Opportunism

Despite the flow of algae, this green heron uses the Inlet side of the 5th Avenue Dam to fish.

Bivalves in Budd Inlet blow bubbles while trying to filter feed through the algal bloom pushed out of the lake.

Taggers take quiet opportunities to tag territory under the 4th Avenue Bridge.

California Blue Mussels and Barnacles settle onto this drainage pipe to feed, utilizing a human created structure to their own benefit.

Business takes the opportunity to utilize Budd Inlet to ship product.

5-5-2016

It was bright and sunny and warm. I thought about the ways humans and non-human animals take advantage of previously established places and their structure, function, and composition in order to organize themselves and perform an action.

Thinking in terms of my own experience trying to take advantage of time out of school and work to visit my site, I wondered a lot about the limits of space as well as various mediums. It’s hard to properly capture nuance of space with limits on time, technology, and personal or available knowledge. I kept cycling through a mental process of whether I was trying hard enough to see an area differently and identify what I hadn’t already paid attention to. How do you see what you haven’t seen? How was I interacting with the space around me (why did I feel guilt when I crossed the Rainbow Bridge or climbed up on the Dam? Why did I feel uncomfortable walking through the living space of humans in a relatively public area?)? Was there signage meant for humans to interpret the area around them in a larger context?