Fun with "Aimée" and Steven

or is it Amy
I had forgot why I don’t like photographing weddings, Since it seems that Ally’s was deemed a success – even though I didn’t see the snaps I was a wreck – bringing too much stuff with the to the rock – not using Ubaldo for fear it would break down before the event, baking him up with Ubirajara and three magazines for him.

It is also the way I don’t like to work, when out I want one camera – well two different formats - one lens ( for each) one film – well I guess this way of working is shot because it is two types of film colour for the leiquinha black and white for the others. Driving to Bucktown I felt like those jock photojournalists as I had just about everything that took film that I owned.

I felt comfortable as I had bought Ziquinho as a backup to the moribund and fragile cameras that I had been using I was heading into Steven’s place with two 35mm for black and white and colour, Ubaldo and Ziquinho for medium format black and white and colour and two flashes.

The plan was during the “rehearsal dinner” I would use the 35’s to mimic the casualness of the affair - I know that I had already over thought this – the big guns would be brought out for the wedding. I even threw away the lens caps so that I wouldn’t leave them on the rangefinders. Proud of myself as how prepared I was.

The evening went well but it did reinforce my preference for one camera – I won’t go there again – as I was afraid that I would forget what was in what – as it happened at times in Bonne Bay – wow was ISO 100 film in that camera I thought it was 400. My photographic insecurity had me using the AK-47 method.

I drove back to Peasants Pissoir happy as it seemed to go well – well except for one of the camera straps grippy surface decomposing leaving a black stain on my shirt and hands.

I am ready for the drive in and in my new hard come by attempt to be calm on the road in I pass a pink brolly by the side of ML. I manage to recognise that I should stop – and not be a typical full time part time professor in a photo department in one of the galaxy’s best art school and think that merely thinking about making the snap enough. Went around the long block stopped made a few snaps when Ubaldo jammed.

No matter I think it is probably the battery. Drive in and then obsess in the middle of a tailback on the Eden’s when I try to change the battery. Nothing.

At Aimée’s and Steven’s the first thing that I do is change batteries. I also that Ubaldo has taken a bit of a battering as the viewfinder glass is cracked. At first nothing happens then it works – I am happy put the cameras away for the ceremony that evening.

30 minutes before the wedding the place packing I retrieve Ubaldo and Ziquinho. Make some snaps with Ubaldo but when I try to use Ziquinho the same thing happens – nothing.

Change batteries, hit the camera, panic, take off lens, put on lens, panic.

Then I remember that this is the problem that I had with Ubaldo so change lenses and Ziquinho comes to life.

It is the lens. IT IS THE LENS. My favourite lens – the one that I have been depending on in my newfound love of marling (Newfoundland English – swarving – wandering without purpose – it is the lens of choice. It is also the one for crowds as it was the wide angle.

Panic.

Then remember that I had Joãozão - Red Greened Joãozão with its duct taped bellows and wonky focus - as I was marling about Bucktown and Wicker Park. It became the sub. Used it during the wedding I hope that it didn’t decide to develop a leak then as I thought on how I would get the lens fixed.

If I were a typical photo professor at one of the galaxy’s best art school’s this wouldn’t have been a problem as I the next time I would actually make a snap would be around the time of the next solar eclipse but I am heading to Baltimore and want to use it there – when I get a chance – and worse I have another wedding to do in August. All my insecurities are back.

Now I remember why I don’t like photographing weddings.

