Shadow Play

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The Ephrata Cloisters at sunrise are clean. Crisp. Mysterious. Here's a place where a sect committed suicide slowly. They allowed old age to kill them. No... they purposely aimed aging at their heads and let it run them down. The Seventh Day Baptist Community were called The Shakers. Their home community was founded in the early 1700s by Conrad Beissel in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. They took Biblical sexual fears to their logical conclusions, banning all of it. Without sex, there were no kids. Without kids... eventually, no shakers. Think of the Jim Jones deal but with very slow acting Kool-Aid. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's meticulously preserved a dozen or so of their buildings. You probably know of them for their determinedly utilitarian furniture which is still coveted around the world. You probably didn't know that they built short doors into every building so should they walk about without humbly bowing, well... they'd bop-their-heads for God.

Remember, they were great carpenters - so the buildings while shorn of all ornamentation - are majestic structures, lovely in their hard wrapped simplicity and high craft.

Colored Pencil?

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I'm after an effect here. I've tried to create the look of colored pencils. This is just a quick, almost throwaway, photo-sketch I did of friend's home. By the way, notice the earthquake bolts running above the first level of these buildings. They became the law after the great Atlanta earthquake of the 1870s (I believe the date is reasonably accurate). The thing was so severe church bells rang in Lancaster.

Anyway... does this present the illusion of colored pencil coloring on charcoal paper?

Rural Church

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Lancaster County's Southern End is peppered with tiny churches which seemed built during the last great revival in the 1920s. You've seen the old postcards of those places and times - often hand painted to affect an ethereal color mix. So when I came upon The Green Hill UMC yesterday afternoon, under the overcast skies - I wanted to capture the charm of those cards. Cards that were produced when a lot of evangelical theology was forming into the very mold that's held it firm till today. While the county's Amish have clung to a technology which froze in the late 1800s, the county's devout born-again believers hold fast to a set of teachings which froze about forty years later. And the two define part of this region's culture just as firmly as this church describes its rural parts.

Skin Trade

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About seven miles south west of Lancaster city lies The Great Minqua Path which was the chief trail used by the Minqua or Susquehannock Indians to carry massive wealth in beaver skins to the white settlements on the Delaware during the mid-seventeenth century. The Swedes, Dutch, and English warred for control of this trade. Just out of the frame to the right is the wide Susquehanna river rolling down to meet the Chesapeake Bay about eighteen miles south. See, Spring has come finally to this part of the river valley, a tiny hamlet on Turkey Hill, called Blue Rock.


About the technique (NOTE: this revision to this day's posting was made early in the morning of 4/24/7): If you'll look at the comments... I have grown to HATE this image. I particularly detest the way the barn wood has lost all detail, resembling a badly adjusted HDTV monitor. Or a particularly cheap one. The thought of taking it down appealed to me, but that would have lost Andreas's important comments. So instead, I think I'll leave it - but instead add this revised enhancement of the same photograph. You tell me... Any improvement?

Parking • 1934

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I thought about this alleyway a lot before making this image. How much has it changed from say the 1930s when Hammet's Sam Spade, or Chandler's Philip Marlowe bounced down these kinds of lanes in a battered Cord. Can't you hear, oh - I don't know - maybe Lester Young's tenor growling out the surprisingly sweet, "These Foolish Things"? And see how the last stabs of sky-color mix with the old auto's yellow lights to catch the peeling hues of pre-Depression parking-garage paint. Where these things horse or carriage stalls just a decade earlier? And now, eighty years later, can we see - through our squinting eyes- any hint of what they'll be eighty years from now when people not yet born bounce down the lanes at sunset in... in... what?

Uh-oh... Wuzzat The Top I Just Stepped Over?

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There's no excuse for this. Well maybe there's an explanation. Um, it's Spring. And with the sun just right on the newly green leaves... Well it's Spring and that brings out the best and worst in my enthusiasm. And well I was able to do this image, so I did this image.

