Point of the Arches, Olympic Peninsula

This photo was taken at the Ksitigarbha Temple, one of the larger Buddhist Temples in the greater Seattle area. The temple recently celebrated the opening of a new hall and the revealing of a new statue. More than 1,000 people attended the ceremonies. Three monks, visiting from Taiwan, blessed the temple and statue, and conducted the ceremonies. Thich Thanh Man, the head officiating monk from Taiwan, is between the two umbrellas before the unveiling of the statue.


Beacon Hill Playground



Grace Crunican, Seattle Director of Transportation, walks through the King Street Station clock tower.


(from left) Becky Benton and Brittany talk before walking in the finale of Friday’s fashion show at the 19th annual Esprit transgender conference in Port Angeles. If you've ever wondered about the transgendered spectrum, please give a look to Marc Ramirez's article, "Logging town welcomes Transgendered Group."


“Kinderkarate” class at the Filipino Community Center.


Edith Woods, right, walks with her sister, Vida Lidge, after attending Sunday service at the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

A Pacific Northwest Portrait, written by Tyrone Beason

Edith Woods has attended services at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in Seattle's Central District since she moved to the city in 1962 — and her sister, Vida Lidge, has been going even longer than that, since the congregation was founded nearly 60 years ago.

Woods is 74 now and Lidge is 92. They are church ladies, tried and true, pillars of stability, portals to history and wearers of fantastic headgear.

Woods has assembled quite a church-hat collection, "about 20 or 30" by her count.

Her big sister, Vida, buys them for her from vendors at Baptist Church conventions around the country.

Not that Woods is vain. She insists she doesn't need anything fancy, "just one that fits my head."

But the hats and the churchgoers who wear them represent something more to the rest of us.

Woods, who now lives on Beacon Hill, has seen crime go up in the Central District and watched it go down. She's seen blacks flock to the neighborhood, back when it was Seattle's de facto African-American enclave, and watched their exodus when the cost of living there grew too high.

The church's congregation is morphing, too.

"New people are coming in, but a lot are dying out," Woods says.

But at least now, when Woods walks through those honey-colored church doors, she can gaze out on racially mixed 21st Avenue and see a "Barack Obama for President" sign tacked to a house across the way.


The more things change, amen, the more things change — except when they don't, except when we wander past church on a Sunday afternoon and glimpse grand ladies in bright dresses and big-brimmed hats and thank goodness that some things in this city on the move, in these historic times, stay the same.

Continuity may be one of our lesser appreciated civic virtues, but Woods and Lidge remind us of its place.

They are the last surviving siblings among five sisters. "She's the oldest, and I'm the baby," says Woods.

She has raised eight of her own children in Seattle, all of whom live within their mother's venerable field of vision on Beacon Hill.

"I can point a finger, and they could all see it and be right here," she says with a giggle and pride.

Summoned by family, our Sunday best and a long view of time, community finds a way to endure.

San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica

San Marcos de Tarrazú is small, but bustling coffee town. Thousands of small, family farmers live in and around the town, which is surrounded by a set of steep, dense mountains. In old, sturdy trucks, farmers haul down their picked beans to mill. Together they form the second largest coffee co-op in Costa Rica— Coopetarrazú.


A link to Manuel's story:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004315159_starbuckscoop30.html


Marcella Pineda, 21, picks coffee with her husband, not pictured, at Roberto Naranjo and Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo's coffee farm outside San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. The Pineda's and other seasonal workers at the farm are indigenous Panamanians from the Ngöbe Buglé tribe, of Panama's Bocas del Toro province. They travel and work as families, and return each year to the farm for work.


(From right) Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo, 37, walks with her son Martin Naranjo, 12, on a road of their coffee farm outside of San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. The hills of their family's farm are steep, and dense with coffee plants and other vegetation, including shade, plantain, lemon, avocado, and banana trees. The various plants reduce soil erosion and protect the coffee from sun and rain. Naranjo said she and her son Martin are best friends.


Pancho Guerra carries a sack of freshly picked coffee, weighing almost 100 pounds, up a steep hillside at Roberto Naranjo and Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo's coffee farm outside San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica.


Coffee plants, trees from the banana family, and shade trees cover a steep hillside at the Montes de Oro coffee farm outside of San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica.


Aníla Morales, 18, picks coffee at Roberto Naranjo and Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo's coffee farm outside San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Morales and the seasonal workers at the farm are indigenous Panamanians from the Ngöbe Buglé tribe, from Panama's Bocas del Toro province.