EXERCISES IN MISREADING MYSELF –1

a bit techno weenie

In truth I bought it to get out of a rut. I now know that my mid life crisis camera -
Leica MP black paint 28mm lens - will never materialise as I was getting closer to being able to afford one until last year when they raised their price by more than $1000 and made it
truly a camera only doctors and lawyers can afford. I see myself – once again -
as a note taker and imagined it perfect for it. I also realise how illogical
this is as I came to this conclusion wandering the streets of Baltimore – a bit
safer than wandering the streets of Baghdad but I wouldn’t want to bet on it –
in my flânerie reverie. I cannot think of a place more stupid in which to flash
a camera that is more than the gross domestic product of some countries in,
say, Pigtown. I cannot see myself walking west along Route 40, MP dangling from
my neck and feeling safe. I treat Baltimore the way that most people told me to
treat Rio de Janeiro, problem is I felt safer in Rio. No matter I saw going
back to 35mm as a way of making images that don’t scream significance due to
format and difficulty of use. It also could be me, my stubborn trend again as
everyone seems to be using larger and larger formats and work becoming more and
more self-conscious. But is the Nikon FM2 is a form of slumming, while I like
the honest blue collar feel to it,
it is sort of like the original Volkswagen useful for just about
everything but there are newer cameras that do it better, it is too clunky it
doesn’t fit well in my bag, especially now when one’s bag carries all the
modern conveniences simply because they have been miniaturised. Notebook and
pen is replaced by laptop. I like the finite feel of film, compact enough so
that one can take a lot but not the infinite feel of a gigabyte memory card. I
can see my progress by the rewound film.

Postponed

I knew before I opened it - a slim envelop. Slacker days of college admissions applications had me knowing that nothing good comes from thin envelops.

This one from Dawson City and the K.I.A.C. a rejection for a residency next summer. That road trip to the True True North postponed a bit.

pipe dream

Take a long time going
Once there have everything I need to reconcile where I have been
Come back as slowly.

this calls for a pint at the duke...

at least
From: JB
To: RC-D
Subject: 2007
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 11:20:24 -0230

Interested in an exhibition in the stage space next year?

Other than June (Rangsch & Yamamoto installations) and August (Goertz figurative) you can have your choice.
Book M&G's for next June and do July month.

Xoj


From:r-cd
To:jb
Subject: 2007
Date, 10 May 2006 - 0230
YES!!!
how about july

i know what it will be and will follow your advice about less being more. am thinking 8 40x32 inch murals.
thanks

From: JB
To: "rc-d" Subject: Done
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 15:04:31 -0230

Opens Sunday July 1 through 27, 2007.

Not set yet but Brits in main space, Tom Hammick & Susie Hamilton, fyi.
He was first resident at Rooms and bitched about firing of Gordon to
the Globe.

One either end and three on either side I assume.

xoj

Between 1980 and 1982...

...more often than not, I would wake up to the U.K. Theme of Radio 4, follow on with Down Your Way and end the day with The Shipping Forecast and A Book at Bedtime

The theme was a good way to begin the day, After it ended I would head out to Camberwell New Road to pick up The Guardian then head back for coffee and a good read.

I would then be ready to start one of my many student discounted British Rail awaydays

Tuning into Radio 4 to catch up on
The Archers – the omnibus edition – I saw that last Sunday was the last day that the U.K Theme would start the Radio 4 day. it seems that the time will be better spent starting ten minutes earlier with a reading of the news.

It was only five minutes but did signal a new day but air time as with real life time is expensive and cannot be wasted on trivialities.

AOK 1PO

restart

Just before heading out to Balamer, I finally moved all my contact printing material along with the platinotype chemistry back to the house. This semester my production dropped to the point where nothing was being produced with the Bonne Bay 10x8’s.

I noticed at the end of the autumn semester, that I was having all sorts of problems in making prints that at the beginning of the term were no trouble at all. They were becoming grainy. I thought that I was taking the process for granted and it doesn’t like that.

I had tried to get into a rhythm again at the school during the grad selection process as I was down at school early and wouldn’t be bothered in the non silver room – actually during the term it was rare except for the day that the class was taught was anyone in the room. Not only the problems return but also I came to realise that my spring teaching schedule I wouldn’t have the time to make work as I did in the autumn.

