Escapism

For the last three weeks, we have had four 350-horsepower diesels idling outside the house, which you can feel, with periods of tremendous crashes and clashes of metal-on-metal-on-earth every ten minutes or so.

I made a few escapes with a roll of XPired XP2 in the Little Mutant. There was a regatta of Class A, C and E scows on Lake Winnebago. I arrived as they were launching them, the second time this has happened to me. All five crew members and a few support folks were crawling all over the deck when I started to extend the tripod, but only these two and some spectacular flare were left when the shutter opened.

On the port side of this photograph, launching that boat with the crew on board. One of them introduced herself as a photographer and inquired about the Little Mutant. She'd never done any kind of analogue photography. I gave her my card. Hi!

How I spent my summer vacation. The New York Times review of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt begins with an anecdote about what a commitment a 750-page novel is. I intended to illustrate the wear a paperback of that magnitude experiences after two reads, unaware of how skillfully that trompe l'oeil tear on the book's cover mimics the actual damage.

August 19th is World Photography Day, on which day in 1838, Daguerre first announced his success. He didn't tell anybody how to do it until the next winter, when the French Government paid him for it, faking Talbot into revealing his process first. To properly participate, I took the camera as I went to Oaks Chocolate.

As I was crossing the Jefferson Street Bridge, I saw a pedestrian limping toward me. I stopped at the cutout in front of the bridge house, but was waved forward with the comment that he was only going into the bridge house, which I was in front of. As I started to go, he said, "Where are you going?" I stopped again and told him Oaks Chocolate. 

"Bring me back a box!"

I told him I was a photographer and had done a project about bridge tenders' houses, and I'd get him the chocolate if he'd let me inside and take photographs. Those chocolates were really good but he couldn't do that. I started again,

"Have you heard the bridge is closing for a day next week?"

Again, we had a conversation about the former closure and repair of this bridge three years ago, and the upcoming long-term closure of the Main Street bridge. At some point, it was clear he just wanted to continue talking to someone, and I asked Jim if I could do his portrait.

I placed the camera in the out-of-the-way corner while I got the chocolate. The figure at the counter is a combination of me and the lady following me. They're her white socks.

A compelling sky with Ames Point, Monkey Island and some unusually clustered geese.

Jazzfest was occurring downtown. The 400 block of Main was closed with a stage at the bottom.

The group from the just-finished tribute to local notable John Harmon posing for photographers, including me.

From behind the stage, John Harmon himself at the piano.

The Democratic Party taking advantage of their location on the closed block, selling cheap hot dogs and brats. With jazz's history of diversity, acceptance of new ideas, and cooperation, the other party farther down the street is either entirely ignorant of jazz or, by policy, repelled by it. Their loss.

The Raulf Hotel gave me another excuse for the interesting skies.

The Little Mutant has .27mm pinholes, one on the axis, and one 10mm above the axis, 45mm from a 6x6cm frame.  The XP2 was semi-stand developed in Rodinal 1:100.