The Line's End

<- Click here








She still stands there waiting
A whistle or smoke,
She still stands there waiting
Her lines thronged with folk.

But her tracks now are rusting
With weeds grown to choke
Off the chance to leave searching
For dreams that aren’t broke.
*
New Columbia, PA
Canon 40D/Canon EF-S 10-22mm (f3.5-4.5): PS4/Topaz, AlienSkin:SnapArt2, Watercolor, Custom brushes/textures (Thanks, Distressed Jewel)

History's End

<- Click here
There’s only one track now
Coming to or
Going from?
Castel Gandolpho.

Where once the Popes
Ruled the West
In summer heat
That hasn’t cooled.

Though history
Has…

I wonder if this track is there to fill the now tiny town or to empty it out? I wonder if the devil lies, as they say, in the details? That is to say that the devil dares to lie anywhere near a papal palace.

Geek Stuff
Cannon 20D, Post Processing in PS:CS4: Topaz, Alien Skin: SnapArt – Colored Pencils, custom textures and brushes.

At The Speed Of Life

<-Click here
Now you know that nothing in photography is true. Or all of it is. And.. and... Is there something in between? Here's the last image from out of my old 20D. Here's the bustle inside of New York's Penn Station. It's across the street from the B&H media super store I discussed yesterday. Neither my old friend or I knew at this moment that I'd soon trade it for a 40D. So moments before we parted, the old guy let me grab this feeling of the pulse beat of one of The City's front doors. He did his job right to the end. He caught just exactly how I felt in this last pano. Can't ask for a lot more than that, right?

Kerouac #1

<- Click here
After too many years I finally bought a copy of Jack Kerouac's classic little book, "On The Road". The novel was the first voice of the Beat Generation of the 1950s and 60s. It's described as pretty much of a free stream of thought which he pounded out in a few days on a typewriter fed from one large reel of paper. Wanderlust drove this guy. So he hopped trains, hitched rides, and hiked around America. Mostly it's a series of visceral snap shots each a metaphor for that mid-century moment in time. It's a useful book for photographers but... unlike the child-like adoration heaped on the thing by reviewers and teachers... I found much of it slow dealing with largely vapid people bored with success all about them. People driven to poke holes into reality to find - not something better - just different.

These are not people with ambition, but rather people with restless leg syndrome. Still, Kerouac's ability to toss off wonder-filled lines like the title of this image is exactly the fuel which the photographic artist thrives upon. These thoughts haunt us, and make me want to somehow express them visually... Here's one of my expressions from the tracks that neatly divide the City of Fort Lauderdale Florida. Somewhere up there in that unseen distance are Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Philly, and New York City. Somewhere, way... way.. way... far away.

It wasn't a destination that Kerouac sought... rather he was after the process of getting there. And that's the profundity of his drive I suppose... after all isn't life about... getting there? He was driven by the wonder of the trip not the destination. BTW, he died quite young.

***
Here's the virgin picture from my FlashCard.

Grand Central, NYC

AARGH! As you can see by looking at my January 29th post, my MacBook Pro crashed for the second time in 90 days. Since it remains under full warranty - apple once again has replaced the hard drive. Since the monitor was only recently calibrated, and since I spent so much time with it this week, I prepared this image below, and the image from the 29th on that MacBook. Now I see why many of the people who have looked at this image on various forums were underwhelmed. It in no way represents the graphic that I worked upon and thought I was posting.

I have just recalibrated that machine, but I simply lack the sizable time to redo this image. So it is effectively lost. I think I shall leave it as both a warning re. what not to do, and a double warning about buying a MacBook Pro.

I offered to pay Apple the difference between the second hand value of the damaged machine and a new replacement, and they would not consider my offer even though this is the second time in 90 days they repaired my machine. Needless to say, I no longer have faith in it.

With that said, here is the original posting about which I am bummed. I reeeeeeely liked the way that I thought this image would look to you. Sorry.

<- Click here

Grand Central: bustle, glimmering. Fast, dim, hectic, bright, a portal place.