And maybe self control is a good thing. And definitely self-indulgence is a bad thing. And this thing screams out "LOOKIT ME!" And little kids who do that should get their knuckles cracked. But... but... well... It's Spring and a that's when maybe... just maybe... You'll forgive me for going over the top with this W. Lemon Street image I took when I picked up a friend for lunch. Or not.... Sigh....

Patterned Data

Okay, time for some of my infernal wonderings. Get ready for this... deep stuff coming....

If information is data arranged into a recognizable pattern then... then... what are facts? Aren't they a subset of information? I mean there's factual information which I guess we can call truth, and there're un-factual informations. But those are not necessarily lies. I mean, opinion can be un-factual, right? Yet opinion happens in information-land somewhere between factual and un-factual. A theory for example is an opinion until proven. But if theory has internal consistency and predictive capacity, then we can apply theory to create predictable results...even though theory isn't necessarily truth. Okay.. okay... there's a lot here. Now, take a look at today's extension of yesterday's discussion of what may be ancient blocks.

The Lancaster Stock yard had streets paved in what probably was debris recycled from the ballast piles nearby to seaports. Now these same blocks are being carefully mined from the streets and piled for sale. They have more value today then when their only cost was in transporting them from their ballast piles.

What gave them their original value? I look at this pile of data and try to impose a pattern. Half of their value comes from their eventual use in walkways or facades. Another half comes from the meticulous value that quarry-people carved into them. The pattern comes from a sort of handshake between long dead minds and perhaps not yet born designers who will re-cycle them into another life.

Does the value of human creation ever go away? is it like some law of thermodynamics which says we do, therefore some part of our imaginations go on and on? Is this a pile of cobblestone, or a mound of facts - fodder for potential information ready to be fit into the pattern of some not yet introduced intelligence?

Or is it just a cool picture? Wuddever...

Ancient? & Yet More News!

LOOK! MORE BREAKING NEWS!!!

It's official. I've been offered, and I've accepted an invitation to mount my first one-man show. Yeeee-Hah! The Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County has extended me the chance on September 7 to show my work in their grandly restored Sehner-Ellicott-von Hess House (circa 1787} in the City of Lancaster the site of planning for both the Mason-Dixon survey which forever drew the line between America's North and South - and for the Lewis & Clarke expedition which opened much of the American West (immortalizing the Shoshone woman Sacagawea).
It's about time that I finally tried to put together a cross section of my work, I just haven't decided what to print BIG as opposed to normal. I think I'd like to have at least one grand eye stopper measured in feet instead of inches. Just can't decide what. Perhaps for this audience it should be from my Lancaster City or County collection? I'm open to suggestions. Hmmmm....

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Speaking of history, this masoned stone sits atop the marble stairway leading into my home. I found it last year when repairs on a nearby street unearthed it. It's quite heavy. As you know, stones like this were used for ballast on the great sailing ships that came to the Americas empty where they were tossed into great heaps when the hulls were filled with product from the colonies. They were later used for cheap paving and lie under most of the central streets of America's colonial towns.

This is the first of a two part series of images I've taken over the past few months, the most recent which I took last week will get posted tomorrow. My point is... who quarried them? Were they a specific product created in Europe specifically for the boats? Or were they actually torn from the ancient and abandoned roads in the Old World? Am I looking at a Roman or Greek artifact here? Or is it older than that? Apparently they have a significant value today... as you'll see tomorrow. Oh and incidentally... This image was strongly influenced by Andreas Manessinger's cool eye for found design. If you haven't visited Andreas' daily photographic explorations, you have a treat in store.

Magic...

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Have you ever sat at symphony to hear the counter melody building from below... at first it's subtly low but recurring while the primary theme soars on the highest strings - until you're stirred and moved. But no, the left hand becomes insistent, growing - a fury blowing out the lacy harmonics of the violins and violas. It bursts through from below - and... and overwhelms all in its volume and unsettling, unresolvable, minor key. It storms its way through everything in harmonics that irritate... growling to a crescendo... dominating...

