On the shining Seattle waterfront, a place built on visions of an aerospace and digital future, there is a retro steam plant that looks like it stepped out of a steampunk novel. With its smokestacks and pipes and gauges and corrugated metal, it looks like it stepped out of the 1890s. Actually, the Seattle Steam Company dates from that era. I’m sure the plant has been updated repeatedly through the years, but it still has that classic industrial look of the machine age. The plant serves an extremely modern function, however, in providing heat to some 200 buildings in downtown Seattle.

I chose black-and-white as the natural way to print this photograph, and used a deep red digital filter to render the sky black so that it would contrast dramatically with the shiny metal. I’m quite sure that this is the choice Ansel Adams would have made to create the print, had he ever photographed this subject.

LIMITED EDITION: This photographic print is part of a limited edition produced by photographer Lee Rentz. The edition consists of 250 prints, which includes all sizes and methods of printing.