Maribel Quintero, 13, (wearing red) and Matilda Quintero, 15, carry the plastic buckets they use to pick coffee at Roberto Naranjo and Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo's coffee farm outside San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Most of the seasonal coffee field workers are not Costa Rican, but Nicaraguan or indigenous Panamanians. The workers at this farm are mostly families, who travel together for work from Panama's Bocas del Toro province.


Betilda Abrego, 16, washes garments at the Montes de Oro coffee farm near San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Abrego and other seasonal workers at the farm are indigenous Panamanians from the Ngöbe Buglé tribe of Panama's Bocas del Toro province. They travel and work as families, and return each year to work at the farm.

Roberto Naranjo checks the tanks that supply water to his workers' homes at his coffee farm in the steep hills outside of San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Starbucks requires farmers to provide potable water to their workers.


San Marcos de Tarrazú, in the central highlands of Costa Rica, is a coffee town, producing millions of pounds every year. The town is located near mountains where high-altitude, gourmet beans grow well.


CoopeTarrazú, Costa Rica's second largest coffee co-op, has its headquarters in San Marcos de Tarrazú. The co-op provides services including a gas station, credit union, a grocery store and farming supplies depot.


Aurelia Abrego, 6, wearing traditional clothing of the Ngöbe Buglé tribe, walks along the roadside at Roberto Naranjo and Victoria Zúñiga Naranjo's coffee farm, Montes de Oro, outside San Marcos de Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Indigenous Panamanian workers travel to coffee farms as families every season.


Marcella Pineda, 21, picks coffee with her husband, not pictured. The Pineda's and other seasonal workers at the farm are indigenous Panamanians from the Ngöbe Buglé tribe, of Panama's Bocas del Toro province

Santa Eduviges

Rodrigo Vargas' company, Santa Eduviges, is one of the largest single-family owned operations in Costa Rica with 32 farms, totaling more than 3,900 acres of coffee fields spread out on the hillsides of the active Poas Volcano.

This year, Vargas, a third-generation coffee farmer, will sell 70 percent of the more than 7 million pounds of beans harvested on his farms to Starbucks.

Vargas believes that Starbucks, purchasing huge quantities of specialty beans and requiring a set of regulations called Cafe Practices, saved the coffee industry in Costa Rica.

Manuel Valdes' story:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004315134_starbucksmain30.html


Seasonal coffee workers unload their baskets of coffee cherries into a transport truck at the end of the day at Rodrigo Vargas' coffee-farm, Santa Eduviges in Costa Rica. Workers receive plastic tokens worth money for each basket they deliver.


Rodrigo Vargas' family founded the Beneficiadora Santa Eduviges in Costa Rica's Alajuela Province. The family manages more than 3,900 acres, where 200 permanent staff members and 2,300 temporary workers harvest coffee November through February.


Rodrigo Vargas looks over a field once owned by his grandfather. Vargas is the third generation of his family to grow coffee. Its operation, Santa Eduviges, is one of the top single-family owned coffee-production companies in Costa Rica.


Joel Martinez, 28, of Managua, Nicaragua, picks coffee berries early in the morning in the Santa Eduviges fields.


Coffee plants at Santa Eduviges are examined. From left, Edgardo Alpízar, an agronomist at Santa Eduviges; Carlos Mario Rodríguez, director of agronomy at the Farm Support Center (FSC); Peter Torrebiarte, FSC general manager, in center; Chris von Zastrow, Starbucks general manager Africa (in vest); and Orlando Mora, an FSC agronomist.


Workers walk through one of the fields at Santa Eduviges. A variety of banana trees are planted among the coffee plants to help soil quality. These trees help meet Starbucks' standards for soil conservation and shade-tree requirements. Workers use plastic buckets, called "cajuelas," to collect the coffee cherries. While picking, they tie the buckets to their waist, a practice that has not changed in more than 100 years.


By late afternoon, tractors and trucks file down the farms' dirt roads to be loaded with the day's harvest. Most seasonal workers that pick coffee in Costa Rica are Nicaraguan or indigenous Panamanians. Even though Santa Eduviges provides free day care, children sometimes work side-by-side with their families. Above, a young boy watches a man fill a cajuela with coffee before it is unloaded unto the truck behind them.


Workers, including Ignacio Rodriguez Castro (in red hat), spread out coffee cherries just hauled in by the field workers, in the bed of a transport truck.