Many of you know that I don’t do tripods. But the blur of infinitely replaceable people going, coming, held between here and somewhere… That’s why this central is grand. And what I thought needed capturing within its cavern.

So how to do that with no visible means of support?

Here’s my try. And your verdict is?

***

This is my second go at Grand Central Station and a companion piece to the first which you'll find by clicking here.


***
And for those of you who enjoy seeing the original, here's what I came away with on my Canon disc.

Rails Scraped White

<-Click here

The sons of Pullman porters ride their father’s magic carpet
And the rhythm of the rails is a gentle heal….
The Warren F. Bennet sways along a metal highway that once lashed America together with a tenacity tighter than politics, entertainment, revivalism, and the greenback dollar all mixed together and baked in a Bessemer oven. There are still patches of glimmering steel scraped white by the Warrem F. Bennet’s wheels. And inside there’s still the air they breathed when Lincoln rocked along toward Gettysburg to tell about forefathers, nations, Liberty and equality – and to remember how some short distance to the west from Lancaster a great cause – caused so many to bleed. When the Warren F. Bennet rode a younger magic carpet made of steel.

Wooden

<-Click here
I can do ambiguous... But subtle? No... no... I do subtle the way that say, George Michael does subtle. Like Warhol, Souza, or maybe Jim Carey do subtle.
See this image? When I saw the toy I thought I could do a study of wood grain, carving and gentle colors. The way photographer friends have bathed things like cellos in sweet light. And then my imagination kicked in. And I saw the depth of the texture and the way the instruments actually gouged into the surface. And I saw the way the light created contrasts across what was anything but a smooth surface. And well... the image began to look designed by the same person who does Christina Aguilera's look.
I watched me teasing out the colors in all of their intensity. Hues that make a child giggle and run to the thing. And texture that invites kids to touch, bang, push, pull... rock and holler in joy as they ride the thing around.
And subtle went away.
Anybody got a cello?

Grand Whirl

<- Click here
Bustle is what you think about when you think of Metropolis. And an epicenter of bustle is Grand Central Station. How to get that across in the middle of a grey day? And how to portray the abstract concept of busy-ness without losing the sense of New York City? Easy... get a taxi in the image, right?
So? How my doing?

Tripping

<- Click here
Sunday as we awaited the New York train chugging into Lancaster's station, a steely sky colored things blue as the daybreak's cold. As the winds snapped this door about I realized the box contained a track just as real as the one in the background. Each can take us somewhere. One, at the speed of light, can whip ideas around the globe. The other, more sedately, can start bodies on a worldwide trip. Two doorways here on this 19th century train platform... when do you think the technologies powering the second will match the speed of the first?

Ticket To Ride

<- Click here
So it seems that my litte ride over to Strasburg last weekend resulted in a some posts here and visits to my website, where they're saved under the "Lancaster County" tab.
Which got me to wondering what sort of poster a gallery about that visit ought to look like. Since I don't do that kind of graphic art, but really admire artists who do, I thought I'd give it a try... To create an introductory image that would both identify the collection while encouraging visitors to explore them.
How's this work?

Got Him, See!

<- Click here
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him. But I'd snap my head around and he'd pop back to normal. The guy was goofing on me. So what I did was casually drape my camera down at my side and turn away, snapping the shutter when he thought I wasn't looking. You know what I'm saying here?
And I caught him, all puffed up, playing his game. I guess I fixed him, eh?

And We Left, Why?

<- Click here
If you squinch your eyes down to slits you'll really get this image. You'll smell the fresh morning air, hear the chugs and bells, and maybe a conductor's song. And you'll see women in long full skirts, and men in bowlers. Perhaps the breeze would carry pipe or cigar smoke (this was way before a man would be caught with a girly cigarette). We're so comfortable in our changes, our progress. We feel almost like differtent animals from folks long dead. And yet, there in that spot, as you look down that track, you can see the craftsmanship, sense the jaunty vivid optimism, and over all notice just how clean and mannerly everyone is. And then you wonder... is this a moment you really want to leave? And maybe you wonder why we all did? Hmmmm..... It was pretty in Strasburg, huh? But now, looking at those antiques, I wonder if it was just last Saturday?

