One of the remaining artifacts of the Yick Fung Company store – opened in 1910 in Seattle’s Chinatown, closed in 2008.
See reply below – this is one of the fire doors in the boarding house. Wooden door covered in flattened tin cans.
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5280 Lens Mafia 
I like this a lot. Something about the subject matter and the blending of the colors.
Thanks – I did warm the colors just a touch. This is closer to my memory of the yellowed register tape.
The Yick Fung Co. was an agent for the Blue Funnel Steamship Company – transporting the people to and from China. I looked at that register tape and wondered what human transaction lead to the 333.17 balance. Was the person working off the cost of passage? Were these supplies for the journey? Did new cargo just arrive?
The upstairs was a boarding house for the men pre/post journey. Fascinating ephemera left in the rooms. The boarding house closed before the shop did – fire codes shut it down. Maybe I’ll add another image behind the cut above… one of the fire doors. A wooden door covered in flattened out tin cans. No wonder they closed.
this is just wonderful, Dawn. the low lighting creates a sense of drama in its own right. the close-up nature of the shot invites me into this drama. i wish i could pinpoint exactly what you’ve done here to make this so compelling for me visually … i guess it’s the lighting which has let everything become so saturated in blacks, browns, greys. very well done. i’ve got to ask just a couple technical questions … as i recall, you’re using a point-n-shoot? was that you? if so, you’ve been creating some great work with an allegedly limited camera format. and are you using a tripod … if not, congratulations on a steady hand.
Hi Greg – thanks for the nice words. Yes it was the point and shoot – FZ100. It was on auto settings with a macro focus selected. The shop was lit with natural light from the two large shop front windows. The register was probably 6 feet from the light. No tripod – the camera has stabilization – which is the best thing ever.
I will say the light was beautiful that day – it would be fun to go back and ask permission to spend more time just taking photos. The shop was filled with amazing things like old jars of pickled objects, tins of rations all in Chinese, gorgeous floors of totally random salvaged timber, old machines, paper, twine, pots, pans – a time capsule.
I can’t really deconstruct the technical elements of this shot like some of the rest of the crowd, but it captures both the industrial and the warmth that is being noted. I’m drawn to shots like this perhaps because in the digital age everything is so ephemeral. Once upon a time things were solid. They had substance. This first one, especially, is a very tactile shot and I love it.
Thanks Sam – I didn’t notice this at first, but the colors in the top shot are very like some of the images in your series on da Vinci. I take your meaning on the man and machine aspect of industrial objects vs the digital age transaction. I’m curious – do you collect antiques?
I don’t, no, but I am a bit of a student of technology. It would make perfect sense if you’d ever had the misfortune of being forced to read my dissertation.