Postcard from Prison

The Postcard from Hell?





I’ve been buying old postcards for years in various “antique” shops. There is one shop in particular, that picks up goods from estate sales, that frequently has old postcards that are unused. I then use them. Today I found one while quickly looking through a pile of several hundred of them. One that I grabbed in passing seemed to be of an old stone room with painting on the inside walls.
After doing the usual Google search for the text on the front of the card (it has “Oct 13 1907” written on the back with no other message. Never sent), it turned out to be the dungeon of Ludovico Sforza, il Moro, Duke of Milan, the prisoner of Louis XII, who spend 10 years in there “until death released him.” Quote from “A handbook for Travelers in France.” He was an artist whose work you might have seen while taking European history in high school. This is an image by Leonardo da Vinci http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Lady_with_an_Ermine.jpg . The Lady was one of Sudovic's lovers. Even the ermine looks like royalty.

High Tension

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This is a night photograph of the bottom of the high-tension tower that’s not nearly far enough from my house on Locust Ave. It s a shame there was nothing in the photo that gives the scale of the tower.

It was a seven minute exposure, lit mostly by the headlights of cars passing. I did use a flashlight to add some light to the first ten feet or so of the column. It’s a bit hard to factor in the effect of headlights on exposure. Luckily, being negative film, there is lots of latitude on the high side of the exposure scale.

The camera was set up right across the road from the tower. The road was well traveled, and, I did have a car stop right in front of the camera, out of curiosity. I'm so used to this happening I have a black “letter size” piece of cardboard in my hand to cover the lens when somebody stops right in front. They want to know what I’m doing, I do my best to explain it, (I’m not even sure myself) and they usually drive away.

Event at the Bridge Progressive Art Initiative

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This is a photograph of a very small garage on North 1st street in Charlottesville. I had just come back from taking a few photos near the McGuffey Art Center, and noticed that this space was hosting an event. I’ve happened across at least one other event here. During one of the few snow storms of last winter I was biking back from Preston Ave. and noticed the garage was open. There were a few people who had finished up hanging a “mobile” of jars with various items in them. They were hung over a map of Charlottesville, indicating the location of the contents of each jar. I guess it was a Mobile Geolocation device : >.

I sat down on the side of the wall on Lee Park with a small group of others. Having missed the first act, the next was a mix of poetry and singing using a tape looping device, although the device was digital. Tape loops thankfully are no longer with us.

It was a well done short piece. I had the camera (the Rapid Omega 6X7 with 58 mm lens) so I dropped it in place on the tripod and took one exposure.

I’ve attended a number of events at the Bridge, and even had my own photo night there last year. The Bridge and its projects (which are many) has been a real boon for Charlottesville, providing show space and lots of entertainment. One particularly interesting event was about producing audio for radio. It was presented along with a few other nights of presentations involving just sound. The best feature of Bridge presentations is the audience interaction, which is really encouraged.