it seems that i nod with an accent

the good people who fear the lost of the french in québec must never get out of montréal, up here english was a distant memory. i even lost radio one and instead listened espace musique of radio canada which actually puts radio two and that pathetic vinyl café on npr to shame. what a great mix of music. it seems that when one gets away from english one is freed. so there was francophone québecois, then something african, some brasilian, over to cabo verde, up to spain, etc and never once was the world music mentioned. i sort of missed it when the cbc took over again around new richmond.

i already i found that i have no need to rush out in the morning. in fact i take as long to get started as do on the rock, i didn’t bother to head out until about 10am as to-day would be a piece of cake. i was simply to head up to the tip of the gaspé peninsula then down into new brunswick, after the driving i had been doing this was nothing, in fact i could probably make it so that i could catch the ferry and get to the opening in woody point two days from now and i could do it once without racing across the maritimes.

i wanted coffee, i had the two bags the motel provided and some at the buffet. but i wanted more. it would have been nice to have been in the centre of rimouski as i could have walked to a couple of cafés but as it was...

was shocked by rimouski, there were people out and about, people biking up the river front, people walking, the town had bike lanes and people were using them to get places rather than simply exercise. at times i forget that people actually use their legs and venture out for a walk.

i skipped the coffee as my thrifty demeanour set in - i wasn’t going to pay a parking meter for coffee this was too much of a big city mentality. so headed up the coast for what was a mere 850 km. i could do that in my sleep.

except that yesterday’s habits started straight off. i stopped to photograph along the river front. then the drive in then, a few closed shops along 132 then some street furniture.

i stopped to photograph another hockey rink and ended up chatting with some day care workers for about an hour.

i had to stop at the marcel gagnon house, they were like bad thiesenhausens,
then there was whale in matane-sur-mer, the wind farm that stretched quite some distance in st ulric.

all in all it took me three hours to go some 50 km.

i resolved to to better and not be distracted by everything i saw and started to up the pace - well after the graffiti on an erratic in the middle of the st lawrence or another empty dép a non catholic church.

another problem was that my sight was better than my recognition. i would see something interesting while speeding up the road at 100km - that seems safe with the sureté - but it would take a good kilometre before i would recognise it then another bit of road before i could turn around.


i also realised that my driving habits in sparsely populated newfoundland, may not be the best method in more populous québec. just pulling off to the side of the road didn’t seem to be done all that much here, nor did pulling into people’s driveways.

i also realised that while i was photographing more or less the same things i was heading to the rock to do, they carried a completely different meaning down here. an empty building didn’t have the significance that it does in an outport as here people could simply go up the road. while the towns along 132 were pretty self sufficient, it wasn’t out of necessity but out of tradition as the towns were close enough that it this were the states every third town would have been emptied of shops and the inhabitants would have simply driven to the next town. all of the villages made peasant pissoir look like an out soviet outpost with its lack of amenities.

the villages were nice, few chains - even t. ho’s was hard to find - i know i needed my double double - there were supermarket chains but there were also more deps than i could count. so where here a closed shop meant someone lost a job, it didn’t speak of the fragility of a population they way it does in newfoundland.

i also realised why it was taking me so much time to get anyplace. on the rock i could drive a good bit without running into a town - the southern shore between cappahayden and st vincent’s. along 132 there would thirty towns all with something to make me stop. there is no bay d’espoir highway here.

in the end even though i continued to photograph businesses that have gone under, i realised that even though the snaps look like the ones i would make on the rock, the ramifications are different.

passing matane - the last crossing to the north shore of the st lawrence, i wondered if over there the villages were as “comfortable”. i liked the towns along the southern shore but while they were all independent, i didn’t have that feeling of tenuousness that i feel in bird cove or st shotts. the people in outport newfoundland make a decision to stay whereas in bas st laurent people decide not to leave.

it was duckish as i was at the tip of the peninsula straining to see land out over the gulf. making it to bathurst would be impossible but i wanted to make it to new brunswick. i could focus on driving as it was so dark that i couldn’t make snaps which was a pity as on the south coast of the gaspé i ran into this strange francophone atlantic city.

in percé everyone was out and about, there were light everywhere, places to eat amusments and it seems the coast is more dramatic - only saw the rochers percés in the dark.

while it is peaceful and definitely i am more focused, i hate driving up here at night and it all has to do with moose. my preferred way of travel is to work a “convoy” with me as the machine that follows. that way the person in front of me can hit the moose and i can use his headlamps to see further in front.

i misjudged distance and the related time, again being used to newfoundland where there is a distance between populations one can build up a speed along the roads. here no, i was driving more often at 60 than 90, i kept putting back my time to cross into new brunswick at every town.

crossing the border and heading into atlantic time i pulled up to the hojo’s at midnight.

-it about 12 hours between here and the ferry at north sydney right?
-yes i’d say a good 12.
that’s fine i could sleep late and still take it easy crossing

there is a river out there somewhere

i had planned to make it down to the city centre of kingston for the night but instead ended up in the nether regions that weren’t the 401 and were downtown. it was a minor motel row with the one i was staying in having a view of the loblaws.

i got in too late to really care, i didn’t care the the $49 rooms were taken and i had to have a $75 room. i didn’t care when the ice machine was broken. i didn’t care when the continental breakfast was a chocolate muffin and a plastic cup of coffee. i simply wrote a bit and fell asleep.

in another effort to slow down. here is strange part, if i slow too much i shan’t make it to do what i want but i don’t want to race this is becoming a weird balancing act. in another effort to slow down i thought that i would actually go down to the water and see where lake ontario becomes the st lawrence.


was surprised i liked the city, i liked the area east of the centre, the wind farm on the other shore had a nice sculptural feel to it. i remembered that i was up here for the 1000 islands but never could place where they were.

didn’t get the ritual double double instead had a proper coffee at a local café - to take away of course - had to make time (sort of).

the 401 got old pretty quickly. this was the day where i needed some goal to be reached and soon. another day deadly super highway driving would be a killer and already my mind was wandering. this happened in 2005 with the endless interstates to new brunswick but was alleviated last year as there was barely a day of interstate driving before we sneaked into the province.

