Meanwhile, in America...

I hope, before 2011 is out, to have a couple of new projects on public display. I have been purposely laying traps for myself, so that I can't escape working on them.

One is Camera Aperta, the book project on the history of photojournalism that I really, really want to get serious about doing. Another is an attempt to document the folk and traditional music scene here in Rockbridge County. To that end, I've been telling others -- mainly those connected to the music scene -- about my ideas. It not only serves to get me more into the circle of knowledge and social scene associated with it, but forces me to get to work. Eventually, all these people are going to look at me and wonder when I'm going to get at it...

But, finally, I hope to start bringing "Meanwhile, in America..." into reality. This doesn't require much in terms of practical application -- just the continued effort to photograph life as I see it while out there -- but it does require me to get my act together in terms of learning web site design. I think this is a project that should be a web site, but one that brings the viewer a book-like experience, reminiscent of Frank's The Americans. This is in contrast to, say, the Rockbridge Music idea, which I think needs a web site that exploits all the aspects of the internet: sound, sight, video, text, look, etc., etc., etc.

And then there's the question of blogging the creation of these things and others, like the continuing efforts to edit the films on the VMI cadets who marched to New Market in May 2009 and Phil Welch's artwork...

Anyway, in the meantime, here's a couple more Meanwhile, in America ... pictures:

This is a search dog waiting for his turn ... after all the bloodhounds. They were doing weekend training in a park in downtown Roanoke, and we filmed a story on it. It nearly killed me. Running after dogs on a scent on a cold, windy, winter's day while carrying (and trying to get a decent shot with) a broadcast TV camera is a lot of work. I was wheezing like a bad accordion at the end of it.

Here we see Virginia Tech's football team during an indoor practice in anticipation of their forthcoming bowl game. Significantly more comfortable, especially as, at this moment, the sports reporter had taken hold of the camera, leaving me to shoot my own personal stills...

And here, the infamous Viking helmet. Bob Grebe was handed two of them while covering a "Viking Festival" in Roanoke years ago, and put them on his desk when he got back to the newsroom. One disappeared sometime in the last year, but this one remains as an odd sort of test. Bob waits, wondering how long it will remain there, on his desk, until it also disappears ... or he is told to get rid of it. If you watch News 7, you can often see it in the background.

As for the book, it is a recent arrival. We receive many books form the authors, hoping to arrange interviews, etc., as part of their promotion tours and so on. Makes for an interesting juxtaposition with the helmet, though...

The pictures were shot on a Leica M4-2 (a recent acquisition, and a story unto itself) with the now omnipresent (in my world) Kodak BW400CN film, using a 21mm Zeiss f2.8 lens.

Amusingly (perhaps to me only), I've put the Leitz 50mm f2.0 on the M4-2 lately, as people around the station have begun noticing me more as I make their picture. It's getting harder to sneak up on folks. However, I now understand why Cartier-Bresson preferred the 50mm, while (given the choice) I'd rather use the 21mm. You don't get the sweeping, dramatic lines and distortion the ultra-wide-angle lens provides, but you get a bit of distance that makes you a little less intrusive and noticeable.

Welcome to my world...

... and one thing leads to another

A series of things have struck me in quick succession lately. They could be a bunch of blog posts ... or one long one. I think I'll do the latter.

One thought -- a short one -- occurred to me Sunday while covering the VMI graduation. In a relatively calm moment, I realized that, of all the colleges around here with graduations clustered together this May, it is the Virginia Military Institute that is the only one that doesn't set off explosives right next to our house to celebrate.

Here we see Janey and Caty watching the late night festivities for Washington and Lee's law school graduation. The light coming through the window is just from the fireworks. It's a 5-second exposure on a Nikon D80.

Then there was the moment, as the morning show prepared to start Sunday, when the producer turned to me and said, "You want to go check out a Car-B-Que?"

It took me a moment to figure out exactly what he meant, and then I found it rather funny in that dark, newsroom sort of way. He explained that a "Frito truck" -- that amused me too, for some reason -- had caught on fire, and he would like me to go out and get some footage.

After a quick look at the map (and a good thing too -- Route 220, a road that passes through Roanoke, but also heads up north and west of the city to Daleville, which was the location of the fire; I very nearly headed south and east), I shot out, onto 81 and off at the exit. On the crest of a hill a short distance from the interstate, flares and State Police cars marked my target. I quickly parked in a nearby gas station ... only to find after topping the hill on foot that the actual truck was some 200 yards further down the road. But now I had the camera and tripod out (and bloody heavy they are, too, I'd like to say), and it seemed more work to go back, load up again, get in the car and drive down there than to just walk the distance.

