Photo Flakeout

February 27, 2007

Okay, true, that last post didn’t have nearly enough pictures. I haven’t taken many - I’ll admit it - but that’s alright. I’ve been having a good time. Here are a few for you, though…

This was actually the first image I took on this trip, I just forgot to post it before now.

Ethan took this one of me at the Botanical Gardens. Yes, folks, I’m taking pictures of flowers. Will wonders never cease? You’ll have to wait for those, though: they’re all embedded in silver nitrate at the moment.

This kind of looks like Ethan is passively looking on while Phin screams, but I assure you it was a yawn that I happened to catch. No, really.

The usual.

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Life On Deck

February 27, 2007

Here is the hostel room. The white balance was screwed up from taking shots for Ethan’s beer article, but it came out pretty cool this way. I had no roommates last night, but one appeared during the day today. He is in bunk no. 6.

I am currently sitting in the basement of the hostel where there is free WiFi, doing my laundry and contemplating the evening ahead.

Still in Buffalo. I meant to leave on Sunday, but a freak derailment (divine providence?) left me not exactly stranded, but not particularly interested in dealing with whatever Amtrak was going to come up with as substitute service.

After another night with Jen and Ethan, I decided that my presence was probably a bit much for a family with a 3-month old. They would disagree, I think, but there you have it.

I also wanted to see where I stand on Buffalo. Discussion about relocation has been in the air, and it has been good to roam around a little bit and see what I think.

It’s looking pretty good.

Anyway, I spent yesterday napping leisurely in the afternoon and then met up with Ethan and Jen for dinner. Today I went to Rochester to visit the Eastman House - cool, lots of neat cameras in one of the rooms, but I would have hoped to see more of their vast collection in addition to the revolving exhibits and info about George himself.

I have no pictures from Rochester.

Interesting story: I have been told that many, many moons ago an army of techs from Kodak went marching out into Rochester armed with cameras. They shot “typical” scenes, made prints, cut them into tiny pieces, and then reassembled the pieces randomly. This left them with an “average tone” - what we now know as middle grey. My old photo teacher mused that perhaps if Kodak had been located in a sunny and vibrant location rather than a dull and grey one (sorry, Rochester - that’s what I saw today), the history of metering light might have taken a different course.

At any rate, the scenery was totally uninspiring.

Tonight I am off to see a show by Rob Crow - half of Optiganally Yours and Pinback, amongst many others. Should be pretty cool.

When am I coming back to Boston? What am I going to do next?

Who knows. I have to work next Monday - other than that, I’m at the mercy of the planets.

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Inflight Shutdown, indeed

February 23, 2007

Ok.

Some of you already know that this trip fell apart rapidly.

One major thing that I’ve learned with this whole experience: coming off a 70-hour work week that has been in effect for the last ten months does screwy things to one’s head.

It was already odd when I hit Buffalo. Major dislocation. Not Buffalo-induced - I’ve been here before, I like the city - but I didn’t really know what I was doing or why.

This hit full force when I got to Chicago. Before I go on with that story, though, here’s what happened Buffalo to Chicago…

After much fibbing on Amtrak’s part I got into Buffalo around 2:15am. Ethan was very gracious about all the predictions I made regarding my arrival that failed to come true. Ah, well. We headed to his beautiful home - the foyer of which you see above - and I almost immediately passed out.

The next morning I was evaluated by Skid, one of the other residents at Casa de Cox. I evaluated him right back, and while he was patient for this photo, all others that I’ve tried have resulted in him assuming that I was visiting him to share some good lovin’. Mercifully, my allergies have not responded to either of their cats.

As Ethan was teaching, I spent a very nice day with Jen and Phin.

We went to a very nice breakfast and then headed off to Buffalo’s Museum of Science. A fine dinner and some merriment took place in the evening before Ethan carted me off to the train station. I had decided to leave the Mamiya with him as it had become a complete drag to carry around. This was a bad sign regarding the future of this trip. I still had my digital, which I thought might make things more enjoyable - small, easy, more fun to make images with.