Cigar Is A Cigar

<- Click here
Everyone knows that Freud figured that no matter what sort of erotic connotation it might seem to have in dreams, well, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I'm usually trying to communicate an idea or emotion in my images. But sometimes craft is enough. This pair of renderings are what they seem and no more. I saw this old dining car at Strasburg Rail Road last Saturday. In the sun, it gleamed like a rare gem. And look at the workmanship, wow. I wanted to make it pop. Sometimes visitors ask me if I can take a straight picture. Well, you judge. At first I was tempted to go sepia to capture the warmth of age. But people at the turn of the last century didn't see in sepia. So here's what I think they saw when this great work of rail road craft pulled into their station. It made them feel good, right?

Crushed Together

<- Click here
Big times tonight (New Year's Eve), so wanna blog early. Saw this crushed plastic water bottle during Rocco's Great Train Adventure yesterday. They say that mid day lighting, particularly in winter, is the worst. Yet this seemed so gentle. How to explain it? Anybody got ideas? Anywayzzzzz...

Here were wonderful elements... trackbed stones, a metal wuzzit, and that capped bottle. Hmmm... I wonder which of these will have the longest half-life? Anywayzzzz.... It was a combination of the forms basked in glorious light and the color that sparked up at me and begged out for doucumentation. Nothing here is "natural"... every element was randomly distributed by some people. But slathered in that end-of-the-year-light... Whoa! They meld together in a perfect major chord, no?

Happy 2007 everyone...

Secret Forgotten Passageway

<- Click here
Took a hike with my buddy today. In 1927, Lancaster finally threw the Pennsylvania Railroad out of its center city and opened a new "grand" station on what was the city's far border. From the 1850's at least, tracks and trains cut a wide swath across the town, creating intolerable noise, congestion, wild vibrations, and just plain danger to commerce and pedestrians alike. So, how did these tracks wander through neighborhoods, and what did the city's front door look like to those hundreds of thousands who arrived over the years by might Pennsylvania Rail Road train? Rocco and I followed the clues and discovered the hidden passageway into this colonial brick and shutter town.

Allegory

<- Click here
It's an annoyance that Lancaster County hates its county seat and only city. Whether they consider it God-less, heathen, criminal, spend-thrift, foreign, minority ridden, inefficient, inebriate, lazy, grim, or just plain dangerous - the consensus among county folks would agree with fencing the thing in. And yet, in order to serve the religious, political, civil, judicial, professional, and social service requirements of the county, some 30% of the city of Lancaster's land has been removed from the tax roles (including a couple of very large plots containing the county's only jails). Meantime surrounding municipalities erected thick zoning walls against high or even medium density residential construction - legally sealing into the city low and moderate income people.

All of that has resulted in a disproportionate number of city residents with special needs. But since only property taxes are allowed to support the city services, middle income people flee the Lancaster's consequently higher taxes.

And when the city attempts to create tax enhancing projects - like a convention center - the county people of both political parties - fearing competition - rebel, electing a team of viciously hostile county commissioners who are less than affectionately known as Manny, Moe, and Molly.

Can you see the fence built all along the tracks? Incidentally, residents of the county are deeply religious.

Sfumato Depreciation

<- Click here
Eighty years ago, in 1927, the Pennsylvania Railroad moved its main station from the very center of Lancaster city to a spot on the border. It was, as pictures of the day show, an unambitious new building. And for eight decades it's been worn into nubs by countless travelers. Twenty five years ago, Harrison Ford's hand grabbed this post in a movie called "Witness". Maybe they don't want to repair it out of sentimentality? Perhaps it's like the teenager who refuses to wash her fingers for days after touching a rock-star idol?
The station still works, and probably will until it tumbles. But its workers seem to love her. They've got the inside merrily decorated for the Christmas season. But I guess this little pictured post's beyond shining. Subsidized roads and airports have stolen the travelers away, and a financially struggling AMTRAK won't be soon around with polish.
For this little guy, at least, it doesn't look to be a happy newel year.