Car Series - Profile

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This is another image from a drive through of the Barracks Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville. Based on the prior exposure (see last shot in the blog) I juggled the aperture versus time to capture a profile of the driver whoever that is.

I think the back ground here is provided by Bed, Bath, and Beyond (renamed by my visiting friends from Montreal as; Bed, Bath, and Behind). I had made so many passes in front of the store that some of the employees on break were getting a bit curious.

The Car Series - Hit It!

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This photo was taken last weekend, and involved fishing around for the best exposure. I had settled for F-16 for the aperture, but had been getting images that were a bit washed out, with not much color saturation. I finally settled on what appeared to be an optimal time exposure, and made some passes at some Charlottesville malls. The Barracks Road Shopping Center has the most diverse lighting, although the speed bumps are annoying.

As ordinary as the act of breathing, driving a car. We can even express emotion to other drivers by subtle and not-so-subtle maneuvers. I drive with the pack, have a guy on my back, want to flip him off, what the blinkin, hit it! That last sentence needs a "woofer." Push that pedal fool.

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

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This is the most recent of the Car Series, taken by driving slowly through a shopping center off Route 29 in Charlottesville. In this case the camera is in the image area via the reflection in the mirror, but is too dark to be seen. The passenger seat was reclined and a tripod jury-rigged so that the lens is almost even with the window ledge.

"Drive On," a Found Negative from the Car Series

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This is one of the Car Series that I haven’t shown before. I came across it while looking through my piles of negatives. It’s about the same setup (4X5, 90 mm Super Angulon {save viewpoint as a 28mm on a 35mm camera} as in Car – Rain, but the camera was mounted lower and skewed slightly. The Car Rain link also has more general information on the Car Series.
As in others, exposure was dependent on the what lit buildings I passed by. I believe this was taken over the entire length of West Main Street in Charlottesville.

UFO

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This was a time exposure with a 4X5 Graphic duct-taped (with a backup safety strap) to the hood of the car. About 5 minutes of exposure driving around a small well lit city, Charlottesville. People who pulled up next to me looked at me very suspiciously. The film was 4X5 Tri-X sheet film in a typical two sided film holder.

The environment we live in is a bit surreal, but we are utterly used to it. It takes a different way of looking just to see it the way it is.

Click here for some further photographs and information from the Car Series

The Public Sale

This is an odd shot (click the picture for a larger image). The child seems to be staring back at the viewer, as though the photo frame itself was a window. Windows work two ways, you can look out or in. Photos are generally one way, but this one has a subject staring back at the viewer.
The story is odd too. I worked on the Queen Anne Record Observer, Centreville, Md. This was also the location of the Russian Embassy’s vacation house/villa/dacha. The “public sale” pictured above was the sale of some land that had been owned by the Russian Embassy.
This photograph was taken many years ago, when Cold War sentiments were still prevalent. We’d see Russians in Centreville on odd occasions, usually overdressed for the weather. But they generally kept to themselves.
When I was researching this, I came across an article on the estate. Nice place; http://www.washingtonlife.com/issues/summer-2007/EMBASSY-ROW/

The Target

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These targets showed up on a wall of the Paramount Theater (prior to its renovation) and a few other spots in Charlottesville, about 6 years ago. They are the standard targets used in the training of police officers, government agents, etc. Attempts were made to remove them, which were only partially successful.

They are disturbing to see on a gut level. It is a human target. They mean one thing; this is a violent place. Not Charlottesville in particular; everywhere.

They are used to train civilian “peace” officers to use “deadly force.” Pasting them up in public was a surprisingly direct manner of communicating. No comment was necessary. The items themselves spoke volumes.

There has been quite a shift in the way people think and behave in the last ten years or so. We are trying very hard not to see it.