I stopped as I went, shooting wide, then close and closer, until I finally was in the midst of the firemen, who were cleaning up as the fire was long since out. One came up and explained the details, and later I heard the voice of another from the other side of my camera. "Hey, News 7," he said. I turned to see him. "Do ya' know what caused it?" Innocent that I am, I was about to explain that his colleague had just given me the information, when the smiling fireman answered by holding up a charred bag of Extra Hot Barbeque chips. "They just got too hot!"

The "Car-B-Que" on 220. Firefighters shovel Frito bags clear.

Shot with my M3 on Tri-X.

Still chuckling to himself, he then tossed the bag into the heap spilling out of the charred tractor trailer. Which was quite the surrealistic scene, I thought. The first fireman had explained that the entire load would have to be trashed because of the fire, so the cleanup involved literally shoveling piles of potato and corn chip bags away from where they'd been hastily pulled out to get at the fire. Not something you see every day.

I got back before the morning show was over, and so had the tiny triumph of getting it on the air. (News is all about right now, so when you get on the air with pictures of an event that happened after the show began -- as opposed to the older, pre-canned stuff -- it's better.)

And speaking of newsgathering (and lunken segues), I had the unfortunate experience of encountering a Nikon D5000 commercial again the other day. I've managed to avoid the recent Nikon campaign starring Ashton Kutcher lately because the ads tend to frustrate me, but sometimes one tumbles across these things all by accident, and there you are, suffering through it again. Interestingly, it's not on YouTube, although a couple of the other insufferable Kutcher ads are. I'm amused that, in searching for a link to the ad, I found that others hate it as much as I do, and that there is a much better ad concept for the camera as well.

However, this particular ad makes me nuts because it places him at a fashion show, where he is shown supposedly making pictures just as good as the professionals there (at one point tumbling across the runway itself, causing a chorus of protests from the pros as he blocks their view) because he has this whiz-bang camera. The theme, I guess, is that it not only lets this bumbling idiot make great pictures, but that his amiable anti-establishment attitude pricks the snooty, self-important bubble of the fashion world. This I think is supposed to make him appealing.

Anyway, if they hadn't lost me the moment they hired Ashton Kutcher, they certainly did when he gets in the way of the pros. Because, as you might have noticed, I'm one of those pros, and our job is hard enough without a bunch of goofy, self-satisfied prettyboys stumbling through the middle of everything because they think their do-it-all-for-you DSLR will let them do a job I've worked at for over 20 years. I tell you what, how about I shuffle onto some movie set and take the star role for a while, and he can forfeit his big paycheck to me for the day? How's that for fair? You are not welcome to my world ...

Catching Up...

The Fourth of July in Lexington, Virginia, is like many holidays here. They seem to resemble Norman Rockwell paintings, or some other hugely unlikely, idealized version of the small town holiday...

The day begins with the children's bike parade down Main Street, starting at the public library. Decorations are handed out for the kids to use, and the mob then sets out on the downhill-sloping street for -- I don't know, about a mile? Others actually do gather to wave to the passing kids, as seen here, in front of storefronts which have also been decorated in patriotic colors. Flags hang from every lightpost.

The eventual destination, after a luncheon break of free hot dogs, lemonade, watermelon and popsicles provided by local businesses, is the parade ground (or "deck" as they prefer) at VMI. The hub of festivites rests there, with various booths for charities and sales, including snacks and drinks, a flea market of sorts, a barbeque dinner by the sponsoring Rotary Club, and a hot air balloon festival. Usually anywhere from ten to twelve balloons show up, launching in the early morning and early evening, when the wind is the most still.

Here we see the crowd watching as a balloon begins to inflate. As you can see, this year the weather was more uncertain by late afternoon, and indeed by nighttime (and the fireworks) it was lightly raining.
I shot this, and particularly like it, because it shows in its way what I think the celebration of America is all about, as well as capturing some of the cheerily chaotic festival atmosphere there.

Here several balloons have risen enough to launch, which they did shortly after, rushing off roughly Eastward at a brisk pace in what I assume was a surprisingly strong wind.

And, at day's end, the tent for the barbeque is mostly empty. I don't know whether this couple are die-hards or just extremely early for the fireworks, which wouldn't begin for another two or three hours...

