The Ruskin Family Drive-in Theater

Ruskin, Florida

Because of my week-long artist-in-residence stay with the Firehouse Cultural Center in Ruskin, I got to visit repeatedly at The Family drive-in. I also got to meet with the owners and had a long, highly informative interview with Ted, a vital, older gentleman who has been working in the movie theater business since childhood. I learned a lot I hadn't known about the underlying practice of running these businesses either as independents or as small chains. He's been involved both ways. I also got to spend time in the evening before showtime, where a relaxed, low-key sort of amusement park atmosphere prevails, which resulted in some nice pictures. On the main road trip I seldom was able to visit theaters in the evenings for logistical reasons. It was near the summer solstice, so the light was barely fading before eight and the show couldn't begin till trailers started to run around nine o'clock. Since I never miss an opportunity to photograph in early morning light, getting up at five just wasn't compatible with checking out evening activities on a regular basis. Anyway, if I dare say it, that's a whole different project to think about...

The Family's setting certainly says Florida to me. The light, the tropical trees, and—notice a meticulously kept grass field rather than the gravel favored in the mid-and-far West. Another point of interest is that The Family had already converted to digital projection last year, the result of a fund-raising drive initiated not by the theater owners themselves, but by local fans of the theater.

Group Portrait

Ruskin, Florida

Last October during my week-long artist-in-residence stay at The Firehouse Cultural Center, one of the interesting activities was a meeting with the art students at the nearby regional high school. We began the session by setting up the 8x10 Deardorff and 7x17-inch Korona cameras in front of the school. Most of the kids had never seen anything like a view camera before, much less looked at the upside-down-and-backwards image on the ground glass. They really got into it and began to pose for each other in front of and behind the camera. Then someone suggested a group portrait, which seemed like a good idea. This was one of the negatives in this morning's processing run.

Then we went inside and I put out some rather large digital prints (13x32") made from 7x17 negatives. They seemed quite fascinated, being much more familiar with photographic work on screen than as finished prints. They also asked some perceptive questions in the following Q&A—a rewarding group of young people to spend a few hours with.

Dawn, Little Harbor

Ruskin, Florida

More Signs

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

Tomato Fields

Ruskin, Florida

Through most of the twentieth century Ruskin's main industry was tomato growing. Partial draining of the flat, swampy land made for nearly ideal growing conditions for the crop. Quite recently, just the past decade or two, wholesale tomato prices plummeted, partly due to imports from South America. As growers' profits crashed, developers began to bid up the price of land in the area to put up gated communities and high end shopping centers catering to the inflating housing bubble. These fields on the southeast side of town are among the few really big tomato farms still in operation.

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

On Shell Point Road, between Little Harbor and the town center at Highway 41, these fields are no longer in tomato production but are used for grazing some cattle. In the distance, adjoining fields have been fully drained for housing development. When the housing bubble burst a few years ago, some of the developments had to halt construction on half-completed units.

Empty

Ruskin, Florida

Nearly evening, trespassing on the grounds of an almost deserted shopping center at the Apollo Beach north side of the Ruskin area. I'm not an expert on shopping malls (though I'm becoming interested enough in this element of the American landscape to do some serious research) but this open plan (not an enclosed mall) shopping center is now about one-tenth occupied, and that by a seemingly temporary tenant. My guess is that it was built twenty-five years ago, give or take, and may have been a main center in the area for quite some time.

Ruskin, Florida

At another shopping center, again not an enclosed mall. This can't have been built more than five years ago by the look of it, but is not more than 25% occupied, though it's kept up immaculately. Only a skip and a jump from its elder neighbor.

Ruskin, Florida

Adjacent to the drive-in theater which, stubbornly and happily, survives, a little closer to town than either of the shopping centers, this stand-alone small store must date back decades earlier than the others. Maybe before shopping centers and malls were necessary to draw customers. I wonder what they sold here—it's not big enough for a furniture showroom, but maybe flooring, where you only need samples. Something like that. Whatever it was, either nobody wants what they sold anymore, or they buy it somewhere else. Certainly, the second answer.

Pole

Ruskin, Florida

Evening, Morning, at Little Harbor

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

Artificial Vantage Point

Ruskin, Florida (vicinity)

The landscape around Tampa Bay is flat. Very flat. There's one place however where you can get a vantage point of a couple hundred feet above sea level and look at a wide sweep of the area. It's an observation platform built on top of a Mosaic Company "gyp stack." Mining of phosphate and production of fertilizer is a primary industry in this part of Florida. Gypsum in great quantities is a byproduct of this process, and the current environmentally-best practice is to pile it up in long ridge lines, sequester, cover with topsoil and plant grass. The end result looks a lot like reclaimed coal tailing ridge lines that I've photographed in Pennsylvania. When you see high ground driving around west-central Florida, it's almost certainly a gyp stack.

Ruskin, Florida (vicinity)

It takes special permission to get to the observation deck, but The Firehouse had the right connections so I was able to spend a couple hours beginning right after dawn making photographs as the morning fog rose. The stacks of the Big Bend power plant could be seen to the south, the view west across the bay showed quite a bit of tanker traffic, and by nine o'clock you could clearly see Tampa's port area across the bay to the north.

Ruskin, Florida (vicinity)

Hand Dryer

Tampa, Florida

At the Fun-Lan Drive-in Theater and Swap Shop.

Shop Windows

Ybor City, Florida (just north of Ruskin)

Ybor City, Florida (just north of Ruskin)

Ybor City, Florida (just north of Ruskin)

Ybor City, Florida (just north of Ruskin)

The Beach at Little Harbor

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

Structures

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

This is a bit of a mystery, I haven't figured out what the building was originally. The construction is robust and includes some fancy touches, but I don't know what the ruin was originally for. It's the only structure, or ruin, for quite some distance, in an area along the Little Manatee River.

As a technical side note, this didn't get into the recent "walk in the woods" post because there was unacceptable sensor fringing in the branches against the bright overcast sky. But today I was experimenting with the new and vastly improved "defringe" tools in ACR version 7.x (part of PSCS6). It occurred to me to go look up this file. The new tools easily changed false-color branches into believable-looking bright highlight areas.

PEACOCK UCTIONEE

Ruskin, Florida (Old Sun City)

Camp Bayou

Ruskin, Florida

Camp Bayou Outdoor Learning Center is on land that used to be a trailer park but is now open to the public for recreational and educational purposes. It's also another nice walk in the woods.

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

An old hookup from its previous trailer park existence.

Ruskin, Florida

Waterfront Prop.

Ruskin, Florida

A Walk in the Woods

Ruskin, Florida

This publicly owned open space along the Little Manatee River couldn't be much more different from the typical New England forest I'm used to. However, spending some time wandering around with a camera I got a familiar walk-in-the-woods feeling.

Palms and Graffiti

Ruskin, Florida

Holiday Palms RV Park

Ruskin, Florida

Ruskin, Florida

More Florida Weeds

Ruskin, Florida