Taste And See

Woodbury, Connecticut

What can the slogan have to do with collecting donations of used clothing?

More Stencils

Waterbury, Connecticut

Waterbury, Connecticut

Waterbury, Connecticut

Arrested?

Waterbury, Connecticut

LEE DEPARTMENT STORE

Lee, Massachusetts

An old neon sign finds new life as decor in an art gallery. I'm looking through the interior window from a cafe next door.

All About Blue

Dowagiac, Michigan

I've been spending a lot of time studying, and printing, pictures from my drive-in theater expedition last September. Preparation for the Giant Road Trip that should begin in less than two weeks. Partly it's a matter of having a completely sure idea of what I want final prints to look like, both from large format film and from digital capture. For both, the basic technical answer is, HP Professional Satin paper from the Z3200 printer. It's also about reverse engineering how I will go about the shooting.

With digital capture now at such a mature state, the number of theaters, and details at them, that I can shoot is essentially limitless, though I've never found that just shooting away at everything with abandon leads to good results. However, the logistics of shooting this much material means that I'll have to limit my large format work, probably on the basis of targeting it for subjects that I "see" as platinum prints. Forget the cost of film, visiting literally hundreds of theaters, if I shoot everywhere with large format I won't live long enough to develop all the film.

Then there are subjects, like the 5-Mile Drive-in here, where the only reason to make a picture is the color, with the sure and subtle control of that color afforded by digital capture.

The reason for that sign on the ticket booth is that most DI theaters charge so little for admission to a double feature that the only profits come from the concession stand.

Stoneware

Washington, Connecticut

At the opening of a new exhibit at the Gunn Historical Society last Saturday. The "chickens" decoration theme is evidently fairly rare. The ironwork rooster was probably part of a weather vane, where it obviously served secondary duty for target practice.

Visual Aides

Woodbury, Connecticut

Some people have asked how I go about explaining what I'm doing when I meet someone "cold," at a drive-in theater I have not been able to contact in advance. Visual aides are a big help to explain the project. Recently we went to a large art supply store for Tina to stock up for her long summer of work in her studio. While there I found a rather nice, but simple, letter-size folder with a heavy plastic cover and sheets to hold 24 photographs. So I picked two dozen theater pictures and printed them up. Seen here in the natural habitat it will most likely be used—opened up on the hood of my car.

The Wellfleet

Wellfleet, Massachusetts

More scanning. The Washington (Connecticut) Art Association is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. For a show in July they decided on the theme of a picture for each of those sixty years, from each year, by a member artist. They've asked me to be 2007. I rummaged around in a great many color digital captures from that year, which was particularly productive for some reason, but then realized that there was also this 7x17" panorama from Cape Cod's surviving drive-in theater. I think a 13x32" print of this will do nicely. (As always you can click on the image to get a somewhat larger view.) The conditions here were, a clear (and windy!) morning in late winter, no leaves yet on the trees, as the sun rose just enough to illuminate the screen and center building, leaving most of the unusual asphalt-paved and ramped field in deep shadow.

Blog Notes—The Documentary Photographer

"The Documentary Photographer" is a new podcast created by Roger Overall of Cork, Ireland. I'm happy to mention that the third installment of the series is now released, featuring my American Drive-in Theater project. At about forty minutes it's a little long but if you are interested in the project it goes into a lot more of the background, working methods, and so forth than I've written about elsewhere. It seems there was a problem with the link as originally posted, so let's try it this way...scratch that, it didn't work. The link that works from Roger's email to me doesn't want to work here on Blogger. So let's try this. It's available as a free download at the iTunes store.

TEAM AWESOMESAUCE

Litchfield, Connecticut

From a charity fund-raising walk for MS. Everyone seemed to have a good time, especially at the refreshment stands after the walk.