All the pictures were shot with my Leica M4 and 21mm Zeiss lens on Kodak BW400CN film.

As an aside: As I waited with my girls for the bike parade to begin, the Leica around my neck, a broadly smiling man approached and, with a German accent, explained he was from Wetzlar, where the camera was made. (The factory has since moved to Solms, which he explained is nearby.) He seemed very pleased to see the Leica and I wish the circumstances had let me chat with him longer...

A few other pictures...

Because I can, and because I've been having such fun with my Leica M3 and BW400CN film...

The view through a window in the Roberson-Phalen House in downtown Lexington.  Workers are adding the final touches on the restored home, and here one pauses to make a phone call outside while a group tours the interior.

From the same tour, an interior of the First National Bank building on Main Street, currently undergoing renovation.  The top two of the three floors will be apartments, and this floor -- on ground level -- and the basement are to be commercial space.

And finally, from one of the days I was preparing to go out filming, VMI cadets come spilling out of Jackson Memorial Hall after an event.  I made a number of frames of this, and while this is the best of those, I'm not sure it really captures the moment as hundreds of identically clad students spill out of the building...

Okay, just a couple more...

Because, in addition to the Canon XL-H1 HDV camera I was filming on, and the Nikon D200 I was using for all the previously posted production stills, I had my beloved Leica M3 with me while following the cadets, I have yet more pictures.

This is the campsite at the Frontier Culture Museum.  I have often want to, but never had the time to, do a project on photographing at Civil War reenactments using my Leicas. The theory was to see what, say, Robert Capa could have made of the Civil War.  A bit pretentious in two different ways, but a comingling of two different interests of mine, so why not?

Anyway, I thought this picture captured what I had in mind.  Shot with a Zeiss 21mm on Kodak BW400CN film.

This is perhaps my best picture from the take, particularly as it is so in style with the reason I like using the Leica.  I've probably "buried the lede" by putting it second, but so be it...

That's Cadet Aaron Cregar during one of the last rest breaks just outside the town of New Market.  His feet by then were heavily blistered (they had by then marched roughly 80 miles) but he pushed on to the end and even stayed at the battlefield through the weekend to take part in the reenactment.

This was shot with a Leica 35mm f2 -- the kind with the spectacles, because the M3 didn't have a 35mm viewfinder -- on BW400CN.

That's Cadet Curt Herron taking the flag at the end of that same rest break.  You can see from the background that much of that day's march was in a fog, following brief but noisy overnight thunderstorms.  Also done with the 35 and BW400CN.

I've got to say I'm really loving that Kodak film.  Though my heart will always belong to TriX, the ease of use provided by BW400CN, which can be processed at any C41-type one-hour machine (I actually have mine done at the local WalMart), is beyond measure in this right-now world.  It means I can still use my lovely, 50-year-old film cameras, but produce pictures almost as quickly as digital...

Stiff, old and really, really tired...

That would be me.  The cadets who marched to New Market were disgustingly upbeat and surprisingly energetic throughout, moving at a strong pace every day despite some serious foot problems for a couple of them.

Third Classman (or sophomore) Curt Herron rests just outside the town line.  I had driven ahead to film them marching past the sign saying, "New Market," and when they didn't arrive went back to find them resting in the gateway to a nearby farm.  Fortunately, I had checked my odometer, and so was able to tell them they were only 1.3 miles out.

Herron's feet were perhaps the worst of the group, developing painful blisters before rolling his ankle.  Then, the taped padding and bandages rubbed, scraping the skin off the backs of his heels.  He pushed on nonetheless, doing the full distance despite suggestions that he ride part of the way in the support van which followed, carrying water and food.  His hobbled stride was painful to watch...

Here they are upon first arriving at the New Market battlefield.  Behind me as I take this image is the Bushong House, and in the background you can see the Hall of Valor, the museum.  After dropping much of their gear (blanket rolls, haversacks, etc.), the cadets formed into a line and marched to the fence where, 145 years ago to the day, the VMI corps of Cadets moved when called into battle.  As their predecessors did, these six fired two volleys and then climbed over the fence to charge the artillery position at the top of the hill.

I was of course filming during the charge, so there are no stills.  Also, that's a really, really long hill.  

The image above is in the aftermath.  You can see a Union artillery team there -- reenactors there for the events this weekend, who added a sense of reality to the charge by firing blank rounds throughout.  They congratulated the cadets after (having happily surrendered, unlike their historical antecedents, who put up a hand-to-hand fight before giving up the guns) and insisted on having pictures made with them.