While in peasants pissoir I have none of the mod cons of U.V. light – I have been meaning to finish one the same way that some faculty are meaning to make work for some time – I thought that nothing would be lost using natural light – what there is of it this time of year – as while the exposure would be slower at least there would be a progression and who knows one day I would actually go to a lighting shop and buy the remaining U.V. lights that I need – or better simply buy an exposure unit.

This – as does everything – brings into question as what my “official” output is. My statement of purpose was based on large format and the platinotypes but I left it to last. Well not left it seems to have been put aside by default. I am wondering if this is due to the relative ease in which I can edit and print digital work and even “real” darkroom. The colour work could be done on the laptop heading into and away from school and printed while I was doing other things. I have a darkroom ready to go and thus can head down and make the prints needed when I have time.

This theory doesn’t hold though as while it is slower than working digital making platinotypes are remarkably similar, I don’t need to stand over the process while it is exposing, there are no exact developing times. I would hydrate and then start the exposure while I went off to make a grad student cry, between sessions I would head back check the exposure, drop it in the chemistry and do what ever needed to make the next snap. If the theory was ease of making a print the black and white snaps would be the most problematic as I need to devote chunks of unadulterated time but there seems to be no problem there.

I am guessing that what I see as my official/important/sanctioned work is me fooling myself, that my desire to head North (and East this summer via the Big Land with the same equipment as last year, looking into 5x4 inch plate camera and wishing for a Leica or any camera a real photographer would use is in truth not needed at all. I am wondering if what, at one time, a Diana was needed to make my work now it is needed is a consumer point and shoot digital. I also wonder why I fight it.

confederation day

My Parks Canada Gros Morne annual pass expired to-day.

I have applied

When preparing for a talk some time ago, I realised that who I thought I was and what I was doing wasn’t in fact backed by my work. While the underlying aspects of my work were still the same, how I approached my work – the subject - had changed.

I saw myself as a person who made photographs rife with humanity without the people. The talk however had quite a few people. I didn’t see myself as a pictorialist but someone who tried to use the neutrality and ambiguity of the photograph but I was choosing images made with cheap plastic cameras that made a soft nostalgic distancing effect.

Coming upon this realisation I looked back at the work in the attempt of seeing not when I changed but what had caused the change. I found that it came from placing myself in new situations with something comfortable and something new. The comfortable was my security blanket if the new didn’t turn out. The new was more successful than I realised.

While looking at the board at the Eastern Edge Gallery in St. John’s I saw an announcement for KIAC and while interested – and getting raves from my college friend Betsy Rosenwald - thought it not the place for me, someone who supposedly needed endless bodies of water, couldn’t be landlocked and, while I was in St. John’s in January, tended toward warmer climates. I seemed to have ignored the fact that I had been living in the Upper Midwest since 1980 and am out and about in winter in a sweatshirt but instead some sort of transplanted Brasilian simply awaiting my return to Rio.

These superficialities apart, my work has always been about sense of place and how it is determined. I applied to the Pouch Cove Foundation residency for all the significant insignificancies – time zone out of wack, as far east in North America as I can go, the relative isolation of an island and a postal code that starts A0A.

I am applying to the KIAC modifying the insignificancies – while it is on the road to Alaska, Dawson City is remote – and from what little I have seen – I try to keep it that way as I try to make work that addresses the rupture of what is imagined versus what is real before the real obliterates the imagined - it is in an area of outstanding beauty which can lead to all sorts of photographic clichés. Gros Morne was challenging – humanity in an area of outstanding beauty they are inextricably linked. I don’t want the false feeling that one is alone with nature in my photographs.

This time I broke with the tradition of something safe and something new. The “official” work was large format platinotypes the materials I carted from the States, so being self sufficient I would need little in terms of resources from the residency. I wanted to make work and be visible making work while I was there, having the images be more directly influenced by feedback from the community. I left the studio open to encourage this. I also had “dailies” placed at the Discovery Centre again to garner a personal histories. I didn’t want to gather images to be edited later away from Bonne Bay. It is important that my work be seen where it is made.

