New York, New York
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
SAWYER'S
Torrington, Connecticut
This place has a pattern over the past decade or so of going out of business, remodeling and reopening after a few months, going out of business, reopening with a new name...
The building across the street used to be the office area of a really large factory complex. The factory buildings had been vacant for so long that I don't even know what used to be made there, and were torn down a few years back. It's easy to see how this was a prime location for a bar when the factory was in full swing, but now it doesn't seem to be a location that can support a bar and grill, even though people keep trying.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
57 OLDS
Torrington, Connecticut
I've walked past this place quite a few times over the years. The vehicles in the yard keep changing, but I've never once seen a person in the yard or lights on inside the building. Weird.
I was eight when the Oldsmobile was new, and it looks so familiar that I suspect some family along the half-mile long dead-end street in New Jersey where I grew up must have had a nearly identical car. Just can't quite bring up an image of which driveway it was in.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Short Stuff, plus Blog Notes
Star, North Carolina
I see that this is the last of the pictures from the Southern Loop of The Giant Road Trip that I've set up "for the blog." So tomorrow I'll be posting something else. In the meantime, we're having a real cold snap here. Morning temperatures have been around 5° (that's about -15° C) and today it never got as high as 20°. A side effect of this is that our very old and not renovated house, with its ancient steam boiler, gets incredibly dry. Not only is it costing a fortune to keep the place from freezing, it's also shutting down work I want to do. Even with humidifiers running the Rh in my 'digital atelier' is around 24%. Forget using the printer. Anywhere under about 40% the roll paper becomes so stiff that it can't feed properly. Not only do you get defects in the prints, the printheads could be ruined by paper strikes. At least I almost finished the Kickstarter Rewards prints last week, with just a couple packages waiting for prints.
Can't print? Well, get going on scanning all those 8x10 and 7x17 negatives from the drive-in theater project. Nope, at this humidity level, the negatives are absolute dust magnets from static electricity. Anti-static brush, anti-static cloth, the dust just moves around while clinging to the film. I don't want to take the (clean until now) negatives out of their sleeves.
So what I've been doing is working on monochrome conversions of my digital captures of the DI theaters. This is still a little frustrating because I can only work on-screen. I keep catching myself wanting to grab four pictures to run through my 6.5" proof print batch action to place on the 4-up template...but I can't run the printer. It's supposed to be even colder tonight.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Southern Weeds. Towns, too.
Albemarle, North Carolina
With all the traveling I did this year on the drive-in theater project, and all the "off topic" pictures I was able to make along the way, I got a lot of reinforcement of the notion that some places are absolutely brimming over with picture opportunities, and some places aren't. Perhaps I should say picture opportunities for me, because someone else might have a very different reaction. I seem to be able to tell in the first few minutes. Which doesn't make sense, but it's true. I'm lucky to have several towns within an hour's drive from my home that are rich enough in this way that I can keep returning again and again to find new things. There are other towns in the same area that I try to work in and almost never get anything. I went to Albemarle, of course, because there's a theater on the outskirts of town.
Albemarle, North Carolina
I found it, and on the way saw a decent looking chain motel on the commercial strip, so I went back and got a room, and asked the manager/owner where the actual town of Albemarle could be found. He told me to drive down the strip for so many blocks and then turn left and go about a mile. Before I'd really gotten into the town I knew that this was one of those places where I could spend more or less forever without running out of subjects. A lot of my favorite off-topic pictures from the Giant Road Trip were made during a twenty or thirty minute walkabout that left me feeling: been there, done that, don't need to come back again. Other places, I spent as long as I could and made notes to try to come back again. Albemarle just seemed to have a picture every three or four steps I took.
Albemarle, North Carolina
If you have an aging downtown motel with a giant marquee meant to welcome banquet and wedding parties, it might not be the best idea to tip your hand that you don't even really look like you're still in business.
detail
I walked around the town nearly till dark. Next morning I worked at the Badin Road theater again in different light, and then spent several more hours walking around the town before tearing myself away to move on to the next theater on the list. I want to go back to Albemarle and make more pictures.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Two Walls
Albemarle, North Carolina
I'd guess this must have been an effort to cover up graffiti. Could have a better job matching the paint though. Oddly I saw this only on one block in this fairly large town. Makes me wonder what and why about the covered-up tags.
Albemarle, North Carolina
Monday, January 14, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Glory Beans Coffee House
Albemarle, North Carolina
A middle aged man emerged from the coffee house and greeted me with a loud, "How are you?" and then without waiting for an answer, continued, "I'm just great today because I know I'm safe in the hands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!" His face was aimed more or less directly at me but his eyes were unfocussed, gazing off into the distance somewhere behind me.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Car Wash
Albemarle, North Carolina
Eye-catching red paint for the building makes sense, but green painted blacktop? No longer in operation in any case.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Two Walls
Albemarle, North Carolina
This is the side of a former furniture store, currently vacant but in good condition.
Albemarle, North Carolina
The faded sign says "central lunch parking only." Didn't see any sign of the lunch place though.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Behind Main Street
Cherryville, North Carolina
This small city has a Main Street layout that I've seen, once in a while, all over the country. Main is lined with commercial buildings, mostly connected side to side with few alleys, two stories tall, with retail stores on the first floor, offices or other businesses, sometimes even apartments, on the second. Behind the solid block of buildings, instead of First Street, you've got a wide blacktop parking area. Head-on parking facing the buildings, also facing the back of the lot, with drive-through space in between. Like alleys and backlots, the parking areas seem to offer lots of picture possibilities.
Cherryville, North Carolina
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