Looking back...

Sixty-five years ago today, Paris was liberated by Allied forces, specifically a Free French armored division moved forward to ensure the city was freed by its own people.

Well, actually, less than technically, it was liberated by a couple of crazed journalists who had rushed ahead in their jeep to get a good hotel room. Life photographer Robert Capa had encountered the French tanks just outside Paris, and discovered one crewed not by French but Spaniards -- veterans of the Spanish Civil War in which Capa had established his reputation. It had the name Teruel painted on it, and he climbed aboard, explaining he had been at that very battle in 1937. So on Teruel he rode into Paris.

However, on his arrival, Capa made a shocking discovery. "I wanted to spend my first night in the best of best hotels," he wrote in Slightly Out of Focus. "The Ritz. But the hotel was already occupied. Hemingway's army had come into Paris by a different road, and after a short and happy fight had taken their main objective and liberated the Ritz from the German yokels." Luckily for Capa, who had been feuding with Hemingway, they made up that night in the bar, and the famous writer made room in his hotel.

Another five minutes of my day...

Found another interesting blog: Rangefound. Run by another Leica fan, who I discovered at the Leica Forum. Along with NPPA (obviously), PDN Pulse, The New York Times's Lens blog, John Harrington, The Online Photographer and David Burnett's "We're Just Sayin'", a blog I plan to check regularly, if not daily...

I think there's some way to put these places permanently in the margins. Guess I'll figure it out eventually...

Meanwhile, on Twitter ...

Melissa Grego tweets: The country is in such bad shape right now I wouldn't give a damn if (Obama) was from Mars. - Wanda Sykes at TCA re 'birthers' controversy

(Note: "TCA" is the Television Critics Association, currently meeting in LA. The TV columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle calls it the "Death March with Cocktails." I love that.)

Addendum...

The San Francisco Chronicle has a piece on vocal protesters at town hall meetings, touching on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments. They seem to think it is a small, vocal, organized, far-right thing...

Once Upon a Time in America...

Most people nowadays don't remember that Ernie Pyle (if they remember Ernie Pyle) had a job before World War II -- one of the greatest jobs, in my opinion, ever. He was paid by a newspaper and then a newspaper syndicate (IIRC) to simply drive around the country, writing interesting little profiles of the people and places he encountered.

You could see the pattern that he later used in his war reporting: person, character study with details such as hometown and family, evocative place description, etc. But I came to think of him in that job recently for another reaason.

I saw yesterday in The Daily Beast a reference to a poll that shows that a stunning number of Virginians are what have become known as "Birthers." Those, to make it short, are people that believe that President Obama was not actually born in Hawaii in 1961, as claimed, but somewhere else, like Kenya or Indonesia. This of course would render him Constitutionally ineligible to be President. The whole movement itself has become controversial (and is, taken factually and objectively, absurd, if for no other reason than there's nothing really that could be done about it now), driving some like The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson positively to distraction. I sympathize, but I also wonder ...

This strikes me as a symptom of a greater zeitgeist, one that seems particularly prevalent -- or at least, one that I am running across in numbers too high for coincidence -- here in Southwest Virginia. I felt a hint of this earlier, with the rise of the "Tea Parties," which I think were unfairly derided -- or at least underestimated -- by many, and I see this as part of the same general movement.

Before I go on, I have to pause to note that I often encounter this in a group, or rather a demographic, that shouldn't be dismissed. Everyone has their claim to being indispensable to America, but theirs is as good as anyone's. These are the people who are over-represented in the military, the folks who go to work in factories, pay their taxes and just try to hold it together. Around here, a lot of them farm and do spot work, job-to-job, like construction, just trying to push through the recession. They're not quite the Okies of Grapes of Wrath, but I think Mr. Joad would "be there" for them.

At any rate, I keep encountering this ... thing, this movement, this general dread and discontent. It makes me nervous, in a way, even as it also gives me a sense of the great, sleeping beast that is America in an oddly good way. Which is what leads me to Ernie Pyle, driving around 1930s America.

Aside from the sheer simple pleasure I would get from a job like that, it would give me more confidence in moments like this. Is what I'm seeing just a localized phenomenon? Is it a product of my own personal biases? Is it driven by the current media fascination (and frustration) with the Birthers? I dunno'. But I sure wish I had the job that would let me drive around, ask a few people, and find out...

On the Beach...

Okay, so I'm on vacation. Sort of.

First of all, with two small children, as Ronald Reagan said about the presidency, it's not a vacation, it's just a change of scenery. They're a full-time job ... as they should be. And this isn't a complaint, just a statement of fact. Just as, as when you get out of college, get a job, get older, get married, the concept of "vacation" changes, so it does when you have kids. Now it's as much about their vacation as yours...

Secondly, our modern age has made my obsessive personality even more out of control. I just finished an article for NPPA on Robert Capa's Death of a Spanish Solider picture, because a series of articles have recently called its authenticity into question. Again. (This is a whole separate posting, as I had been working on a piece about this for a while, only to have it lost in a hard drive crash. I reconstructed it in less than a week after the new controversy began, finally sending the finished piece last night after two days of solid writing ... in between trips to the beach.) The internet just makes it too easy to do stuff like that (and update a blog) from a place where one is supposed to be getting away from it all.

And so I come across this: On Vacation, Leave the Photo Gear at Home and Take the iPhone Instead. Uh, no. Or rather, I understand, but vacation is for me more the time to overpack the photo bag. I decide what I haven't had the chance to really play with, or what I've really been enjoying playing with lately, and load 'er up! Last year, I took my Leica Ms and Kiev (a Russian -- or to be specific, Ukrainian -- version of the Hasselblad) to the beach along with 400 B&W film. This year I brought the Leicas and my trusty twin-lens Rollei, veteran of trips to China and Haiti. Why? Because that's the packet I wish people would want to pay me to use. That right now would really entertain me, to be contracted to go out with my Leica Ms and Rollei to spend some time somewhere to capture it. So I've made my own gig...

ADDENDUM: The Capa piece is live now on the NPPA web site.

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...