I also took a point and shoot digital camera – mainly to illustrate my on-line daybook. In the end – and with constant talks with my travelling companion – I hope she has applied also – ended up being a coming to terms with my sense of place there.

For the KIAC, continuing my investigation of sense of place, I have come up with a hybrid, medium format film for added mobility and less of a strain financially with the final prints being either inkjets – for books - or darkroom as you have one and I am still seduced by the silver gelatine print. I want my images to be a point of departure with the community, we informing each other. I would like to leave a set of what I do with you when I leave.

Driving Directions from Pleasant Prairie, WI to Dawson City, YT

Bordering on Heresy

It was about now last year when while excited about spending so much time on the rock during the upcoming summer, I was worried. I would be so far from the rock that I knew no Bruce’s, running into Sharon, joking with Henry on his way to either free coffee or a six pack of Canadian. Away from the seamlessly endless slog along route 20 out of St. John’s to Pouch which seems to be worsening day by day – either that or I am driving more and more like a Newfoundlander. No Duke and I would be looking in the wrong direction – Québec in the distance not Europe.

What came of the experience was – as was obvious – an even deeper affection for the island. I had come to think that like most people off the Avalon that Newfoundland ended at the overpass. While missing the comforts of big city life – the evening read of the Globe, the glut of papers on Saturday to get me through Sunday, the lack of decent beer, to where I was looking forward to 1492, the self sufficiency was much more rewarding. The realisation I could function 40km from the main road and 70 from the most basic requirements was enlightening as was even though I teared up seeing the Signal Hill, the harbour and the Bubble – but not The Rooms – we were more than happy to head west again a bit early to the parks house.

This realisation has opened up a can of worms. I day dream over maps. I wonder if the same could be done in Burgeo – always wanted to see Burgeo – the extreme it seems to be as being at the end of a long endless road. Buchans – the same with no sea view.

Worse it has opened up options away from the nation’s far east. I could go off island. There are other remote places even though they have normal time zones. There is a residency in the Klondike, I now know someone who has been there and it sounds as challenging as my initial forays north and east. The application deadline is 1 April, I have to get on it. Because of the revelations of last summer, am dead set on driving. The drive to the rock was a trial I remember stating that we needed some reward after long days of nothing – making it only to Scranton on the first day, the endless urban areas of Upstate New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts actually all the way to Portland where even crossing state lines weren’t fulfilling.

There was, however, the final push in Maine the emptying out of the land – the feel that stops could be done was worth the agony of everything up to then. I was also made aware of the distance.

The ride back told me that I am even able to do it alone – and stop – and not race – well until the Maine New Hampshire border.

With none of the urban stress after Edmonton, the outing to Dawson City could be a piece of cake and if i missed Newfoundland, I could always stop over in Fort McMurray

Why Peasants Pissoir isn’t Pouch Cove…

Or Bonne Bay.
Ideas has just come on the Internet in my newly re-edited CBC world. I listen to As It Happens out of Thunder Bay then – leaping time zones - switch over to St. John’s for Ideas so that don’t have to listen to the dreaded Shelagh Rogers. I listen to Paul two and half hours earlier than we should in the central time zone.

Here I have am trying to figure out how to dole out the rest of the evening. I was in the darkroom in the afternoon – converting this to wireless time, during All Things Considered – listened to the World at Six at five when I really wanted to live in the future - at four - while I printing the three postcards of the week. The stopping was by default as the developer became cold – the darkroom is a constant 12c – and lost potency.

Coming up I was at a loss as the evening was well under way and I couldn’t focus. Things here don’t seem as organic. In Pouch, in winter, where again I would base my life around Radio One, 180 minutes later than here, the evening would flow together. I would make dinner, read the Globe if I hadn’t while having my pints at the Duke, written my letters, and still read a bit before falling asleep. Even though the evening would start later more would be accomplished.

While the equation isn’t quite the same as I don’t have a darkroom in Pouch, I did in Woody Point and still managed to produce much more there than here and still have time to stare gob smacked out over the water and all of Woody Point or Pouch off to the right.