Then the disruptive figure in the bass falls silent, and the sweet romantic chords regain your attention... your spirit, your soul.

I have a visual obsession with counterpoint. Some have called it operatic. It comes out, more often than not, in my signature skies. And yet skies are so mystical while what's below them is unrelated fact. To believe that the heavens and earth are in cahoots is to believe in magic. But so frequently they form a stormy foreboding metaphor in my images. They seem to be as much a part of my visual voice as the disruptive symphonic bass line is to symphony.

Interesting how much we reveal about ourselves in a simple sunrise snapshot of a listing cottage atop a sand dune overlooking Cape Cod Bay. Are these clichés? Do you see this image and go, "Omagawd Ted, not more snarling clouds. Enough already!" Is there more to discover in this relationship, or has it been mined now for all its worth? Is it time for this disruptive figure in my bass to fall silent?

Gotta think on that.... (Grows quiet: peers at monitor sitting quietly rubbing his beard). "Hmmmmmmmm..."

Roswell 1947-2007 & More NEWS!!

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Sixty years ago some debris was recovered in the New Mexico desert just outside of the tiny hamlet of Roswell. Rumor has it that a top secret site called Area 61 contains those findings. But a convoy of large army trucks was spotted barreling through the night just a week after whatever happened there... and it lumbered northwest toward a meeting with the east bound freight line in Albuquerque.
And this hidden spot, deep within the walls of an abandoned decaying industrial Lancaster courtyard sits about one hundred yards from the great East-West rail trunk which joined Washington, DC to the western American frontier. Hmmmm.... what was this thing? What did, or does it contain? Whatever it is or was... the shape seems somehow familiar, eh?

AND MORE BREAKING NEWS!!!

More sizzling stuff! You'll recall that last Wednesday I told you that the Canon Digital Photography Forums accepted one of my submissions to include in an upcoming book in the Transportation Category. And last night I learned that a second image of mine also won acceptance in the very competitive Travel & Landscape Category. Now that was really hot stuff. If I made too big a deal, um, sorry but hey - there were submissions from all over the world. It felt cool. So now it moves from cool to HOT! I have been informed that a THIRD... A THIRD of my submissions has been accepted for the book in the Sports Category! Son of a gun! You can see the original post of this image by clicking here.

I took the shot that underpinned this graphic toward the end of the Lancaster Barnstormer's 2006 championship season with my Canon 20D and the Canon EFS 17-85mm (f4-5.6). It is a montage. The sun actually sets over center-left field but somehow this works better, no? At the moment it looks as if this is not only an accepted image but tentatively it could be the full page signature piece to introduce the sports section of the book. Of course they'll make the ultimate decision when they get the final image and see how it prints, but I'm encouraged by their early remarks.

And that's not all, I'm awaiting final word - but I may have even more exciting news to announce this weekend. Hey... all things considered, not such a ratty Friday The Thirteenth, eh?

Forelorn & AWARD #2!!!

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Stopped by the stockyards again late this afternoon and in the 5:45 light there was a sense of hopeless fading. Even the color painted it grim. I came away depressed. Does it show?

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Last night I told you that the Canon Digital Photography Forums accepted one of my submissions to include in an upcoming book in the Transportation Category. Well now I've learned that a second image of mine has also won acceptance in the very competitive Travel & Landscape Category. Whoa... As I explained yesterday, candidates were invited to submit up to two entries into a number of categories. No more than one of those submissions could be accepted by the juries for each category. Well the judges tell me that the image you will see if you click here has won inclusion in the book along with my Transportation submission that I referenced last night.