got off at cornwall simply to see the river. didn’t realise it was so far off the 401 and when i head into a large town i am at a loss as to where to go obviously one would think the centre but usually they are disappointments as they are usually tarted up beyond what the rest of the place looks like.

headed down a street that paralleled - at some distance - the river and came across a motel which was now a residence. i only realised this after i had hopped out and was making snaps of the sign when people started to stare those who were in their rooms and not smoking came out to watch also.

started up a conversation with tim who talked about the way cornwall was a few years back, he showed me a postcard of the motel with the sign lit and talked of others that were in the area.

still not in photographic mode or rather not sure which mode to be in. i had photographed him and his cat - a norwegian maine coon mix - which i used as an ice breaker - with ziquinho but realising that i would want the sign for the blog and flickr i went back and photographer everybody again.

went back well i think slowly so i was heading downtown under the massive bridge that lead to the states that towered over the city, it seemed to start its climb miles inland and looked like some sort of prison walkway. i couldn’t see the other end of it.

it was only after trying to photograph the bridge - not very pleasing aesthetically - that i headed back for another session at the motel.

cornwall reminded me of beloit or what beloit would hope to be, to make sure the city centre didn’t die - they brought the wal-mart downtown.

hitting québec, i realised what was wrong with the 401 - it was souless. it was a utopian road. smooth straight it did everything to make you forget that you are one a super highway.

entering the nation - the road changed, colour and texture, there were glitches, it made noises, it was like driving again. being numb from driving it was little things as that that served as rewards for accomplishing something.

the sureté were out in force. making a wrong turn meaning that i had to go through a bit of montréal, there was a trap where the road went from 100 to 50 with five sureté cars waiting to ticket.

again what i saw of montréal - after all the last time i was there drapeau was mayor - again i prefer it to toronto well the expressway goes through montréal. again the city has a lived in look that toronto never does. although i am sure that anything is possible i think it would be harder for montréal to stand in for any north american city the way that toronto does, it is just not as generic.

i felt that i was making progress except for making the mistake of getting off 40 at berthierville along with the rest of the world for food and fuel - went without the food as the t. ho’s was packed.

nice surprise from those incompetents at bank of america. paying for the gasoline i found out that they had frozen my account due to fraud suspicion. ring them and in their automated answering system they want you to type in your social security number. wow wonder why they have a problem with fraud.

finally i get a person on the phone who states that i am not liable for any fraudulent use of my card
damn straight
she then questions me about a $90 gasoline bill in port hope - this is after i have to answer quite a few masonic like questions concerning past bills. mentioned that she would have seen that there was a bill from a motel, and now one in québec which would probably hint that i was travelling. (i was worrying because the charge was only $30 but that didn’t seem to bother her).

i mentioned that if she had bothered to look at past records that she would have seen that this is an annual event.

well no this is a new account due to a security breach at bank of america and there are no past records of my charges.

makes one wonder but this little transaction with me screaming into a public phone outside an ultramar in english certainly lightened some people’s day.

i think that i would like québec city even better than montréal but i only saw it at a distance as this is where the dreamed of outing diverged with the new reality outing. i was crossing to the south side of the river to head to the gaspé.

i was looking for remote populations on thin roads black roads on maps and instead i had the transcanada.

i was back into making time as i wanted to get to matane-sur-mer that evening and the transcanada here was good for that few options for diverting.

until i looked at the map and found that beside this broad red line of route 20 there was a skinny grey one for some reason i got down at saint jean port joli it could have been bladder and that was my undoing as i started to find stuff to photograph - as it seems when driving and not walking i find stuff not situations nor things formal, foot prints in the quai at st. jean, a hockey rink in st germaine, it can be seen on how catholicism reigned supreme here every town was towered over by a church, from then on it was to stay as close to the river as possible.


at riviere du loup the tch was far enough north to get around maine and headed back south again - a fitting end was the ali baba ice cream stand - and it was safe to head over to 132 stopping at trois pistoles, isle verte with its strange giant question mark but also a nice bakery and st fabien where not only did darkness set in but also heavy fog. it would be rimouski as the stopping point.



i don’t know what the north shore is like. i can only conjecture but the south shore was quite nice, the villages were not only nicely self contained but had a thriving social lives. st jean had quite a few restaurants an cafés and while there was a lot of tourist stuff to buy - which i image wouldn’t be on the north shore - it was mixed with what seem to be real inhabitants. when i was wandering trois pistoles people were heading to the theatre - not cinema. there were people dining, walking and biking both towns had bike lanes as did most of the towns along the river



it seems that no one here is lactose intolerant as i saw more milk bars, fromageries than real bars. then there were the frites maison kiosks.

at dusk started to photograph the kiosks and other businesses in st fabien, when henriette said that i didn’t wait for her to pose. chatted in my french which is worse than stephen harper’s and made a snap with the digital before the search for a room.

it seems that most places where filled and i was racing this biker group from motel to motel to find a room. they would win as the didn’t have to park the bike. they got the penultimate room at the comfort inn i, the last one.

sort of like a bloated twitter...

new brunswick - barely...

can see the provincial and time zone line from the howard johnston's
two time zones in three days and trying to catch the ferry later to-day leaves me no time for entries at present.

so how about some pictures...

i am not rushing i don’t have to make time. so while i did get up the break of dawn i calmly had a cup of coffee and unpacked some things that i decided would be a distraction - the deardorff and the hobo stayed, it took up too much space in the machine and i didn’t want to have to decide what camera to use, i was going to use up the rest of the film in the nether regions of québec and labrador but i didn’t want my wandering by foot curtailed by the 40kg kit.

it was a good sign that i didn’t go crazy in the two hours it took me to go through chicagoland.outside sawyer michigan decided to get a muffin and a coffee at a truck america which had poor substitutes for both, it seems that if they cannot steep it in grease they don’t have it.

leaving i made a snap when someone from inside came running after me.
-what are you doing?
-who are you with?
-why did you take a photograph?
-i’m heading to canada was looking for a muffin but couldn’t find one
-it is the policy of truck america that photographs cannot be taken inside or of the building.
-i didn’t take any inside i wanted a muffin it is nice to see that you are so friendly. i am sorry i stopped.
-it is the policy of truck america that photographs cannot be taken inside or of the building.
pulled out hoping there was a place along the road to photograph the building and dare her to do something but alas.