Here I have to choose, I am behind in my class preparation, as I wanted to read the Kafka on the Beach, I read on the train which is also the time that I use to catch up. I owe letters to quite a few people – something that I used to have under control – I can do that or print or prepare.

The 10x8 negs from the summer has joined the other negs in the backlog pile – something I was hoping to do over break in the basement of Martin and Gabrielle’s as part of the evenings’ work.

Even while in Baltimore, I made work and actually went out exploring during the day. Here even that is an option with consequences. While east I made sixty odd 10x8 negs, went through the rest of my 120 colour, almost all of my 120 black and white about 50 rolls and filled a DVD with digital snaps. This was in between doing other things to help out my mother. It was Newfoundland light. Work in the morning, outing in the afternoon, and making books in the evening – Access Hollywood replacing Paul Kennedy holding off on Ideas until it was broadcast in Victoria just after midnight.

Since I have been back, I would qualify for tenure tracked part-timers at the ‘tute in my production as maybe two rolls have passed through the camera.

I cannot figure out why. The days are no longer there. Things are not any closer there, and distance was even more of a factor in Woody Point. I do find it hard to focus, but there doesn’t seem to be more distractions. In fact there are less. There is no Duke, no Seabreeze, no Auntie Crae’s, no Granite Coffee. I am resigned to trying to clear out the piddly bits that have been left undone so as to better focus to-morrow.



I hope.

So what other places were you thinking of? My mother asks over the grapefruit at breakfast.

-One day out to Port Deposit to look around. More Baker Carsley history

-How far is it?

-Around 55 miles.



After breakfast and checking e-mail she says that she is waiting to take her noon medication…waiting for what… then I notice. She is dressed the hand bag is on the dining room table. She is coming along.



One can never tell with this older generation. I am in my speed mode as I head out to the Beltway and up I-95. I am also in my cheap mode as I leave the interstate just before the toll and take the route 40 bridge across the Susquehanna only to find a $5.00 toll. Spoke to the toll booth worker as I saw no notice of a toll and was told that that way back was free.



The trip north was typical interstate motoring. Didn’t dare get off – passing White Marsh where the most recent murder took place yesterday, didn’t help any but on a interstate one must make time. Stopped at the Maryland House as a rest stop.



Mental note to photograph Ripkin Stadium.



Back roads almost getting lost to Port Deposit definitely not in the Midwest as as there were curves and and hills. Pulled into town and stopped by the river to make a few snaps. A mixture of what a town that was a historic place having people who actually live there.

A modernish playground made of plastic in an area known for granite.



There were two kids throwing rocks into the river. But like most places no one else. Tried it incorporate the playground and the town. The railway and the other street furniture.





My mother remembered none of this – figures ah octogenarians it was only seventy years ago that she was here. She wanted to drive further into town to see if there was a giant granite wall that was falling down. The family lived above it.



And so it was in the middle of town there was a granite wall still being fixed with a tasteful bed and breakfast in its wake, what historic district worth its salt doesn’t have a bed and breakfast. Above the granite there were two houses. Some snaps and a wander further in the village and out the other side where I stopped to photograph a tank outside the legion hall then back into town to photograph a mill in ruins but also a truck with Jesus is the answer above the windscreen. Some formal images mixing street signage an old building and a newer one.



Was now in slow mode and since my mother’s back was fine we took the long way back route 1 crossing over the Conowingo Dam –me desperately looking for a place to stop to photograph. There was no place on the bridge and for most of the way back there were few places to pull off.



A much nicer ride, slower as the road curved so much – and I made a diversion even off Route 1. I saw a sign saying from the Atlantic to the Appalachians and I couldn’t resist. Having done this and forgetting that not being in the Midwest where all the roads are more or less the same travel times as everything was at right angle, I got lost and used the setting sun to make sure that I went west and south.