In 1864, 10 cadets died as a result of the battle (5 instantly and five from their wounds after) and 47 were wounded.  All these guys lost was one aging filmmaker, who came puffing up behind them at the end of the charge.

So here is the group as they finished lunch:

The lunch was brought by First Classman Ben Scudder's family, there to watch his success.  It was Scudder who organized the whole thing -- that's him standing on the far left.  He's off at the end of summer to join the Coast Guard to help pay for the completion of his final year at VMI.

Kneeling in front is Eric Wittig, and standing, from left to right next to Scudder, are James Lockett, Aaron Cregar, Hank Baker and finally Herron (really Michael Herron, but he goes by "Curt").  Aside from Scudder, all the cadets are Third Classmen.

So now, aside from a couple of general storytelling interviews to provide background, it's on to editing for me, which isn't as exciting to blog.  I'll try to put up a video as soon as I get one ... and as soon as I can figure out how to do it...

Update from the front...

So as I set out this evening to catch up with the cadets, I encountered the rest of the VMI student body practicing for Friday's New Market parade.  They use a special formation, much closer to the road around the parade deck and centered on the statue of Virginia Mourning Her Dead, erected in honor of the cadets killed in the battle.

As I prepared to leave, this scene developed, featuring what I can only assume to be passing tourists...

The heavy metal style contrasted with the pristine white, orderly ranks of cadets was too much, especially with the one fellow slouching on the cannonball (a minor monument on campus).  And yes, I included the "Do Not Enter" sign on purpose.

That's House Mountain in the background, the central local landmark.  Recent rains have really cleared the air around here of haze and pollen, and the view was spectacular.

Meanwhile, on the road...

This is what I found at 11 this morning, when I finally located the cadets marching to New Market in Verona, Virginia.  They had already reached the halfway point of their daily distance, and broken for lunch.  The two at far left are asleep, and the entire group would be before the hour was out.

Also, note the bandaged feet of the cadet second from left, mostly covering hotspots and blisters.  However, before the day was out, he would roll one of his ankles.  He walked through the pain (though with the ankle wrapped) to their destination.

Foot pain seems to be the main problem for the cadets, caused more by the hard surface of the road than their shoes, they claim.  Their morale is disgustingly high...

Tromp, tromp, tromp, the boys are marching...

Seven VMI cadets are reenacting the march their predecessors did over 100 year ago, when they left the campus in Lexington,Virginia, in May of 1864 and marched 85 miles in five days to New Market, to the north, where they took part in the battle there on May 15.  The 2009 cadets are dressed in period clothing and (perhaps most importantly) wearing period shoes.

I had often said that it would be an interesting little film to follow such an adventure, but no one had done it since the last effort in 2005.  So when I was told it was happening this year, I could hardly back out.

Here we see the cadets marching up Route 11, having already been on the road over a day:

And at their campsite at the end of the second day (last night), at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia:

It's not much helping the drama of my show that they all seem rather cheerful, with high morale, and not very worn down by the beating their feet are receiving, after an 18-mile march on the first day and 19 miles on the second...

New market and me...

So I had been talking about this idea: sometimes (turns out to be far less often than I thought), VMI cadets march the route from their Lexington campus to New Market, Virginia, where VMI cadets turned out for the only time in America a cadets corps fought as a body.  This year, a First Classman (senior) decided he hadn't had a chance.  So he made it.

VMI Cadet Ben Scudder contemplates the gear he wants to take with him on his march to New Market.

Scudder and Cadet Charlie Gerkin (right, a Third Classman, or sophomore) pack for the march.

I just began filming their adventure.  It'll be a helluva' dtory, I think.  Let's see if anyone will pay for it.

Meanwhile, in terms of work...

Just finished scanning, Photoshopping (cleaning up, generally fixing and setting levels), arranging for printing, mounting and hanging a series of six GIANT pictures of George Marshall at VMI.

The view of the area in VMI's Center for Leadership and Ethics, with the pictures mounted in niches on either side.

A closer view, showing the photo of Marshall's return to VMI (he was class of 1901) in 1951 for "Marshall Day."  The Center (known as CLE, pronounced "KLEE", among those in the know) had its grand opening today.

So I guess I should be accurate: It was really Jennifer, my wife, who did this job.  But it's a really good piece of work, and I thought she should get some recognition somewhere.  (She even shot these pictures).  But I did help mount them; maybe I can bask in reflected glow...