i was now in a hurry, i am tired of obamarama-land as nothing has really changed and was looking forward the dysfunctional but more friendly inhabitants of harperville. i raced for the border and while sarnia would mean i would be in the states a bit longer i could forgo the mess of detroit.

up 69 just past climax - through lansing and flint - saw a sign for heb’s restaurant but only stopped for gasoline.

interstates are deadly, they didn’t even go near anything interesting, to alleviate boredom, i opted for the interstate spur into lansing hoping to find olds field home of the lugnuts but even going through town there no view. it was a nice diversion when i made the wrong turn and was heading back to detroit as i had to get off the interstate to turn back.

civility returned at the canadian border when as the customs officer joked before sending me on my way. compared to the crossings in maine this was a big deal. in maine one barely slows down entering canada - going in the opposite direction is another matter. here there were queues and checks of passports.

i cannot put my finger on it but the 402 was different than I-69, it seemed more efficient, there seemed to be less traffic and everyone stayed right except to pass. i didn’t know how diligent the o.p.p. are in keeping down speed so i simply kept up with the other upper canadians but i hazard to guess that it is a problem when they talk about serious fines when one goes at 160k/h.

i was lulled into that highway stupor until the 402 ended in the 401. up until then i only knew time was passing by what was on the radio, if there was an autopilot this was the time for it.

that endeh however with the 401 and the scenery of mississauga, brompton, north york and the like here i only knew that that time wasn’t standing still the way i was in traffic by again what was on the wireless.

finally when it did open past the two nuclear power plants and away from the g.t.a. i was in a different ontario. the air had substance, i could smell the farms, the 401 was roman road straight, duckish i was becoming distracted and pulling off the highway more than i should - at the fifth wheel for a toilet break - then at an oasis in port hope for a snack. i was still too much in make time mode to sit in a proper restaurant or i would have eaten at the fifth wheel. as it was it was a strain to sit calmly and have my mr. sub before filling up and heading out to kingston.

a hiccough...

more like influenza...
it seems that what i was looking for has scuttled my plans. remoteness has done me in.
i was writing the itinerary of the outing yesterday so as to give some idea of where i would be - more or less - on the way to the rock. i was plotting my journey up the north shore of the st. lawrence had made my way through to happy valley goose bay when i needed to look up ferry departures.

there were two a week leaving happy valley goose bay for cartright. my arrival would fall between them for although the going would be slow it would be steady. not sure - however - if i am reading the schedule correctly, i ring provincial ferries and not only am i reading it correctly but the ferries are booked until 7 august.

am stunned, there was this balance between the ferry being a life line to the big land but me forgetting how few people there are on the mainland. in not being able to plan far enough in advance, my outing to labrador ended.

no matter i would still head up the north shore but now go past baie comeau to the end of the pavement to clarke city and beyond as there is a ferry that crosses the st. lawrence at baie comeau to matane. i would simply spend more time in the villages there and while i wouldn’t make the english outports - thought about that by taking the ferry that hits them and ends up in blanc sablon - the $250 didn’t phase me it was the fact that it was also booked.

i find the time table for the two ferries that cross the river, ending up in matane, ring the number for a reservation as there is no internet site and find that they also are booked until next week.

i try to calm myself, i stare at the map thinking that i could go up to baie comeau travel about and then head back to québec to cross by bridge. i stare and stare but no matter the it would be more than a day up and back and i wasn’t sure if i was up for such an outing yet as while i was trying to get to the rock slowly i was trying to get there.

found it fitting that here i am once again trying to slow down, not be so manic had actually willed myself to be able to take twelve hours to drive a mere 350 km and now i won’t be able to do it.

when i did finally calm down i talked myself into a journey along the southern tip of river to the gaspé, adding another stretch of the transcanada to my journey. while the villages wouldn’t be as remote they would be knew to me and i could now stand on the opposite shore of the gulf of st lawrence and stare out. i could now follow the coast down into new brunswick before hitting once again the now well travelled route to the port-aux-basques. it would all be new, i don’t have to speed but it won’t be that vast emptiness and my curiosity of those who choose to live there.

tried to reach marine atlantic to see if i have to make a reservation before i get to north sydney but the line was engaged.

the big land

i get an email from ideas buddy - stating that he is away from pouch cove as he has a gig in iqaluit. later on another saying that the corporation is flying him to nain.

the evil twin is now on cruises around labrador as one of the invited guests.

i hear endless stories from the port kirwan cod piece, of the big land and how great it is as he was heading back up there with the upper canadian.

but it is minnesota flats driving up to alaska and her new life that pushes me over the breaking point. not only did she press on beyond the yukon - where i would have headed and stopped - but she pressed on and while in my opinion she went in the wrong direction, i am envious that she saw great expanses of land and sky, emptiness and an awareness of space.

there is the romance of the road names the yellowhead, klondike and alaska and the most evocative the top of the world highway.
there is the - although she would cringe at this - the canadian fascination with THE NORTH which still holds the romance that people in the states have lost with the domestication of the west. i hear to ghost of gzowski.

being the contrarian, i plan to go in the opposite direction - and not quite as far north. a slow outing to the rock via the big land. racing through the populated sections of ontario and québec, following the north shore of the st. lawrence - even though and because google maps suggests the southern shore - through baie-saint-paul, les escoumins to baie comeau before heading north to wabush/labrador city, the trans labrador, a ferry to the labrador coast, down the coast back into québec and the blanc sablon ferry to the rock. as i won’t be able to speed, i am hoping that i’m hoping that the new mind set will transfer to the island so that i can finally go down those long culs-de sac to see what is at the end.
the route to happy valley- goose bay
the route to the great northern and pouch cove

not to worry all of this is leading somewhere...

as i was riding up the coast with the evil twin’s viking brother to his summer house, passing towns along the way he states that before moving to hellerup he looked at these places and found them too isolated. passing tårbæk, skodsborg, and vedbæk, i find them a bit big.

