Worry

Ansonia, Connecticut

An enduring icon.

Pretty much last call for the February special print offer, details top right sidebar.

Fence

Torrington, Connecticut

Last day of the special print offer from the "107 Drive-in Theaters" collection. Details linked to the top item in the sidebar at right.

120 Water St.

Norwich, Connecticut

Reminder time again. Tomorrow is the last day of the special offer on small exhibition prints from my 107 Drive-in Theaters collection. Details in the link at the top item in the sidebar.

Also, my WPII blog, in the link just under 107 DIs, is now showing a daily posting from a new series of pictures I've been doing on the theme of "building portraits."

STERLING SUPERIOR

Norwich, Connecticut

We Accept EBT

Norwich, Connecticut

Hard to decide which sign to use for the blog post title here.

$35—200 SMOKES

Ansonia, Connecticut

LOW COST DIVORCE HERE

Norwich, Connecticut

Reminders again. This is the last week of the special offer on small exhibition-quality prints from my 107 Drive-in Theaters Collection (a subset of my much larger American Drive-in Theater project). Details for browsing the collection and ordering prints are in the link over in the sidebar on the right of this page. Also, I'm having some fun with a series of brand-new pictures on the theme of, "building portraits," at the WPII blog, which you can get to by clicking on the picture-link directly below the print offer link.

Luna Guitars

Ansonia, Connecticut

Chamber of Commerce

Norwich, Connecticut

BAKLAVA • HUMAS

Norwich, Connecticut

Think again.

Shelton, Connecticut

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL

Norwich, Connecticut

NO PARKING

Torrington, Connecticut

Just a reminder that there's less than a week left for the special print offer from the 107 Drive-in Theaters collection. Just click the sidebar at top right for the details.

Also a reminder that WPII, my other blog, is up and running again with a series of "building portraits" posting daily.

DO NOT ENTER

Norwich, Connecticut

Thai Restaurant, III

Southbury, Connecticut

Thai Restaurant, II

Southbury, Connecticut

Thai Restaurant, I

Southbury, Connecticut

KING MOB

Willimantic, Connecticut

Back Lots, More Winter Light

Norwich, Connecticut

A couple reminders. There's a print sale Special Offer here during the month of February. Small exhibition quality prints from the "107 Drive-ins" subset of my American Drive-in Theater project at much less than standard gallery price. Just click the link at the top of the sidebar on the right of this page to find out more.

Second, if you click the link below that one, you'll be taken to my other blog, which has been dormant for a while, but I've revived it now to show a series of pictures that are a subset of my current shooting. An interesting discussion has begun in the comments there, about preparing digital image files for the web vs preparing them to output exhibition quality prints. I try to keep this blog centered on pictures rather than technique or gear, but one of the possible uses of WPII might be to engage a bit more in those technical issues if anyone is interested.

Snow-Beer

Woodbury, Connecticut

STOP

Norwich, Connecticut

It must have been a theater once, but now filled with court and probation-related offices. A little strange because while this is a county seat, the courthouse is several blocks away.

2012

Willimantic, Connecticut

Storage building, recently decorated, in a large public parking area below/behind Main Street, near the train tracks.

KNIGHT'S OIL

Willimantic, Connecticut

To Our Valued Customers

Norwich, Connecticut

detail

720

Willimantic, Connecticut

768

Willimantic, Connecticut

If you click on any picture on this blog, you'll be taken to another version. If you are using a small device, that won't change much. If you are viewing a medium to large monitor, you'll get a substantially larger and more legible version. Still nothing like a print, but a little bit better look at what's going on in the photograph.

Speaking of which, there's a month-long special offer for small exhibition-quality prints from my 107 Drive-in Theaters Gallery. (A clarification here because questions have been asked—this gallery presents only one picture each from the 107 theaters I reached on my two-part road trip in 2012. The number of theaters in the project as a whole, which dates back to 1998 and continued with a small New England trip in 2013, includes more than twice that many theaters and the number of photographs...well let's not even go there.)

Also, I found that I was making a different subset of pictures on my recent walkabouts. The reason is both aesthetic and technical, and the details of that process will be revealed in good time over at my long-dormant but now revived second blog, WPII, linked in the sidebar at the right of this page.

Winter Morning Contrail

Woodbury, Connecticut

There's a new series of pictures beginning over at the WPII blog. Use the sidebar link at the right to have a look at the first in the series.

Pledge of Allegiance

Willimantic, Connecticut

1937

Willimantic, Connecticut

You have to wonder how many businesses have occupied this storefront in the past nearly eighty years.

Willimantic is a village within the town of Windham—which only makes sense in the weird deep-time demographics of New England. This 'village' has a larger downtown than some Connecticut municipalities incorporated as cities, while the larger entity of Windham has no discernible downtown, or town. Just confirmed this calling up a hybrid/satellite map. Some of its 19th Century manufacturing complexes have been turned into historical sites, others into condos, and others are deteriorating and being pulled down. This former industrial area—not the associated town, just the manufacturing campus—(I'm sure they didn't use that term back then) would dwarf the town center of most suburban Connecticut bedroom communities.