Once I got to Chicago the whole thing blew apart. I was alright on the train, but once I got to the city I was stuck. What was I doing there? What was I going to do now? What’s up?

I sat in the station for a while. It might have helped to go get a bed at the hostel and get some real sleep (train sleep is a band-aid at best), but I was feeling almost exactly like I did leaving the Vermont residencies - totally restless, mentally log-jammed, at odds with myself, not happy wherever I was.

The pressure on my head totally reversed with one thought: bail out, now.

I called a few friends and my Dad to get this whole thing off my chest. I felt like a complete retard for not following through on this, but they all assured me that I was doing the right thing. If it just isn’t fun, why do it? So I talked to Amtrak. After some discussion, I traded in my ticket for one back to Buffalo - at the very least I wanted to pick up my camera from Ethan before heading home.

Ethan and Jen were once again totally gracious beyond the call of duty, and I owe them a big one for allowing me to have my mild meltdown in Buffalo.

I spent Wednesday walking and photographing. It was therapeutic and calming - or perhaps that should be attributed to the two excellent local brews I had at lunch. Either way, I felt a lot better and got some good images in the process. The clear sky might make you think it was terribly cold, but in fact it was a beautiful day - perfect for casually strolling around with a camera.

I have spent the last two days catching up with Ethan and Jen and contemplating the next step. I am slated to depart Sunday morning, but haven’t yet decided if that is the end of this adventure or not. I have another week and a $288 rail voucher from Amtrak, so I could conceivably do something.

My only regret at the moment is that I’ve shot absolutely nothing with the Mamiya. I like having new negatives to scan and perfect, so I think this still needs to happen somehow. One other stop somewhere just may be required.

I’ll let you know.

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Jim and Mr. Toast Do America!

February 18, 2007

After a healthy amount of fretting over how I was going to pack (which Mr. Toast took command of after getting fed up with my neurosis), we were on our way.

Amazingly, the leg that I’m already familiar with flew by. Boston to Springfield is typically rather problematic - CSX rules the rails, and if they are in the way… too bad. I once spent two hours sitting just outside of Worcester waiting for them to move their big, fat freight trains.

Progress was smooth and steady through Worcester and beyond. Above is outside the refurbished Union Station - I’m shooting through my window, mind you! I think there are a few possibilities for this kind of thing - the fancy Panasonic will let me pick my shutter speed, and as long as it is bright enough out, I get a good image.

Rolled into Springfield (above) more-or-less on time and we even had a brief moment to jump off the train. I’m used to Springfield station, so I didn’t feel too inspired, but I quickly reasoned that there is no guarantee I’ll have such a beautiful blue sky and sexy clouds the entire trip - so best to grab a shot now!

On we rolled through picturesque Western Massachusetts. Although the scenery is kind of nice, it quickly gets old. Little farms like the one above are a dime a dozen, but despite this I can imagine a nice photo essay coming out of them. Maybe some other time.

A little dozing and a little time later we approached Albany. Sometime I’ll have to find a way to probably photograph the wild Rockefeller complex, which looks like it could fit into some post-apocalyptic vision of Big Brother quite comfortably.

For now you’ll have to settle for this shot of the Albany train station with downtown behind it. I am posting from somewhere within this building, and will in fact be here for another 45 minutes. Getting all this to work has passed some of the time, but I am admittedly eager to get going again.

Train stations are so depressing sometimes.

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See you on the rails!

February 16, 2007

This is it, folks. The next 5 hours will be occupied with making sure there are no loose ends at my Big Job and trying to imagine if there’s anything I’m forgetting.

Then some more work tonight at the camera shop, lunch with my folks tomorrow followed by a few more hours at the mall, then I’m off to South Station on Sunday!

Please do stay tuned to this site for updates and images - I will have a guaranteed update for you on Monday at the very least, as there will be an easy connection in Buffalo.