i wish i had spent more time in the villages along the nordre strandvej which were less dependent on copenhagen. am in outside boyceville which is outside menomonie which is deemed too small and boring when i am trying to get out of the car and wander “downtown”. a postcard from someone letter pressed who states she is coping with small town alabama.

i seem to remember when i hated that baltimore couldn’t manage to have a million people, upset that i was in niterói and not rio but extremely glad that i wasn’t in novo friburgo or teresópolis.

something happened. i remember liking the drive along what seemed a never ending dirt road - actually it was only 17km - in heavy fog from ribeirão pires to paranapiacaba. driving along the wisconsin-illinois border through towns like durand, afton, juda, footville and brodhead. seeing towns’ water towers lined up in the distance in the flatness of downstate illinois. liked walking between haworth to hebden bridge.

then it was turning the megalopolis into manageable bits. camberwell not london, write to tribeca and inwood not nyc. headed to heights of santa teresa to look down on rio and even preferred são domingos/gragoatá - before the landfill - as the praça leoni ramos was more for the locals than the passers by.

i could have been scarred by films like local hero, impressed by the fact that the silly mid on misplaced tanzanian spent time in the orkneys in the hopes of a 20-20 pickup match. it isn’t being small it is being self-contained, one has to be able to find the necessities within town - a food shop, a general store, a tavern, places without them no matter how small seem more suburb than town - peasants pissoir is that example of bedroom community but so do all those north shore towns where although are self contained still consider themselves chicagoan i found a litmus test, if the answer of where your from is the closest big city then the town is not suitable for me.

in cities i would search out those places that seemed to be autonomous with definable borders - hyde park or better still hegewisch, locust point. i search them out trying to find the limits of where i could live. days after the ride up the danish coast, biking through the deerpark i go through a large gate and see rådvad, i wonder...

i went to a lecture down the street where richard rinaldi went out and about with this 10x8 camera and then again to fall river for his latest book. i then remembered lois connor’s work in china where she travelled about on a bicycle with a banquet camera and i began to wonder if lugging the deardorff about gros morne was all that much of a problem.

it seems that the passing of time is lessening the pain of trying to be mobile carrying 20kg of equipment about. i seem to have forgot that even with only the hobo and no tripod the walk out of green gardens wasn’t easy. i remember more the slow awkward outings around woody point, trout river, the gulch and st paul’s more than leaving the camera in the machine when heading further into the park.

i remember how easy it was to simply pull off the road and make a snap.
i know that here it is pretty difficult as it is harder to stop along the main roads. people are more paranoid seeing everything as a threat. because there are more roads and thus more options the serendipitous encounter is more prevalent. there is only one option on the burgeo highway.

i opt for what i do for mobility the option of choice of way not dependent on how far out of the way it leads me. i still see my feet as my main method of transport and while there were definite health advantages to the 10x8 - the shedding of 10 kilos by simply using it, it did tend to determine the outing.

but the last two times i have driven and the last two times for the most part there were few options - the burin and the bonavista outings - heading out to bay of islands, the port au port peninsula. while the size of marystown and catalina would be a problem, petit jardin, lark harbour and rose blanche would pose no trouble.

as i am drawn more and more to smaller and more remote places why not slow down more. normally i drive to a place park wander then drive on. here during recent outings this summer, i have even learned how to make u turns on highways when my brain has finally processed what i had seen - there is talk of time lag between the pressing the shutter and when the image is made, my time lag is seeing something and recognising it as 80k/h. on the rock i am fully versed in parking on the verge.

i have five boxes of outdated 10x8 film left someone gave 50 sheets of tri-x 10x8 it would be a pity to have that to go bad. the boxes from 2005 are well on their way but i am guessing this is due to the film being re-packaged forte film from freestyle. i always suspect that it was x-rayed when i had it shipped to the evil twin. it is fine for silver gelatine prints but problematic for slower processes.

if i drove i could cover my bets, while i strive to simplify i would simply, finally admit that it is not possible for me, and pack the boot with the deardorff leaving room for the lads on the seat beside me. along the road i’d unpack it as i saw the sackville snapper doing, hitting larger populations it would stay put.

the romanticism of the large format does confront my style of working. usually frames are wasted as i make a snap before i think about what is in front of me, i then tend to work through what saw by editing out the peripherals and worrying about things formal and while usually it is still the first or second image is made - it seems that my distillation kills the spontaneity - this manner of working would bankrupt me with film costs multiplied by a factor of 10.
that factor has worsened. while everyone else is worried about the rise in petroleum prices, the increase there is meagre when compared to what has happened to film due to the digital “revolution”. in 2005 a box of film was $35 to-day $80. because of this i would use what i have left and then leave the deardorff packed, hoping that working with it would curb my hyperactivity with the lads.

kodachrome going going...

http://www.dphotoexpert.com/2009/06/22/kodachrome-reaches-frame-39-the-end/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124567093975236801.html

northern light

the printing of the danish snaps are taking a bit more time than i had expected. it has to do with this phenomenon that i still have to conquer. northern light. it seems that i am constantly underexposing when i am in it.

i was made aware of this when one winter in the duke, buddy from port kirwan mentioned that light up here was different. yeah yeah yeah i know it is softer, more penetrating - when it is out - beautiful light. he was saying how lightmeters were constantly confused as if the rock the light version of places that send compasses crazy.

it is f:16 at 250 one stop dimmer in newfoundland. i am overly aware of this i am constantly second guessing the lightmeters in the lads. in truth it does seem to give a reading that thinks there is more light than it is. overcast day and i am getting the “sunny 16” reading. i couldn’t remember however if the kirwanian was saying that my guessing would be wrong or that i couldn’t trust the lightmeter. needless to say that i bracket constantly. the odd thing incident meters seem to be spot on.

so here i was roughly the latitude of nain and glasgow experiencing the same thing. when out on the wanders i noticed that readings didn’t seem correct. there with the constant greyness i had no point of reference. i bracketed tried to remember through the fog of the duke as what to do and soldiered on.

