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...

Meanwhile, In America...

Okay, I know I'm no Robert Frank. (Makes me think of The Online Photographer's immortal comment about how to shoot with a Leica. He said, when suggesting using a 35 mm lens, "I know Cartier-Bresson's favorite lens was a 50. You're not Cartier-Bresson." I can't find the link, but this is the start of the thread...) But I'm still stuck on my concept of "Meanwhile, In America ..." -- a modern, more upbeat version of Robert Frank's The Americans. So now you must suffer through more pictures of the sort I would do for that project...

Here we see the talent and producer (Kim Pinckney, the one holding the papers, is the producer) of WDBJ's weekday morning news show, Mornin'. (Yes, absent the G -- it amuses me.) They are looking at the ratings. They're number one.

Inside a Roanoke, Virginia, firehouse, shortly before it was closed and replaced with a new, more modern facility nearby. The stairs lead from the garage-like area where the fire trucks are kept to the living quarters for the firemen.

Jefferson Street, downtown (it always amuses me to say "downtown" in a town of 7,000) Lexington, Virginia.

The owner of Roanoke's Putt-Putt golf course, during a tournament involving both amateur and professional players. Yes, professional Putt-Putt golfers. Really. There's a tournament circuit, just like Tiger Woods plays, but with giant gorillas and giraffes and windmills and stuff. That's not why he's laughing; he was once a pro himself.

The president of Roanoke's Tea Party, shortly after I interviewed him for WDBJ7 at a July 4 rally in Elmwood Park. As I've mentioned before, I think the Tea Party movement is something to be respected and attended to, not ignored and dismissed. I still haven't grasped what it is -- and I asked him for the opportunity to talk some more in hopes of getting closer -- but I sense a geological force (not a "shift," as I think it taps into something quintessentially American, whatever that might mean) that the Tea Party represents.

I think there is a really important article, or story, or book maybe, to be done about this -- one that isn't snide or superior or disdainful. Something not written in the tone of an educated elite regarding the boobocracy as if they were animals in the zoo. Something not written by today's H.L. Menckens.

I had read about George Plimpton's fascination with fireworks a long time ago, but it stuck with me. I saw my opportunity this July 4, and convinced the station to let me cover the setup for Lexington's fireworks. I was surprised; just two guys, a lot of wood planks, some PVC tubes for mortars, and boxes and boxes of explosives shipped all the way from China. (That was a somewhat scary thought, I've got to say, when I learned it. There must be shipping containers full of high explosives [!] on the Pacific as I write.)

The guy in charge, shown here, just started when a friend suggested he help out on a show. His day job is as a barber. He's going to beautician school now, to expand his business.

Pray and Play, and effort by a black evangelical church to occupy youth in a poorer neighborhood in Roanoke. I ended up covering it when the minister called the newsroom one Saturday seeing if we were interested.

A gospel rap group, associated with the church, was also there. I gave them my card, and I hope they call. That would be a good story, I think.

This is Josh Harvey, a friend, playing organ for a wedding in Lee Chapel on the Washington and Lee University campus in Lexington. A nice picture of a nice guy.

All of the pictures have been shot with a Leica M3. For some I used a 34mm Leica Summicron, some a Zeiss 21 mm Biogon. Most were shot on Tri-X, though Josh's is on Plus-X, and I shot one roll of Fuji B&W film because it was in the fridge. (I'm working my way slowly through everything in the fridge, as I can't afford to buy new film. I'm also now out of negative sheets.)

NOTE: Keep checking back. On my first upload of these pictures, it's ten o'clock at night and I don't have all the data -- like names and dates -- in front of me. I plan to keep updating these entries as I get the chance.

Also, check back on previous entries. I've been adding pictures as I get them processed and scanned.

Meanwhile, In America...

The 50s were, I think, a Golden Age in photography, particularly "Street Photography." (Actually, I could make an argument for most any decade since the art and science of photography began over 100 years ago; it really depends on what subset you're discussing.) Giants like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank walked the earth. Needless to say, I sit in awe.

However, I found much of the work from that time disquieting and downbeat. Frank's legendary book, The Americans, for example, can leave one profoundly uncertain about America and American culture. This is not to say I think these pictures untrue (or even anything less than genius), but I have often thought that it would be interesting to do a counterpoint, showing in much the same style and method an upbeat vision of America, capturing the optimism, energy, generosity and general positive attitude, even in the face of less than positive circumstances.

Frank did The Americans with a Guggenheim grant; perhaps some generous foundation would like to support my idea...

I often thought of it including pictures like the one above, shot at the Comicon at the Salem, Virginia, Civic Center a while back. I was covering it for WDBJ, and took a moment at the end of my TV shooting to grab a couple of frames with the Leica. Luckily, these two guys were just by the door as I slipped out.

This is my daughter, Janey, having unexpectedly ... and unwillingly ... fallen asleep one afternoon.

However, I find some of my pictures tend to wander into the less than upbeat anyhow. Take, for example, the one below...

I actually stopped and parked at a gas station (out of frame, to the right) and stood in the road to get this as I headed home from work. I had to; it just summarized too well for me the recent spate of snow and ice we've endured. The first grand storm infamously shut down 81 for two days.

On a more scenic note, this is the parish house of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Lexington.

And, though it's difficult to see on the small display size, on the church's door, tucked into the Advent wreath to the right, a handmade cardboard sign warns of "ICE!"

In a more disquieting form of humor, the Three Kings await their moment inside the parish house. We at St. Patrick's are sticklers for accuracy, and so the kings don't appear at the church's outdoor creche until their appropriate time, in January.

Here, a celebrant in period garb enters Lee Chapel on the Washington and Lee University campus for ceremonies marking Robert E. Lee's birth. Lee, of course, was president of the university from the end of the Civil War until his death in 1870, and he is buried in a crypt in the chapel's lower level. Groups gather every January to mark his birthday and that of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (also buried in Lexington, in the nearby graveyard).

However, the university has become rather sensitive in modern times about an over-emphasis on Lee's defense of the Confederacy and its accompanying slavery -- particularly emphasized by the uncomfortable proximity of Lee and Jackson's birthdays to that of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- so Confederate flags are not allowed to be brought into the chapel for the events. Participants tidily roll them up before entering, setting them aside like this one or stowing them away in their cars.

And finally, a view out the window of a local store, Pumpkinseeds, looking past the old county courthouse (hidden out of sight on left) and down Main Street. Pumpkinseeds is a particular favorite of ours, offering often wry and clever products like the shopping bag shown at right.

So, meanwhile, in America, we do seem to be getting along well enough. Despite some disagreements about politics and religion, we do find a way and manage. I think that's what I meant to say...