Saturday, June 29, 2024

Ordinary Oshkosh Mornings

The Diversity 30 was clumsily finished after correcting for an error on the template. It worked but it looked a little rough and I was concerned for its durability. The pinholes were very nice. When checking cameras for Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, I gave it a few coats of Mod Podge which I hadn't begun using when I made it. That stiffened it up, made the corners sharper and definitely held everything together better. To recover from my last complex post with it's manic 3 solid days of editing, I loaded it with modest Kentmere 100. It took four bike rides of three exposures each to use the film, all about 9:00 in the morning.

In Menomonee Park, what caught my eye was the vendor tent behind this tree. When the camera was ready on the tripod there were two dogs having a conversation, while their walkers patiently waited, right where I wanted to put the camera. I stood behind the tree until they were finished and noticed these knarly roots in the dappled sunshine.



The awning that originally stopped me. The thought that got me off the bicycle was this was a pretty extreme exposure challege. Would details in the light canvas and the shaded lawn be visible? Could you see the cooker in the shadows and the slight translucency of the cloth?



With the old changing house gone and three new benches along the beach, Lake Winnebago has a vaguely Mediterranean look about it now. 



A little different view of the north inlet to Millers Bay than you usually see here. The T-dock is heavily used by fishers and seagulls but nobody ever docks a boat there. After years of being in the ice's way, it's getting a little wavy and low in the water. If memory serves, they just rebuild it when it gets too wonky.



Because it's so managed by dams, the level of Lake Winnebago and the Fox River through Oshkosh doesn't change very much. The wetlands on the other side of the Wiowash Trail from the river look especially full now though.



I was part of the group that decided whether this former below ground lecture pit would be a computer lab or a "collaboration area." The active learning lounge idea won. The computer lab is in the basement.



A back alley behind Main Street on the south side.



I'd been looking all along for interesting shadows of trees on the stone buildings of Oshkosh and found little I hadn't already photographed. The wide angle might give this side entrance a few jutting rectangles and the bush and handrail might cast a few shadows.



A theme that shows up here occasionally is large trees and their shadows in front of prominent buildings. Somehow I made this massive oak and the huge limestone block of the Wisconsin National Life Addition look like a shrub in front of an suburban access-road clinic.


 
The correct scale is more apparent with the tree on the corner by the Grand Opera House.



Pilora's Food Truck plugged in behind the restaurant. I get that Food Truck culture can create an opportunity for entrepreneurs to offer unique takes on cuisines but I really don't want to eat in the parking lot.



Another exposure test with the Oshkosh Laundry (originally a Holiday Station if you're from Wisconsin) shown here in its true colors. When I suggested a monochrome scheme for decorating The IDeA Lab in 1996, everyone at the meeting mocked me. I was 30 years ahead of my time. About half the recent construction and restoration projects are black, grey and white.


The Diversity 30 has two .23mm hand-drilled pinholes, one on the axis and one 11mm above it. The Kentmere 100 was semistand developed in Rodinal 1:100.

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