i wonder when my facility with light in the north was lost. when on the course at goldsmiths’, i had no trouble with light in britain - it couldn’t be the constant greyness which left no room for variation because it seemed worse there. i knew that while the eyes wouldn’t register it, light readings would fall off quickly when duckish. i can only attribute the ease there with my laziness. not having a camera with a built in lightmeter, i would look and guess before i would actually take the reading. after a while hating being bothered, and seeing that my guesses held up. i stopped pulling it out.

with the pyro development which makes negs seem thinner than they are there was a mild panic when i went to print them. the shadow detail is there but the printing resembles those negs that one used to have at a school that would under-develop their negs in microdol-x - expose incorrectly and all is lost. breathing deeply i am making many more tests than usual quietly celebrating when there is a print.

when heading to charm city, i over packed but then again i had great plans. i realise that i have become too specialised for my own good. i took the dslr for the internet version of ding dong ditch up when i made it up to inwood. i brought along a leiquinha for a day of wander while making my way to the upper reaches of manhatten. it was the camera of choice as the last time i was in the city early morning wanders with the leiquinha worked well. i brought joãozão even though i constantly worry that one day it will simply not function anymore while i am in the middle of nowhere.

he is the camera of choice for while i talk a brave talk in the entries, it still takes me some time to get used to the ambience of violence that overwhelms the city. the camera has this chameleon quality that when folded can be passed off as a book, no one dares stare long enough in charm city to notice that it is not a book. i can have it out and almost ready but folded when i feel somewhat threatened. even opened it looks cheap.

didn’t get to nyc. the cameras meant for it became extra weight in the carry on. while playing bus tag i did take the digital but only used it those times when i met someone and mad a snap of them. the leiquinha seemed superfluous and was only on an outing when i meet chi for brunch - being timid i didn’t want to whip out joãozão to make a snap of her.

it came to me that i lug around extra cameras from the assumed expectations of others. i felt that the dslr was justified as after making the snap on the 54 i could validate myself as a photographer by turning the camera around and showing her the snap, the same happened with tom, willie girts and and the woman awaiting the 54. but in truth they could care less. it was my insecurity proving to them that i was a photographer, really.

i also used the dslr for snaps of family which again seems strange as i still don’t take the camera seriously, it is still mainly used for entries here and while i did photograph everyone i met with the dslr last year i think it had more to do with that immediacy than quality of the snap. i find this action strange as one would think that snaps of one’s family would be considered important - especially when they are so rapidly ageing - and thus worthy of a mode of documentation that has some permanence to it. once again i saw the use of it as a 21st century polaroid, the act of making the snap was more important than the snap the party atmosphere of the digital but with real photographer pretensions. i may have been scarred when photographing some kids in petty harbour, they wanted to me to turn the camera around to show them the snap, they didn’t understand the idea of film.

in the last bus tag trips i didn’t take the dslr at all. it seems the only area that suffered was pictures for the entries. but it also means that i am not making the same snap on two cameras so that i can have snaps to show as i ws doing in denmark.

so it looks like i am taking a step in my usual direction - backwards. there is more of an engagement with film, the wait, the extra care when in front of the subject. once again an awareness of as much as possible before firing off the shutter. none of the make a snap then after seeing how lazy my composition was, making another. once again i am more aware of the edges, of junctions in the frame, of the direct view of the rangefinder. the feeling of progress as rolls are changed - forgetting that they seem to need changing when something important is happening or i am in the most problematic of neighbourhoods.

i realise also that if the world weren’t so paranoid with foyers locked, gated condos etc, i could do a simple object based ding dong ditch.

brooklyn

with an evening flight i headed out for the wander that would be the most profitable with the time left. no retracing steps what was missed will have to wait to next time. buses that are reliable - looked at the schedules and worked backward from my departure time. it was to be more bus tag but wandering until the next bus came - with a day pass every point is a transfer point.

being social almost scuttled everything as even though i had to race for the 54, at mondawmin i missed the number 16 and had to wait an hour. i was so close that i waited as nothing runs to schedule here but after three others came up looking for the bus i reckoned that it was true and headed in to see the new targeted mondawmin.

a great place if you are under 20 food courts, cheap jewellery and shoes. koisks selling mobile phones. there was a closed book shop.

there were more people at the staging point of the buses than i had seen in all my time in baltimore and baltimore not the type of city that panics, had five different types of police force out and about. in my reckoning it was one officer of some form or another to every 10 citizens. they were in groups, there were walking about the crowds, they were blocking the bus stops with their squad cars, again baltimore mimicked a third world city of a few decades ago. it seems that schools closed early and everyone was either heading to or away from mondawmin.

30 minutes later the 16 pulled up filled and left.

bus etiquette -
take forever to load. don’t get your money or card out until you are at the cash box, if you have to show an i.d. wait until asked, it is slower that way.

if you enter with friends make sure you sit as far apart as possible so that you can yell back and forth across the bus.

stand at the front of the bus preferably bunching around the driver.

when leaving push the signal but don’t get up to quit the bus until the bus has stopped, waited and has begun to pull away again. this is the time to leave your seat walk to the door and yell ‘back door!’ for more effect add an invective.

a great ride the number 16. there is no logic in this route except to connect people to other lines. it is by far the slowest way to get any place along the route and certainly slower getting to the terminus. it heads west then south to go east. it skirts downtown all together. it parallels the city limits on the southwest side and i get to see, walbrook, rosemont, violetville and landsdowne before getting down in the brooklyn homes.

kept the camera pretty much hidden walking through brooklyn homes and gardens. this was irrational am having a hard time explaining it as after getting my initial bearings, i felt safe in the area. i think that it was that safety that had me put the joãozão away. walking through the residential area along 8th street i wanted to make some images of the street furniture and the way that people were taking pride in their property while differentiating it from their neighbours. i was mentally comparing this area with armistead gardens, and west baltimore.

when i stopped to make a snap there was always someone on their porch sitting, taking in the day. while with them there i felt safe, i also felt that i would have to do a lot of explaining if i slowed brought out the camera and made snaps. i - perhaps mistakenly - thought that there would be more than quiet curiosity and i wasn’t really in the mood to explain. a pity.

