Liberty Center, Ohio
This is something quite rare, a new drive-in theater built from scratch just a few years ago. Called the Field of Dreams (the same family who built this theater later bought and renamed the Tiffen theater shown yesterday) it has the simplest possible phone pole construction technique for the big main screen and the same converted semi-trailer setup for a smaller screen. Corn fields border directly on the mowed parking area.
Liberty Center, Ohio
4 comments:
The semi reminds me of something I saw this past summer, a temporary 'blow up' screen set up in a field for a weekend 'DI' movie fest. Maybe it is cheaper to move the movie from place to place and cash in on the nostalgia for DI's?
I just reviewed the large format prints you have online trying to find some differences and similarities between the small camera work and large camera work. I was thinking that maybe there might be a difference in framing, use of graphics, etc. But while there are differences, there is a lot that is similar. But there is real emotional difference between the two that I can't quite put my finger on. This is challenging! thank you for posting.
Lyle, this is interesting. Are you looking at the web galleries that show scans of Pt/Pd prints with the rough borders? If so, that presentation would make a big difference in the feel of the material. This gallery:
http://www.carlweese.com/Drive-inTheaterGallery/index.html
takes out that presentation issue. How do you find that compares with the new small-camera/color pictures? On another front, I've made small b&w prints from conversions of a lot of these digital captures, and I'm not sure I don't like them better than the color versions. On one hand, I've been dealing with this subject matter in b&w for over a dozen years so that might not be surprising, but OTOH it's the first time I've *ever* liked any of my color digital captures converted to monochrome...
First I was thinking about the use of graphics/signs. So I went back to the large formats and compared the Pike, the Lusk, the Wabash with the color ElmRoad and Skyway. Both use the graphics but I think toward different ends (emotionally, for me that is). The B&W images: the image fits the era of the architecture and heightens the sense of the time. The color images are somewhat humorous: double 'posting' of the movies (ElmRoad), multiple colors (Skyway). That also is more telling of the seemingly on a shoe string operation. The Warner (one of my favorites) and Park (Powell) work as B&W by the sheer power of the strong tones (mostly white). I am not sure the color would be the same. Yet, the color images have a more immediate feel to them - they are from this era, we can go see them. In some of the 7x17's I find myself looking at the autos in the images and thinking, 'damn, these are new cars?' BTW, the 7x17 format is also a big difference. Love that look. I do not find one (color or b&w) 'better' than the other, it is just curious of the emotional response they strike in me.
Lyle, thanks for those notes. I think you are right that the color pictures say "NOW"--look contemporary while the b&w LF shots have a much more "timeless" look. I think you're right about a humorous element being easier to hit with the color shots (though some of the earlier LF ones can be funny). Of course humor is something I aim at routinely in the general color work shown on this blog.
I think that some of the handheld digital capture color shots depend completely on the color element, while some of them will actually work better in b&w. That's hardly news--it's just the first time I've thought that any of my pictures shot in color will be improved by b&w conversion. Probably connected to whether the particular subject resonates better with "now" or with "timeless."
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