Eleven-Foot Frogs

Willimantic, Connecticut

Four of them, two at either end of a state highway bridge in Willimantic. This seems to be the most authoritative background account of the frog legend. The strange pedestals represent spools of thread. Because of its manufacturing past, this is also known as "the thread city." Depending on your monitor size and resolution, the much-reduced jpg file will probably show moiré in the "thread," which isn't a problem at high rez.

Be Love

New Milford, Connecticut

Be Mine

New Milford, Connecticut

Also, my next Introduction to Platinum workshop at the Center for Alternative Photography is coming up next weekend, Feb. 22-23.

RR Tracks, Between Main Street and the Willimantic River

Willimantic, Connecticut

Once upon a time, a lot of trains must have come through here. Storm sky rolling in.

TURKEY VULTURE PETTING ZOO

Willimantic, Connecticut

This is now a pedestrian walkway, under a railroad. The town appears to have once been a central Connecticut rail hub, with many tracks running parallel to the river. Most of them don't appear to be currently used.

Printing

Woodbury, Connecticut

After interference from ridiculous weather and other issues I finally got to finish tweaking the files and outputting some prints for the February Special Print Offer. Details available in the sidebar at upper right of this page. But now it's time to take Tina out to lunch for her birthday. A new Thai place we haven't tried before.

Christmas in February

Manchester, Connecticut

Manchester: City Tree, #2

Manchester, Connecticut

The East side of Main Street is lined with old, maybe turn of 19th/20th century, 2-4 story brick commercial buildings. Most of them are occupied and in quite good condition. The West side of the street has a fairly large park, some more modern (mid/late 20th century) convenience stores and a large library that looks to be of the same vintage, as well as a fairly modern block of commercial buildings that are almost completely vacant. Behind those older buildings that run for a good half mile along Main, there are enormous parking areas. I find back alleys interesting, but they are usually cramped and small. The similar-size city of Newberry, South Carolina, where I did a fairly long photo walkabout on my way through back in 2012, was laid out in a similar way, as were some other Southern towns I saw on that trip. The layout surprised me then, but even more so to see it here in Southern New England, where it strikes me as very unusual.

Manchester: City Tree, #1

Manchester, Connecticut

I don't know trees well enough to identify this one offhand, but I expect that it may put on an impressive flowering display, come Spring.

I've recently made two trips to shoot in several towns in Central/Eastern Connecticut. It's fascinating how different everything is from the "Northwest Corner" of the state where I live. The land is flat, the commercial and residential architecture is very different, the whole feel of the area is surprisingly different considering the distance is only about a third of the way across a very small state.

The Working Pictures February print offer, from the 107 Drive-ins Collection is ongoing. More info from the link in the sidebar on the right.

Bonus Post: Read a book, an actual, real, book, but pick one worth reading

Woodbury, Connecticut

Since it serves a relatively small community, the Woodbury Library is quite a wonder. Its New Releases area has something for everyone (though I may volunteer to get on some committee or other at some point to influence their choices in the SF genre). There's an another part of the building where they keep the latest best sellers, but this New Release twenty-foot length of shelves always holds a wide range of current large print fiction, SF, non-fiction, and biography. It ranges from the best in journalism and scholarship, like the Lawrence in Arabia that I was returning today (what you didn't learn about WWI and the Middle East if, like me, you studied it fifty years ago in high school, and I expect the textbooks haven't gotten any more truthful since) to faux-news/history rendered into print, as seen above, center.

It seems to me that it is entirely appropriate for a library to present a book by a media whore like O'Reilly on the same shelves as popular works by a scholar like Joseph Stieglitz. Sure, it seems like a terrible waste of the library's acquisition funds. But there's the slight chance that someone returning this turd might, somehow, find it interesting to take out Countdown, by Alan Weisman, which was my trade-in/take-out. The crossover isn't likely, but I think it's much more likely to happen at the library, than it might online, in a social media context.

Wedding Dresses, II

Manchester, Connecticut

Wedding Dresses, I

Manchester, Connecticut

Open Breakfast & LUNCH

Manchester, Connecticut

FOR A HEALTHIER YOU

Manchester, Connecticut

detail

WELCOME TO THE CHILDREN'S ROOM!

New Milford, Connecticut

Plant/Window/Wall

Manchester, Connecticut

CONVENIENCE MART/Urgency

Manchester, Connecticut

stand against the use of cocaine

Torrington, Connecticut

The Armory in Torrington has been remodeled into a community center, with a beautifully finished gym with big tournament size basketball court. Seniors also use the perimeter of the court as an indoor walking rink on weekdays. It seems as though some sort of ROTC element of the Civil Air Patrol also uses the facility, which I guess keeps up the original purpose. I want to look into that some more.

The Working Pictures February print offer, from the 107 Drive-ins Collection is ongoing. More info from the link in the sidebar on the right.

Finally, there may be a break in posting (and work on the print offer) because once I finish getting the snow out of the driveway tomorrow morning I go in for oral surgery. Maybe a simple extraction, maybe with complications—they won't know until they start.

Yellow Brick Wall

Willimantic, Connecticut

This alley is so narrow it's hard to imagine anyone might think of parking in it, but I guess you can never be too careful

Also, the Working Pictures February print offer, from the 107 Drive-ins Collection is ongoing. More info from the link in the sidebar on the right.