joãozão did come out when i hit patapsco avenue. the plan was to walk until the number 64 arrived, i would then hop on that, head to the horror and then decide. photographed the usual suspects, storefronts, churches, vfw halls, taverns. i must have been more nervous than i thought - or more sloppy - as a lot of the frames are tilted and not usable. i made sure that i didn’t bend at the hip as i did when in copenhagen causing all sorts problems.

along the avenue safety came from meeting no-one but when i did there was a greeting and not a puffing up and posing from the other person in some strange show of strength.

across barrett park over to hanover street more taverns, more shops and a bit of a worry. when i hit patapsco avenue a 64 and a 16 passed but reckoning it too early - good thing as it was a nice walk - i decided not to hop on either. here i was across brooklyn heading across the patapsco trying to determine whether i could make it before a bus came or if i should wait. the patapsco is no polite river it isn’t the chicago or the milwaukee barely a block long this was going to be a walk, this was to be as long as the walk so far. there would be a chance at the harbour hospital then again near port covington. i decided to walk. i had always wanted to walk the hanover street bridge, this was an excuse.

time became a factor, i started to reverse calculate again, if i made it to the metro by 3:00 i would be ok, if a bus came at ... revisions came every ten minutes as i checked my progress and slowed at a bus stop to see if one was coming. i keep forgetting how compact the city is and while i walked almost from the city line to the centre it only took a couple of hours. except for the buses there should have been no panic at all.

made it into south baltimore and and the cross street market before a 64 arrived and getting on was a mistake as it was so crowded that i could have walked to the metro more quickly. regretted the lack of time as there was a ball park in swann park hidden under I-95 and apart from south baltimore. thought it too much of a diversion.

waited 45 minutes for a 54 so that i could pick up my bags and head to the light rail. the packed bus crawled up park heights - the driver threatening not to move until people moved to the back. there was a near riot was a randallstown bus decided not to stop meaning that some people would be late to work, the passengers were taking it out on this driver.

calm and in control again once on the light rail - the only mode of transport that seems to work in baltimore - i got down at lexington market for a pizza and a drink before heading to the airport.

met willie girts who told me about the music at the market asked on how the groups were chosen, found out that he was a musician and having chatted with me i made his snap along with using that as an excuse to photograph more in the market. the early evening light was great. the market was only slightly less crowded than the mondawmin bus terminal.

of course at the airport early even after slinking through the tsa line - only one checkpoint open - in homage my missed trip to the ram’s head, a pint of copperhead before heading to the gate where it seems that people use the same technique to board planes as they do buses - as the gate was closing -after the sixth announcement in six minutes saying that the gate would close in five, then four, then three minutes, ten couples came racing toward it hoping to board one person repacking their luggage to get it within the guidelines of the airline.

straight line wander... more or less

made the wrong turn. i was hoping to make it to mondawmin for the 16 bus to brooklyn homes but seeing the number 60 i hopped on and was at the light rail before i realized what i had done.

 

headed in to lexington market to make sure there were no liquids in me before a straight line walk up the centre of charm city – well more or less. passing the empty shops along the emptied lexington street looking up to see class mates names. when i stopped to make a snap the area in front of the camera would suddenly become populated.

 

it seems to always be sunday in downtown baltimore beyond howard street only a few tourists at mt vernon. the shops that i thought were closed for sunday were more permanently so. i liked the possibilities of having depopulated early evening light seven days a week.

 

heading up charles street i realized that it was the time that chi may be heading back from hopkins so started to guess what street would be the return route. between seeing how gentrified the area between madison and the station had become and trying to choose charles or st paul the walk had potential.

 

the most promising part of the walk was between north and 25^th street  empty  weed strewn lots, post boxes, modified corner shops.

 

charles village was a bit too green and bucolic and thus a shock to the system. watched students eat at food chains on the ground floors of buildings.

 

the mta was up to its usual standards of transport –  30 minute wait for the 22 when three came in succession. another half hour wait at park circle for the 54 passed the time making urban formal snaps of the boarded houses and the evening light passing through the chinese take-away. 

the person who told us where to find wrist bands for my mother.i was too lazy to get out of the machine

bus tag

although i have been doing it for some time, i have just put a name to it.

bus tag.

buy a day pass.
find a route that looks interesting - i.e. seems to be more concerned with connecting people than getting from a to b efficiently.
take it until there is a transfer point of a route that holds potential. switch.
repeat.

great rides of the past the number 5 - actually the old number 5 glyndon to cedonia, the number 77, number 51.

to-day it was the number 33. the number 33 for i knew the route of the 44 by heart. the 33 because it reached deep into places beyond east baltimore - middle river, dundalk. headed out in the late afternoon when the clean up was done for the day. i reckoned there would be about three hours of light but it wasn’t a photo wander but a reconnaissance, a wander of curiosity and half remembrance. took joãozão and a leiquinha.

here again comes the love hate relationship with charm city, the bus system here is great some aren’t the most logical routes but it is a rare place within baltimore that cannot be reached by bus. the metro and light rail are simply affectations of a city trying to be a metropolis buses allow me to travel into less savoury neighbourhoods hop down, make snaps and then get a bus out. usually the important bit happen at transfer points.

but one would think that baltimore only has one bus to run on all its routes. i waited 20 minutes for the 54, then another 30 minutes for the 33. people were insensed. one person who had waited longer than me would be late to work, another wished that he had stay on the 54 and transfered some place further along. i didn’t mind as i could watch the drug deals on the corner of park heights and cold spring.

when the 33 finally arrived we knew why the mta had all day passes, it took all day to get anyplace. the outing alternated between poor and rich with a great deal of blue collar. it was interesting to see how different areas with similar housing initially changed. pimlico, the area north of hampden, the royal farms and the mini village with its tasteful shoppes in the valley between roland park boulevard and charles street, the corner taverns, and food shops at york road, the attempt of a mix along harford below moravia.

finally made it to armistead gardens and was in the middle of it before i realised where i was. like wilbur and orville streets cross wright street. realised that was there when the streets narrowed housing was more dense but without the typical brick row house. i knew i was there with the hampden like individual decorations of the front gardens.

i brushed areas that i had been on earlier outings, linking them, i again was reminded how small area wise baltimore is.

wished that i could get down along pulaski highway with baltimore painted across a railway bridge, wondered what i could do with the modified big box stores and the now almost decimated malls built around them.

and then it was time to change - ended up at the essex park and ride after crossing back river no little stream this no puny tamed chicago creek, a real river with real width walking back over it, below the bridge an encampment of people fishing and hanging out, not too far to south the bay, i was pretty pleased that the bus terminal was across from a closed bingo hall.

then the hate again, the 30 minute wait for the 23, the person waiting was more upset than i was.

