represents their personality or opens them up in a different way.”
The results surprised even him. In session after session, Jarvis witnessed a city baring its soul. A fellow photog broke down in tears. A restaurateur asked to be photographed topless.
You will see the black and white photos a lot in the coming months. A book, Seattle 100: Portrait of a City, is out now (royalties will go to 4culture.org, which supports public art and historic preservation in King County). An installation of the prints is on display at the photographer’s South Lake Union gallery.
People will argue with Jarvis’s choices. Why this band and not another, more immediately relevant one? Why a biomechanical engineer, but not a surgeon or software developer? Jarvis admits that his project is really a Seattle 100, not the Seattle 100. But the collection makes the undeniable case, through its critical mass of names and faces, that some of the best ideas in the world are being hatched in Seattle—in labs, kitchens, behind cameras and turntables, and, yes, in backyard hammocks.
Here, along with photos from Seattle 100, Jarvis lets Seattle Met in on discoveries he made while photographing the city’s most fascinating figures.
Published: November 2010
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