All aboard!

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T Trauma

February 13, 2007

The scanning and “restoration” of the old T portfolio is becoming a trial. The stuff that I’ve posted to the archives already - the portraits and my first night Boston portfolio - was a lot of fun to do, but the T stuff is simply boring the crap out of me.

It is an interesting experience. The T work was supposedly the culmination of everything that I’d learned and the refinement of my technique up to that time (spring semester frehman year). I developed a method of using very high-speed film that achieved a syntax that was fairly bold and exciting, and I ran with it (when I read about user experience with Kodak T-Max 3200 now in forums and such, I have to laugh to myself as they all hate it and abandon it immediately - because they’re doing it all wrong. but they’re going by Kodak’s crummy recommendations, so it is really no surprise).

Unfortunately, I grew very attached to this syntax and ran it right into the ground by doing a few more portfolios using this technique. Consequently, I grew bored with my work, as did everyone who had to critique it. My Junior Portfolio project - a return to the MBTA stuff thinly veiled as a “commuter rail” portfolio - was not exactly a success. I plan on merging images from the first T portfolio and this one into the MBTA web gallery on the web, as I don’t intend to post stuff that I no longer enjoy. Revisionist history? So what?!

I abandoned photography in favor of video for my senior portfolio. Again, it was exciting then, but I regret the amount of time I lost working on my images. I also think that it was a detriment to my development and my education to not be pushed to follow through on the refinement of my photography, but there’s nothing that I can do about that now (except try to catch up rapidly!).

There probably won’t be anything posted to the archives until after my upcoming trip, at which point I’ll have a whole bunch of new work to spend time with. Seeing as how bored I already am with posting the T stuff, it may be a long wait until I think about getting back to it.

It was interesting to remember what T fares were at the time I took this image - $.75! Now $1.70. My, how time flies.

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Patterns

February 12, 2007

It seems that the question of security (specifically, so-called “Homeland Security”) is one that I am going to be stuck dealing with for the rest of my days.

It wasn’t so long ago that it was very easy for someone like me to do my kind of photography. You could just show up and do it. The MBTA was a little tricky, but all you had to do was visit their offices with an ID and they would give you a month-long permit to shoot throughout the system. Now they do a security check, which I guess is a good idea, just a little inconvenient.

The above is me in front of Three Mile Island Unit Two - yep, the one that had the accident. Those are the cooling towers on the left, and the containment (where the core/fuel is held, and where all of TMI’s accident occurred) is the round building on the right. You don’t really get an idea how huge these structures are from this image - the Susquehanna River is actually between me and the plant, hidden by the shrubs.

In the fall of 1995 my cousin, his partner, and I were on a road trip to Kennywood amusement park outside Pittsburgh, and I begged for a brief visit to the plant. I’ve always had a strange sort of interest in all things nuclear, for reasons that I’ve never quite figured out. Although I am firmly, firmly in favor of dismantling nuclear weapons and full abandonment of the weapons technology, I have to admit that I’d love to have seen one of the big hydrogen tests of yesteryear.

Anyway, we stopped by and I paced back and forth along the road trying to get a shot that I liked. Didn’t work - I’m rarely happy with any of my “long shots” of buildings and such. But nobody stopped us, nobody said anything - I guess people taking pictures of such an infamous plant is really nothing all that unusual to them.

I can’t even imagine the visit to TMI anymore. The photo above, sure - it’s just a tourist snapshot - but me stomping back and forth trying to get a nice image of the plant? Ha!

My work is riddled with this kind of thing - the subway, airports, unstable Middle Eastern countries - and it’s only going to be more difficult in the future. One project I always wanted to pursue was photographing under- and overpasses on highways, which sounded a little troubling then (would I get stopped? should I wear an orange vest?) but now sounds pretty much impossible. An old family friend is (last I knew) a state cop in Massachusetts, I should ask for his advice.

Oh well, I guess I just keep plugging away and deal with each situation as I get there.