Wilmer Flores, a seasonal worker from Nicaragua, cashes in his plastic tokens at the end of the week. Workers receive one token for filling one basket, or cajuela, of coffee. In December, one token equaled 700 Costa Rican colones, or around $1.40. The value of a cajuela varies throughout the harvest season. Starbucks requires workers are paid the minimum wage set by the Costa Rican government.


Maixcol Ibarra, 20, cuts hair outside a row of worker housing at Santa Eduviges. Permanent workers pay for electricity, and no rent. Seasonal workers do not pay rent or utilities. "We really need those people," said Norman Alpízar, a supervisor at the Santa Eduviges mill. Many Nicaraguans migrate to Costa Rica to pick coffee due to harsh economic conditions in their home country.


Martha Lopez, 36, of Granada, Nicaragua, cooks rice and chicken by fire inside her home at the end of the workday.


A worker carries a bag through a Santa Eduviges field.


Mauro Zelaga, 46, said pay and overall conditions have improved at Vargas' farms over the years. Zelaga, from Nicaragua, said he has come to work in Costa Rica for 20 years. Due to harsh economic conditions in their home country, many Nicaraguans migrate to Costa Rica for jobs.


Seasonal coffee workers in Costa Rica unload their baskets full of coffee into a truck at the end of the day. The process is called "medida" or "to measure."


Workers unload their baskets of coffee cherries into a truck at the end of a busy day at Santa Eduviges. Rodrigo Vargas, whose family founded the company, said "Starbucks saved the coffee industry in Costa Rica."

All images copyright The Seattle Times

Mas fotos.

Xin Pei Zhang, 42, serves tea to a friend inside of his Chinese medicinal store/tea shop Yuan Sheng Hang in the Chinatown. Zhang, his wife Ya Mei Xie and a friend shared several types of hot tea, including a 100-year-old Pu'er black tea.


Concrete, WA.


Jonathan Warman, of Emerald City Guitars, holds a 1955 Fender Stratocaster guitar priced at $75,000.


Surprise on my car one morning.


Alley.


Pathway outside Leavenworth, WA.


Leaves in the Cascades.


Construction worker twins. Super nice guys. Unfortunately, I lost their contact info. But, I do remember they said they had matching camaros as teenagers.


Twins Emma, left, and Nora are part of an increasing number of children born with the help of egg donors. They and their mother have a special, and very rare, relationship with the girls' ''egg mom.'' Most egg-donor children are unable to meet their half-siblings because of privacy issues. They sit outside their egg mom's house in Bellingham, Washington.


Isabella Ariel celebrates the New Year a little early- 3 p.m. Dec. 28th -when performing with the Astoria Combo during a New Year's party at the South County Senior Center in Edmonds. The Astoria Combo has been performing ballroom dance music since 2005. "We play for wakes, and weddings and every fancy ball," Ariel said.


Courtenay Pearce smiles at me while dancing and his wife Connie Pearce(cq) at the South County Senior Center.


Duke Kang toots on his blower during a New Year's celebration-the afternoon of Dec. 28th -at the South County Senior Center in Edmonds. Seniors danced to the music of the Astoria Combo, who performs there every Friday, except the third Friday of the month.


Ron Coble tips his hat while performing with the Astoria Combo during a New Years Party, the afternoon of Dec. 28th, at the South County Senior Center in Edmonds.


Enumclaw cheerleaders cheer during the 112-weight match where Hornet Jason Gray sparred against Auburn Trojan Kelly Maughn at Auburn High School. Gray pinned Maughn later in the match.


Kennedy High School teammates applaud junior Nikki Vetterlein, center, during the Women’s 100 Yard Butterfly during the Girls State Swimming and Diving Championships.


Garfield’s LaNiecia Weatherspoon, 1, reacts after a foul is called on her during a against Ballard High School.


Dwight Smith, 24, pursues wide receiver Darrell Jackson, 82, during the Minnesota Viking vs. Seattle Seahawk game at Quest Field.


Butterfly room.


Seattle Fire Fighters walk through the bottom unit of an apartment building that was damaged during a fire in Whitecenter.



Eloise Evans, right, and classmates massage Vava Cole's head during Seattle Girls' School campout and bike trip on Lopez Island, Washington at the end of their sixth-grade school year, spring 2007. Cole was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma earlier in the year, and was given an 85 percent chance of surviving through high school. Evans is cancer-free, but survived 10 months of intensive treatment when she was a toddler. The two have become closer friends since Cole's diagnosis.