The villages passed were not all that remarkable in fact I thought that I was closer to Balamer than I was due to the contemporary tackiness of the mcmansions along the Jarrettsville Pike. Those coupled with the model railway subdivisions had me thinking that I was just outside the city rather than almost playing tag with the Mason Dixon Line.



Never the less outside the villages on the road both of us enjoyed the ride. Again it was strange how time has compressed space. I asked where my father used to like to go for frozen custard remember driving forever to this shack almost to buy some only to find out that it was at Falls Road and Greenspring Avenue miles south and west of where we are.



A nice day with low winter sun not great for driving as there was glare all the way back but no matter I hadn’t seen a sky this clear since Bonne Bay. Stopped at a road house where we hit the Harford Road and it couldn’t have been a better winter day – even this non winter one has here in the Mid-Atlantic states.

So I am trying my best not to run around the city while here after all I did make the trip due to my mother being incapacitated due to her back surgery. I was doing my best to fight cabin fever.



Obligations helped at first as I had what seemed to be hundreds of letters of recommendations to write. I also brought enough stuff with me in the hopes that I wouldn’t be a good full time faculty member of the department and bring some loose ends to a conclusion. I was worried about how far behind I would become with the Brake Crocker other series that I was sending out a two to three images a week.



I also wanted to revamp my website – especially Pouch Cove as it was bit messy. All of this I thought would keep me busy. In the meantime I did go out to Sandy Point State Park – a place I remember from summer outings to the beach where I never could determine which was worse the stings of the jellyfish or trying to dodge all the dead fish that would wash up on the beach. Ah good times. A great day out which add a day to my being occupied as I made a book of wander from it.



There were frustrations – the weather here is like spring in the Midwest, 10C, but it has been raining. There was a magnificent outing bust as I drove through pouring rain that equalled the Worcester – Peasant Pissoir edge of Katrina downpour as I headed to West Virginia – on the day that the miners became trapped. It was a way of translating what I do elsewhere, here. Going to Harpers Ferry meant being in three states.



This was a “flow of consciousness” outing as I wanted to go to Antietam/Sharpsburg – what it is called is whether it is the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression. I had this idea of a series called tripping over history – again something one doesn’t do in the Midwest. In Chicago it could be tripping over mob killings, or running from the racists, or the trail of graft but history hasn’t really caught on there.



Looking at maps.google.com to see the distance and the route – which isn’t nearly as much fun as a real map I saw that Sharpsburg is close to Harper’s Ferry and I remembered something about Harper’s Ferry when I was young so why not.



As usual I have to go back as the trip was more significant that I had imagined in my way of making things significant. Not only was I in three states but two major rivers – the Potomac and the Shenandoah. Again outside of the Mississippi/Missouri don’t remember anything that grand in the central region. The Illinois doesn’t cut it nor does the Wisconsin and forget the Rock. They are all “nice” rivers but not the same at all. Wondered about Pittsburgh with the Monongahela and the Allegany becoming the Ohio.



Didn’t do much except stop at the Tourist Board to pee due to the rain. Did stop in Virginia to make a snap of the tristate area before heading back. Missed Antietam as I turned off the National Pike too soon. Printed out the directions but left them at Menlo Drive.



Earlier I went to Columbia Maryland another paranoid Maryland utopia to Daedalus Books. I should have stock in video surveillance as again the cameras were everywhere. Notice even more red light cameras than in Harm City. They were more discrete though.



This outing only aggravated cabin fever. I tried to figure out what to do the next day – maybe pathetic playgrounds as there was one that matched that in Paterson Avenue but again driving there I couldn’t really stop it was getting dark and I ended up making a snap of the setting sun from the Safeway carpark overlooking Reisterstown Road at Milford Mill Road.



The problem with maps.google.com like the problem with the London AZ guide is one cannot connect pages. I realised that I was driving stupidly short distances but since here the city is a series of neighbourhoods walking to Mount Washington seemed far. It was two miles.



