This is as close to a red umbrella that I captured all winter. Not that I was monomaniacal in my search, but whenever I was out in the rain, I kept my lens wide open for the mythical red umbrella. But I failed. As of this writing, I still don’t own a single image of a red umbrella.
Why a red umbrella? It was a game. A Saul Leiter1 diversion to get me through Seattle’s dark wet months, the gist of it summed up in the name I gave it: Better Than Saul. Netflix material no doubt; imagine a reality show depicting street photographers competing for best photograph of a red umbrella. I won’t lie, I could use the royalties, but for now, Saul’s safe, he still owns the best red umbrella to come out of a camera2:
In my search for red, as an example, one Monday morning I sat in the Cherry Street coffee house across from my studio with my camera positioned on the counter and pointing out to the street. But the closest to red that crossed my viewfinder that morning was a fuqua-dyed crop of hair.
The truth is that I captured very little color that morning.
Here’s another truth, this one about Seattle. (Where I’m shooting.)
It rains a lot, but not in volume — you’d be surprised how many cities kick Seattle’s butt when it comes to measurable precipitation.
Frequency — not volume — is where Seattle reigns supreme. We can suffer through a slow, steady, relentless onslaught of tiny pellets of water all day long for days at a time. And it turns what winter daylight we have into a grim dark. Not a Finnish or Alaskan winter dark, but it can be relentless and grim.
So what’s wrong with wanting to capture a pop of red in the streets, as opposed to something like this?
In the meantime, here’s another truth about this city: Real Seattleites don’t use umbrellas when it rains. Only high-tech imports and migrating wannabes-but-never-wills use umbrellas to stay dry.
I have a wool baseball cap that works most days and any number of hoodies for the seriously wet days. I’ve not owned an umbrella in my 25 years here.
I mean, let’s be real, Seattleites have umbrellas. It’s just that they use them for a lot of other things besides staying dry.
For instance, these umbrellas were used to block my view and keep me from documenting a protest march in 2020:
During that march — it was led by an extremist group from Portland — umbrellas were also used to assault a local film crew. The assault lasted only a minute or two. Thankfully the assaulters used a cheap umbrella, so the spines got bent before they could inflict any harm. It’s one of my photography regrets that I stared at the assault and froze without capturing it.
At the end of that march, however, I was able to catch examples of the umbrella’s protective features:
My fellow Substackians, I didn’t intend to go down this path — the Men Who Spray post a few days ago and now this.
I blame it on the college protests. I’m not covering news for anyone right now, but maybe I’m being triggered a bit. The entire country feels like it did the summer of 2020 here in Seattle — constant protests, helicopters, sirens, chants, and a full-on neighborhood takeover that lasted a month.
Enough of the protests. How about a few more examples of the umbrella’s versatility?
For privacy:
For shelter, of course:
With the right color and fabric, umbrellas can be repurposed as ideal accent lighting beneath a bridge:
And, of course, they can always be used as a personal, portable shield of anonymity, which we can all use from time to time:
That’s all I have for now. But before I go, two more things.
If you think about it, it makes sense that Seattle owns more pairs of sunglasses per capita than it does umbrellas. It’s a little-known fact. I could explain the logic of why that makes sense, but I’ll let you think about it. Let me know what you come up with.
And the last thing I’ll leave you with is that Seattle has its own music and arts festival called “Bumbershoot,” which is a 19th-century mongrel name for umbrella — “bumber,” being a modification of the umbr- in umbrella, and “shoot,” as in -chute, parachute, perhaps because an open umbrella looks like a parachute.
All this is to say that here in Seattle, respect for umbrellas runs deep. And that respect is shown every day, in many ways, rain or shine.
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Saul Leiter (1923-2013) was a NY commercial photographer, especially known for his early adoption of color film in his street and art photography.
Leiter has many, many umbrellas. I happen to like this particular one.
These are incredible. Your eye is a gift.