This image posted last October 9th was taken on Corporation Beach in E. Denis, MA at sunrise. Although it has some trappings of the HDR process, it isn't one at all. Rather the image took advantage of the wide exposure latitude inherent in a RAW photograph captured by my Canon 20D. That was the actual sky that morning in the south east at around 7:30. Fall came late to New England last year and the foliage still had much of the lushness of summer while the sky was filled with Autumn. This was the first morning following three days of storming which produced a dramatic sunrise.

I'm quite flattered to have two of my submissions accepted for publication by the Canon Forums in a compilation of the best photo images of 2006. This is reeeeeeely great.

Winner! Yeah!

A couple of things tonight. First off... The Canon Digital Forums held a worldwide juried contest to select a limited number of inclusions in an upcoming photographic book. You could submit up to two images in each of a number of categories, but no more than one could be selected to appear in any one category. Great submissions zapped in from all over the world. I submitted to five and have recently heard that one of my images has been accepted in the Transportation category. Go click here for my original posting of the engine from the Strasburg Railroad which will appear in the book.

Wheeeee! And now this....
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So last night I posted this image fo a Gulf station I pass on my way to work. Well I also posted it on the Canon site, wondering if anyone there might see some meaning to it which I missed and a respondent named Denoro wrote, "For me, when I first saw it, it appeared to be making a commentary on oil companies / our countries struggle to obtain oil resources. I thought this due to the Gulf gas station with the firey clouds that reflected the red/orange colors that fire would cast. I also found the photo to slap the viewer in the face a bit with the "Have a SUPER day" banner set off to the right in the photo.

I think it's great. I would tweak the color hue & saturation on the gas station sign because it looks a bit odd to me. Those colors and light would cast down on the area below but the front of the signs, polls and price sign would not be that saturated since the color cast would not directly fall on those areas. I hope that made sense.

Overall, awesome work."

Now that was quite nice and it made me wonder what'd happen if I took the directions. So... here they are in this image. Any thoughts?

The Gulf Station

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There's a gap, I suppose, between the authentic and the synthetic. I also suppose with this image that I have tumbled hopelessly into it.

In the daily commute, here's the 400 block of N. Lime St. and the only gasoline station in the city's northern end. The owners get away with an extra dime a gallon above prices just outside of Lancaster. It's city profiteering. Incidentally, the city's oldest cemetary surrounds these two structures and extends up the rest of this block on the right. I suspect that this house is the home of the cemetar's caretaker. On the other side of the street to your left is Lancaster's nursing school which opened last year.

A Round Of Tanks

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At the Landis Valley Museum they once used propane gas to control the climate inside of their restored structures. These are they... showing a patina of age right along with the buildings.

And of course since these cylinders were used to preserve the exhibits, well we can call them... "Tanks For The Memories..." Tah-Dah!

Century Mix

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Can you sense the difference. As the city grew north of E. Chestnut 19th century buildings began to mix with 18th. The ovals of the Federal Period were introduced. A sense of late 1800s mixes with the boxes of the 1700s. It's as if you'd invited in a decorator to subtly mix styles of furniture. But you ordered her to do it with a coherent grace and charm.

Here on the two blocks above E. Chestnut St. along N. Lime toward Walnut - people live in places which filled lots, as if a puzzle were getting completed. And the back filled homes are newer frequently than those on either side of them. Yet we grow so used to the mix that we think of it as, well... Lancaster.

Mystery Hut

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It snowed this morning! Just as the first blooms peeked out on Tuesday and Wednesday - the temperature snuck below freezing last night and gentle large flakes swirled around this morning's sky.

Pushing along my early commute... yesterday I passed Williams Apothecary and about half a block farhter down this morning I saw this tiny building. While it's now a storage shack for the firm which owns the parking lot surrounding it... you can see it was probably built in the 1920s. Why? See today's commuting map on the right? I've marked the structure's spot with a number five at the end of the green pointer. But you can also see a blue line coming in from the right and curving down to the spot marked 5a where the mighty Pennsylvania Rail Road rumbled along that blue line to its station at 5a.