I reckoned that I would walk to the light rail take it to Woodberry so that I could go to Service Photo – and conquer my fear of Woodberry Hampden which was Klan land when I was growing up. I would then head to North Avenue as there was a homeless camp by the light rail stop that I wanted to photograph.



The walk to the Mount Washington was to see how brave I was. I was told that pulling out a camera here would get me shot but I never saw anyone on the street. I wanted to photograph peoples street furniture and finally build up the courage to do so. As I saw no one even the houses seemed empty. I also photographed things left behind where one couldn’t be sure why. I had started this in Chicago with an “Out of Sight Out of Mind” series potential.



I also wanted to photograph the different landscape that I had been seeing – more trees, more vines climbing the them, no sense of infinity.



When I first passed all of this in essence following the Jones Falls, I now saw how land is part of one’s idea of sense of place. I saw it in one direction when Frank Gohlke talked of his move east then again thinking of Monongahela Morris and her Pittsburgh ‘scapes.



The walk became a nostalgia walk, was always curious of Woodberry as I would pass through it going to Friends and was mugged in Hampden biking through it. Despite this I liked the area with the hills, the falls and the twisting streets. That changed walking through the area. Mainly Hampden as it was just typical Balamer village, better kept up than most but still nothing special.



Service Photo was closed, talked to someone who was a frustrated as I was asked if there was another shop in Baltimore. Guessed from his minutes of silence that there wasn’t one. Thought Calumet in Philadelphia and thank you web orders.



Also thought how Balamer was more like a small town than a city. The buses only run every half hour, this may be fine but I’ll find that this will make me think twice about photographing in some areas as I won’t be able to hop off a bus make a snap then hop on again. While walking Falls Road not a 27 bus hon.



Wandered back through Hampden to catch the light rail. Felt better about the area as I saw Kerry bumper stickers but then again this is a democratic state. The gay pride flag was more of a welcoming feeling. Photographed some basketball hoops, walked an alley and photographed a neighbourhood bar. As I said however the walk became a stream of consciousness walk as a playground would have me divert my walk a bit. Before I knew it I was looking for Gomez Gallery somewhere in Clipper Mill Avenue. That led me to a church with a hoop, a nice bit of decoration on factories then television hill. Prefer Woodberry to Hampden.



The light rail to North Avenue to photograph what looked like a homeless encampment – don’t know how that turned out as it wasn’t as neat as I thought it would be. Decided not to go down town and instead to take the 13 bus to Pennsylvania and North Avenue (abnew). IT was here that I went to the movies the Met, this is where my library was, Nana’s house was just around the corner. Then the new version of the 7 bus which was also the 5 bus the M-something or other up passed the house I grew up in Mondawmin Mall and then Park Heights Avenue.



Finally there were people on the streets. North Avenue was awash with people. North and Pennsylvania was bustling. North Avenue seemed the same, the old neighbourhood looked the way it did when I lived there. It ended there Park Heights Avenue made me angry here was an area not a mile from Hampden with the same type of housing that looked like a third world country. Boarded buildings, trashed housed admittedly it wasn’t the same as Park Heights is a commercial street. There was no unifying factor.



I decided to use the bus as I see more on the bus even though they are frustrating - Greyhounds run more frequently – I get to see the neighbourhoods in relative safety – drive by shootings come to mind when I think of Balamer where THE WIRE is filmed.



So I began to realise that this time was to be a coming to terms time with Balamer but in the basement when I was putting together some books I came across pictures of the Bakers and the Carsleys – and the Hawkins, I saw my grandfather’s tyre shop in Caroline Street, his birth place outside Pocomoke City. I also had bee trying to remember where Nana was buried, I knew it was off the Beltway and I-95 in Arbutus so back to maps.google.com knowing the the 51 bus is a ride through the Clarks and Davis part of the family to the 31/35 that I knew as the 3. A triangular outing was planned.

