Charlottesville Office - Economic Indicator?

I think of this office as a barometer of the economy of the last year or two.  About two months after the market panic the front rooms just had a chair or two in them, and, at one point, a sofa was left on the curb. Then the two front offices were just bare for some time. About a month back I noticed the front offices were leased (I’m guessing these are rental offices) and the plants looked healthy. Things are looking up, or at least, it looks like up to me.
This is a time exposure, and the stoplight on the corner cast added the red lighting from the right side. 120 color film, an old Plaubel Makina Proshift

The Arts Ensemble of Chicago's Last Concert at Cabell Hall, UVA

Click the photo above for a larger image . . .

This photo was made under somewhat difficult circumstances. I had a single lens reflex with a role of ektachrome and a 500mm mirror lens. No tripod. We had found that the only seats were in the balcony of Cabell Hall at the University of Virginia. I took a second-long exposure with the lens pushed down on the rail at the edge. One player became quite an abstraction due to his motion, but the rest of the stage setting was sharp. The result is sort of a cubist blur of the player and his horn.
It was an incredible concert. Much of the first part was an aggressive wall of sound. Lester Bowie wore a white lab coat, which he favored for most of his appearances at the time. After the wall of sound there was a very sparse and quiet piece. There are some other photos of the concert here.

Motel Still Life

Twelve hours of driving from Virginia to Maine, and we were road zombies, with a set of parallel white lines jammed into our heads. Hungry, angry, we’d seen all the bumpers we wanted to see, and many more. We were booked into the only reasonably priced motel in the area, and it turned out to be 50’s vintage, restored, and with all the details still in place (small coffee makers built into the wall) and perfectly in order. I shot a detail on Tri-X film.