The station and track were removed in 1917 from spots they occupied for about a century. See how the blue line cuts a swath through the city? And right in the center of that old rail bed sits this tiny hut. Click here to revisit
the hike Rocco and I made to rediscover some of this old right of way last December 30th.

Someone once spent a lot to carefully lay those bricks that make up that little building. It's not large enough to have been a garage. No one seems to know its original purpose, and it's no larger than a single office space. So... why put this up on a busy city thoroughfare about a dozen years after the RR left? With nothing around it.

At night, as the snow swirls about, it looks magical there. Maybe this is where Santa kept a regional office for his elves?

Horse Houses

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Yesterday we passed the Lancaster Museum of Art on the right as I do each morning travelling north on N. Lime St. and the first stop light is at the corner of E. Chestnut. See how convenient city living is? Right here, less than a block from my home is Williams Apothecary. Odd thing about Williams, maybe once a year or so, during the night - someone runs a vehicle into it! But the repairs sure keep the facade sparkling new, even while it's been crafted to mimic the pharmacies of the eighteenth century.

This block starting with Williams (marked with green arrow #3 on the map) and moving on up N. Lime includes some four or five richly restored row homes which were probably quite grand in the late 1700s. A historical marker just beyond the signal light pole says that the British troops which occupied Lancaster during the War of Independence, comandeered those houses. And for a year or so, to put the pesky Lancastrian patriots in their place, the calvary quartered their horses in those homes which probably included what's now the Apothecary.

Almost Next Door

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Back on last Wednesday (March 24) I'd left off my daily commute just up the block from my home. Now those townhouses I showed you face directly onto The Grubb Mansion, an early 19th century home which, as you can see from the map, now sits at the front of Musser Park. It's the current home of The Lancaster Museum of Art. Ignore the orange netting, Musser Park is undergoing a dramatic face lift which I'll reveal later in the Spring. For now, here's our neigbhor, three buildings north of us.It's marked with a "3" and a pointing green arrow on the map.

Can you imagine how cool it is to walk your dog past the city's art museum a few times a day? Once I was on the museum's board, and as members, Rita and I rarely miss a show.

In terms of my commute - this is instants from my home in the morning. By the way, Lancaster has two commuter rush hours and each lasts at least fifteen minutes. But since I'm going out when everyone's coming in, and vice versa... well the only gridlock I ever run into happens when the snow or ice slows things down a hair. What? Maybe three times a year. This, of course, is another advantage of living in the city's epicenter.

Phwump! It Is All Here!

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Just for a moment, think with me about videos, dramas, novels... heck, and writing of all sorts. They are all sequential art forms.

Huh?

Okay, let me try that differently. As I write this, one word follows after another.... see? And you have to go from the word "Just" up there in the first sentence down to this .... word... to see what I am getting at. Sequential. Get it? Same with movies... you go from the opening to the closing. Ditto poetry, dance, even journalism (which is a subcategory of fiction, but I digress).

But... but... but.... Here is what is cool. The advantage of still photography is that it is not sequential. It is not successive. Nope... it is simultaneous. See my image up above? It is everything you need to contemplate, to understand, to "get" my image up above... as opposed to going from the word "Just" to this last word here. Um.... "HERE"!

Across The Street

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Suburban artists are fascinated by city vagrants and grit. The force they exercise on suburbanite imagination is almost gravitational. Somehow they got the idea that the city's center is some menacing hood, filledl up with marauding homies, graffiti, and spit-pocked sidewalks. Ah but city people know how interesting the place is. Think about it. If you walk in the burbs, beyond macro shots of flowers a'bloom, a random dog, and kids romping on grass carpets - how far will you have to hike to find some character, eh? Meantime, I walk across the street and grab this shot.

Note to self: Better do a couple of gritty images of steet toughs or burbanites will move here rocketing my home's price higher than the space shuttle. Hmmmm... maybe I can hire some kids to dress up and play act? Gotta think on that....