Seems to have worked so far.

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Stalk Me

February 9, 2007

As I will be stopping over in major cities throughout the trip (it only just occurred to me that I depart next weekend - yikes!), it would make most sense for me to blog this whole thing and have a permanent record of the trip. I’ll probably compose them on the train and then slam all the data into blogger once I get near a a WiFi outpost - something tells me there will be plenty of coffeeshop stops if the weather stays this cold, and they often have WiFi.

Then I remembered the Flickr maps - a really, really cool way to show where your photographs were taken on a big world map that will not only show political features, but you can switch to a satellite view too!

Some quick tests and posts, and yep - I can upload my digital stuff on-the-road and you can follow along right here! Not much up there yet, just a Boston picture and a couple of Lebanon pictures to test some features, but once I leave… at the very least I know Ethan can help me post a few Buffalo pictures on my first full day out…

Posted in: bloggy business, filler 8 Comments »

Moving Right Along

February 7, 2007

I am ecstatic.

Another project may be materializing before my very eyes. A good one. Oh, such a good one.

I am reluctant to put particulars out there for the world to see, as this is coming together via the highly generous assistance of a good friend with good connections, and I don’t want to trample on that and be responsible for them being flooded with requests from strangers and other assorted weirdos.

So you’ll have to just wait and see.

But trust me, it’ll be good.

In other news, I got the rest of the images up under the freshman-year Boston night portfolio.

Those are pretty good.

But I’m struggling with the old T portfolio - a lot of it is not so good.

I just wasn’t as selective then as I am now, and despite a lot of shooting, I didn’t really pull it together the way I should have.

Hmm.

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Plans

February 6, 2007

In case you were wondering, the big train trip is still on. There just isn’t much to say about it at the moment I’m afraid. I finished my little portfolio, have bought all the film I think I’ll need, and am pretty much ready to go. Oh… I still have to get my photo backpack I guess, but that isn’t a big deal.

By chance I’ve also started to think about the next project.

My friend Ethan lives in Buffalo. I’ve only been there once - for his wedding - but it immediately struck me as the kind of place I’d seek out as refuge once Boston got on my nerves one too many times (that day is approaching, believe me).

Buffalo seemed to me to have a kind of edge that I warmed to. None of the gaggles of incoming students who suddenly feel that getting on the subway in the Big City means they are a fabulous starlet out on the town. I also didn’t get the impression that the city is competing with anyone for its place in the coolness ladder, a habit that Boston falls into with alarming regularity.

Frankly, I’m the kind of guy who agrees when people say “What fun is Times Square now? Where’s the sex and sin? Where’s the air of danger that keeps you moving, even while you’re fascinated and want to linger?” I was in Times Square two years ago at 4am. It was cold, totally safe, and totally boring. City that never sleeps? It was catatonic.

Anyway, Buffalo seemed like it might have more of that kind of edge lurking around a few corners. Moreso than Boston at the very least. It also appeared to be a city whose inhabitants are happy to live the lives that they’re living without any periphery nonsense. Many city-dwellers would like things to get a little better for their economy and their livelihood, and there’s been a bit of an awkward economy plaguing Buffalo for some time, but it struck me that if things didn’t improve that much - well, that’s the way it goes, who wants to live in a Hipster Mecca anyway?

It doesn’t hurt that the city itself is a showcase of architectural delights - there are so many interesting buildings it’s hard to know where to begin, and frankly I only saw a very small fraction of the city.

So, I think I need to spend some time shooting in Buffalo. Why not? There is much for a photographer like me to accomplish there. Ethan is rather proud of his city, and I’m sure could lay out a whole list of places I’d need to stroll past with my camera.

It has also been at the back of my mind for a few years now to think about a major uprooting and change. I’m not saying it’s going to happen tomorrow, and I’m not saying “Time to move to Buffalo!”, but let’s just say I think it might be a very nice change. But a few more visits are in order before I go that far.

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