-it is too long too long.

when it came the community of the bus, smelling of crabs, a couple at the front were about to celebrate their anniversary - hence the crabs - and were comparing ailments with another couple heading to hopkins bayview. leaving they offered the riders their day passes.

duckish, i pass neighbourhoods with their flashing blue lights a corners telling outsiders where drugs can be bought - nice of the baltimore city police to be so accommodating when the metro heads above ground at cold springs they look like constellations in reverse.

noon wander

with the way buses run around here one has to travel when they want not when it is convenient for the traveller. going on line to find the bus schedule for the 58 which runs once a hour, i saw that i would have a good chunk of time to wander before meeting up with chi.

took joãozão and a leiquinha on a wander of the skinny streets of mt. vernon. streets instead of alleys as there were houses and they were named. it really didn’t occur to me to walk them until i saw a basketball hoop in tyson street just above monument. i was trying to find streets that i hadn’t wandered but knew that antique row of howard street held potential. that was soon abandoned.

forgot how nice it is to wander on sunday. less people about more shops closed, there seems to be less hassle when stopping - not getting in others’ way and and the ability to look into shop windows without having shop owners wonder. the walk though was more looking than making snaps as except for a few houses most of the backs were well protected.

up to reade street then down ploy street, more gawking to madison to morton. mt vernon populated with the homeless mixing with those heading to the peabody.

after brunch more mews and a few snaps but realised that i didn’t have to stick to them south of centre street. walking charles street most of the shops were empty making the street look like an upscale version of howard street. while more people were about they seemed to be fixated on making it to the inner harbour.

i made the odyssey back.

post preakness pimlico

the morning was perfect for what my purposes. mauzy, pissing rain meant that even less people would be on the street down at pimlico. i knew that i wasn’t really going to find any remnants of the preakness on the streets - while baltimore can make pimlico clean up their mess, the city cannot live up to its end of the bargain and clean up the housing mess around the racetrack. i was there for the shop fronts but kept me going were the churches

missed the bus and the way busses run here, thought it best to walk for who knew when another one would arrive. i was almost right as i was at menlo drive when the bus caught up with me. got on as i was going to get a day pass anyway.

automated sign on the bus

NORTHERN PARKWAY
TRASNFER POINT

park heights had that emptiness that made me feel fine as long as i didn’t see anyone. but became hesitant when that lone person was in the distance. the feeling dissipated a bit when i saw an elderly lady obviously off to church. pity i cannot say the same for her as after seeing me hop back and forth across park heights avenue to documenting both sides of the street before i had a plan - determinedly walked back to her senior living home.

as i had feared many of the shops had steel barriers covering the entire façade. the only thing i could do there was to play with what was dealt me formally. i tended also to divert off of park heights when i saw a church that was once any building that was ecclesiastical. the area seemed to abound in them. stop a bit when i saw a woman crossing a vacant lot but she turned back when she saw my camera. the block opposite the race track has become a west indian street, with shops and restaurants. most were closed but sometimes i wasn’t sure. i would walk slowly looking in before i would make a snap.

now and then a distant flash from someone running the red light camera activated signal. it must have been the winogrand of cameras as it would go off when machines were perfectly stopped at the line.

another church goer passes and throws me off guard by greeting me. i tend to start to do that with the next dozen people i pass, not the subtle nod but actually speaking, even to those people who are watching me from parked machines.

oddly i feel safer when i see more people as they are workers at the racetrack leaving to catch the number 27. again they seem more wary of me but then this could simply be the characteristic paranoia that runs rampant in charm city.

crossing belvedere - could there be a name more mismatched for a street - the population grew. it seems that liquor stores can and do open early on sunday and there were people in front of most of them. all looked down at my now retracted joãzão trying to determine what it was i am guessing either that or determining whether they should duck or was it a bible. everyone was watching and i missed a perfectly mediocre photograph due to this. one of the few leftovers from yesterday. outside a laundromat someone had set up a food table complete with brolly and fake cloth. i walked by twice hoping buddy having a ciggie would finally go inside. furher down a nice window display but again buddy keeping his eyes on me.

was to stop at belvedere but there was church - then two, then three - around garrison. once out of that one block i was alone until i turned up spaulding. there were a few gents in the carpark behind an old bank that was a church and while i was photographing the store front that was a now a church three machines came stopped and people sat watching.

it seems that they arrived a bit early and were awaiting the church to open but all those eyes... i nodded as i passed.

the snap i should have made

вероника, the server at mari luna in pikesville who wondered why - when i said большое спасибо after she brought me my coffee - i could speak russian

не за что

i was wondering why someone from ukraine would be working in a latino restaurant.

всего хорошего

schizo city

mixed feelings about charm city arise again. getting down from the plane - thurgood marshall makes milwaukee mitchell look like deer lake there were shops real food and people riding in on the light rail however i felt i was in the third world. passing baltimore highlands the train filled and it seems that no one knew what an inside voice was. the best is when people would board together then sit on opposite ends of the carriage and yell to each other. howard street felt like some fail southern country. the metro was a little different but quiet time on a train is seems not to exist outside of heading straight north.

then it came to me baltimore is two cities. there is the working class city rapidly gentrifying around the inner harbour and slinking up charles street with pockets in canton and highlandtown. and there is the third world city - west baltimore, southern baltimore - not south baltimore - and the northwest. to do a digital ding dong ditch in mount vernon, i decided to take the 54 bus to mondawmin then the metro to state centre cultural centre - catchy name isn’t it - so that i could walk down reade street. crossing northern parkway i wanted to get out and make snaps - jamaican grocers, churches and hair salons, vying for space with chinese and fried chicken takeaways. wanted to photograph the churches then figured what the hell go for broke the area isn’t large - just under 2 km and this week-end it is “safe” as the preakness is here. it was pretty evident never seen so many white people around pimlico.

