Phoning Home

This is from and old 4X5 transparency I shot, many years back, as you can tell from the telephone booth. It probably looks like an outtake from the “Matrix.” The blurred figure is actually a person plus a dog. As usual with most of the summer night shots, there’s no shortage of those lush, quick growing weeds.

One of my projects of late is the update of the “archive,” which is essentially a room of stored film, prints, and some transparencies. There are only a few large format transparencies. I tended to use color negatives (shooting color was rare anyway) for large format.

I can’t help but examine the past when I’m looking through photographic records of it. It always seems that every regret was (aha, in retrospect) my own doing and undoing. In reality I’m sure I’m still doing and being undone in the present: that’s my little investment in the future: } .

This is Ektachrome, and has that color signature, although the streetlights didn’t help. Only the later version of the film rivaled Kodachrome, which had a warmer color balance.

Light Painted Flowers

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This is an example of a time exposure where the image has been made by “painting” with light. Painting may be an overstatement. I use whatever small flashlight I can find, and mute the output from it with my hand. I usually meter the flashlight using the incident dome on a light meter and set the time for one second on the meter. I then try to “paint” in a manner that doesn’t exceed a second for any one area its pointed at. It sounds complicated, but isn’t, and small errors don’t tend to show on the final image. This is best done with a negative film which will have some latitude for over-exposure. The shutter just stays open for however long it takes to paint the subject with light.
The flowers came from the Twin Oaks community which sells them at the Charlottesville City Market.

Marcia and Nancy - Chestertown, Md.

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If you take photographs long enough, you end up with a past that is well documented. As you can imagine, this is a mixed blessing. Going through the negatives I have can be like re-living an experience. Memory fades, but a key element can set in motion the recollection of an event. Sometimes I find an image that surprises me, and I can recall several days that normally would have been lost forever.

This is a photo of Marcia and Nancy meeting at Ford and Mer’s farm, after having been out of touch for a while. There’s nothing remarkable about the photo, but it seems to hold a moment of time  in some way I can’t explain. 

Nancy really helped me one particular time. She let me borrow her car to go to a job interview. The newspaper I had worked on had been bought by a mega-corp, and times were grim. I got the new job and spent about three years in the Nations Capital, until I found an exit strategy. It was a change that eventually led to employment in Charlottesville. I stayed in that position until recently. Now I'm looking back somewhat amazed by the path that was followed. 

Without that accidental meeting , my path would have gone in another direction. 

“Snapped” on the spur of the moment, with Kowa Six, a square format 120 camera. Being inside a square box is a great breaker of rectangular habits, although I could not resist cropping this one.

House at Second and Water

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There used to be an unusual structure at the corner of Second and Water, across from the Charlottesville City Market. It was a monolithic combination of a house and two businesses. Since I’ve been in Charlottesville the Barber Shop has been closed, but the tailor shop was open. I’m including a detail shot below, obviously taken around Halloween, of the window of the tailor shop.


As in the shot preceding this one, you can see another example of a towering weed of the same variety. Thanks to Lonnie’s input, I now know it’s a Paulownia Tomentosa.

The building seems to be covered with a concrete layer across the entire front. It resembles adobe.

The image was taken on a 6X9 cm. negative with a Plaubel Makina Proshift.

The Really Big Weed

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Really Big Weed

I can’t identify these huge weeds, able to crack concrete and grow in the most inhospitable of places. I come across these in my nightly wanderings. They sometimes grow to an amazing height.

This is a time exposure in an alley adjoining what was a People’s Drug store. The streaks were made by cars passing. The wall was placed there so we would not be troubled by a view.

McGuffey Art Center - Charlottesville

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I snapped this while walking around after a snow storm. It was taken on the Pluabel Pro Shift, hand held. The film is Tri-X 120, 6X9 cm. image.

I ended up liking the image, probably because of the overcast combined with the fresh snow. The naked guy seems to be having some trouble getting his suitcase through security. They must have done some extraordinary rendition on him, since he disappeared entirely a while ago.

I suppose the McGuffey just got bored of the same old statue being there for years. I hope it wasn’t his nakedness.

But seriously, this illustrates the practicality of the “middle path,” meaning film that is scanned. This wasn’t the highest resolution of the film scanner, but the image is 35 megapixels. And if you had the urge to put the negative in an enlarger and print it on your favorite paper, that would also be an option.

Flat Iron Building, Asheville, N.C.

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Above is a photo of a square in Asheville, N. C., with the Flat Iron building on the right (6X9 cm, Tri-X). The sculpture, center left, is an upturned Flat Iron. At the time I took the photo, a woman, sitting in the handle of the iron, was singing opera to her child, who is hidden by the Iron. The Flat Iron building was inspired by the same named building in New York City, which is an unusual piece of architecture built to fit a confluence of angular streets.

I really liked Asheville. It was a bit like the Downtown in Charlottesville (in spirit), although without a large common area like the Mall in C-vlle. It has lots of Art Deco buildings, some of which are quite exotic, and surprising for a small city in the mountains of North Carolina. That’s where their unusual history comes in. It was misfortune that preserved the city.

The railroad was first built South, and then West, through the area. That made it the logical first stop for travelers going on the long route. This brought unprecedented capital and expansion. Many of the trademark buildings were built in that era. However, the railroads built other more efficient routes. Then, the Great Depression struck, and Asheville had the highest per-capita debt for a city. It chose to pay that debt, but it took 50 years.

So, these buildings stood, free of the wrecker ball and modernization. They stood long enough to become cherished examples of historic architecture.

I was getting around town by bus, and dragging a tripod and the Plaubel Pro Shift. I took this shot while waiting for the bus.

It was a summer visit, and the city had a outdoor showing of a silent movie, with live piano providing the musical score. I'd love to return and take more night shots.