by the time i had made a decision i was out of the area and more fascinated in the yelling from one end of the bus to another. everyone seemed to know one another and everyone got down at mondawmin.

reade street was quiet, like baltimore as it isn’t overrun by starbucks, there were three cafés along reade street two selling books, there was another weird pizza place - the name escapes me but it was almost as good as the egyptian pizza restaurant that i saw up reisterstown road near the sam’s club. this one at cathedral and reade had the same middle eastern italian cuisine.

forgot about the alleys in the neighbourhood mad a note them but was on a mission and didn’t want to be sidetracked. only a few images made but was carrying too many cameras again. made snaps of clothing left behind with the digital, it seems to be a thing here. jackets hung on trees, or fences, caps left on railings. took the digital for the ding dong ditch, in reade street some snaps of some strange façades remnants of when the area stopped being baltimore’s haight-ashbury and became antique-land. more snaps around mercy hospital and even more down at baltimore and st paul.

this felt good as until now i was making the amount of snaps that would keep me in full standing as a full time faculty member at the dukedom - none. walking down st paul i thought that maybe i could make something of the pimlico snaps if i got around to making them, am pondering the mess before and after the preakness but i also wanted the storefronts. here i have to get them when they are open as closed there is only steel. i want the signs i want the stuff on the windows.

thought about taking a bus back up to mondawmin to see more, the number one tends to make it there as if the route designer were a bit pissed that day. not being able to find the stop and when i saw the route thinking it wasn’t really pissed enough opted for the metro to the third world again.

at north and pennsylvania which in orwellian balamer speak is now penn-north. they changed the bus stops, instead of in front of the library that i used to go to, i went to in front of the old met theatre which was replaced with a metro exit with ambience of many men relieving themselves after a night at the tavern.

looked for the woman i bought a snow cone from a couple of years ago.

men were selling turtles on the corner. a woman bought one and got on the 54 bus after me.

sitting in the back, looking at the plastic box with a plastic palm tree she kept banging the side to see if it were still alive. it seems they gave her cat food to feed it, one woman told to her get some lettuce, another said to put a couple of stones in the box so that the turtle could get out of to the water from time to time.

arising from my dukedom stupor. it happens the atmosphere among the full time faculty is so charge that one needs a rest - from talking about theory - i was inspired by zoë strauss, reading america i saw that she asks many people to make their snaps and gets turned down a lot, when the bus emptied a bit i asked the woman in the red top holding a clear plastic box with a green top being bathed by caravaggio lighting - if caravaggio has a mta day pass and was heading up park heights - if i could take her snap.

with me looking like this?

the turtle reminded me of the ones that i had long ago.

made two. she got down in the area where there are more boarded up houses than not.

buddy who was trying to chat her up and i think got her number asked if i lived around here.

no born here, father ran cherry hill, etc. am back for a bit...

zoë strauss completely taking over my body i said that now that we have spoken i would have to do him also. so in that same lighting made his snap before he got down.

on a roll i strolled upper park heights between garrison and northern parkway forgetting where i was and said hello to people i passed. a few snaps made of the churches but this being a warm day every shop owner who didn’t have a customer was out front trying to figure out what i was carrying or when they saw me make a snap what i was photographing. thought that i would fold into the pre-preakness crowd but wasn’t swearing enough nor did i have khaki shorts with leather shoes.

changing film at the bus stop at northern parkway chatted with a woman who was also waiting, telling me how they keep to schedule and how one would be there in 12 minutes as she said that not one but two pulled up.

of course we know her fate...

have to take more busses.

here i was again, where walworth and rock counties meet between I-43 and and US 12, east of johnston centre and avalon. here there is a sound to the space. a mini great plains that i usually skirt heading to madison. by the road a farm implement, in the distance a manure spreader, i always wonder how a place can be empty and intimate at the same time.

the plan was to do an urban wander in madsion, no the plan was to attempt a ding dong ditch the the condo complex of the big o, then an urban wander.no the plan was to getup early enough to photograph the road houses before their opening then ... i didn’t know what the plan was. in truth any plan would be fine. however i wanted better than fine.

heading out a bit later than planned, stopped along county trunk a for two taverns, stopped at the cow of janesville to attempt the same point of view as the old oasis restaurant, then opted out of the interstate for us 14 through janesville parkerland for more taverns and other roadside businesses.the outing was to be not only secondary roads but no bypasses around town. a closed restaurant in evansville between the newer suburban section and the preserved centre - failed for being between two trends. a tavern in union with outdoor games, oregon again with “suburbs” a distance from the quaint preserved centre, i preferred the area by the railway.

the ding dong ditch was a failure, these condos are so secure that there is no place to leave a packet no concierge, no mail room. it is like the dukedom, no i.d. no entry. except for a slight exploration due to my curiosity about an offshore drive, island road and jetty drive in a landlocked subdivision - should have guessed when i came to shenandoah way and antietam lane - that it was more wishful thinking. turned down the blue ridge parkway.

spent so much time trying to decide where to walk that there was no time left to do a decent one. stopped at a victor allen’s and had an atypical madison experience - nothing vegetarian. took this as a sign and headed back via the interstate to newville to see how swollen the rock was and to scope out the place where the second attempt at collodion would take place, thankful that the ride along I-90 didn’t have me revert to making time.

due to the rock i was out of a gridded road system, again a resort where i couldn’t find a place to park and walk. die hard year rounders were out and about taverns on koskonong
were open but empty.

still a nice day took the sandwich bought at milio’s to the park in johnston centre thinking that i would sit out and not graze while eating. did foresee that the park was now a parking area - no benches. ate with the car door open.

but did turn down county m into that mini plain, fields were being prepared, had already photographed the road house at the rock/walworth line after the curve in fairfield where i was using the road as a short cut, i started stopping again, the lone house that looked abandoned, tractors parked in the middle of fields, the great bear made by someone shooting at a stop sign at north and creek road and that sound.