Lord Baltimore’s Mistake

Am in the second colony of Avalon - Baltimore Murderland – my birthplace to help my mum after her back surgery. I had also come to see if I could make some sort of work about the place. After a semester of being a true member of the full time photographic faculty – in making nearly no work, even worse I didn't even have a higher paying second job to have to worry about – I had finally focused. Plane travel will do that to you. Being forced to only two bags this was to be the analogue trip with Ubaldo and Joãozão and the surprising amount of film that I had left over from the summer when in any other case would have been long gone by now.

I was looking forward to seeing how my mixed feelings about Harm City had modified after the short trip out here after Yanksgiving. I wanted to see if I had got over the overly paranoid city and its inhabitants. I was wanting to photograph another North American water based colony with a unique accent hon. I wanted to deal with the wetlands and wooded areas that abound in the city I wanted to get lost in twisty streets with real neighbourhoods.

The weather was perfect for this – at least coming from the Frozen Tundra south – about freezing and at times as much as 10C, I could have coffee outdoors wander at will it was like spring.

I can see why Lord Baltimore would have left the first colony of Avalon after a year having to put up with gale force winds off the North Atlantic for Avalon South has a better climate. But if any of his relatives are about I would hazard that they would set sail north and east again.

Despite the warm weather there was no one on the streets, except around the Inner Harbour, There were a few souls at the Starbucks in Mount Washington but the streets were deserted. It seems that Balamereans don’t walk. There were traffic jams everywhere but no one without a car.

The constant vigilance supposed to make me feel safe made me feel uneasy. I felt more safe in Rio/Niterói where at least the vigilance was a human and the streets crowded. I imagine a crime in Baltimore will be video taped but not stopped as there is no cop about.

It is truly a gun culture, as I am waiting in a bank and see three inch Perspex protecting the tellers from the customers. This goes for gas bars. Receipts are checked when one leaves shops, i.d is needed to use a bank card, Nothing is ever left unlocked ever.

Wanted to visit the places my father worked but it would be safer visiting Cidade de Deus.

I think back to the summer when nothing was locked ever.

It is a pity Balamer could be a liveable city, again the parks, the rivers, the harbour, the bay, and the neighbourhoods. Want to photograph just south of Ravens Stadium, Along the Jones Falls, just have to build up my courage.

On the return after Christmas – am driving out so I ‘ll lose that focus one has when flying and can pack the machine am thinking – will I ever learn? – the Hobo. I want all the film from the summer gone by the start of term.

Multitasking Monothinking

I am in my usual “doing too many things at one time” mode. In the process of printing the snaps made this summer – the platinotypes, the colour digital and the snaps of people that I spoke to – I find that I can look at the black and white images with a detachment where I can – I think – determine whether the snaps were good or not. This is the case with both the platinotypes and the snaps of people – which once again I say should stop as some of them just get beyond the snapshot stage. While those snaps will make it no farther than the cataloguing phase I could have saved some film in not turning the endeavour into a conceptual exercise – I blame the ‘tute for this.

The colour ones though – the ones made as records of the trip to be posted here – end that detachment. Looking at those I remember Bonne Bay vividly and stop to try to imagine that I was in a place so breath takingly beautiful. The colour brings back the reality that I am supposedly beyond as we all know that photographs aren’t real.

They are bringing the minutiae of the place and I have to imagine less about the time spent there – the tickle from Curzon Village, the gulch, dinner at the picnic table even the poorly stitched together panoramas are more direct memory aids than the black and whites. I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not.

Seeing them however brings up my second favourite pastime, looking for real estate on the rock. On the Avalon I can go through pages of places worthy of consideration – my favourite right now is in Witless Bay overlooking the ocean for $69.000. I find almost nothing along the Great Northern and when I do I realise that I cannot afford it.

I also realise that I don’t know how people who live there can afford to stay. Bonne Bay is being overwhelmed by people like… well me. I think about the regulars at the Seabreeze and wonder if their days are numbered. I remember the conversation at Edward’s shanty where he was debating whether the nearby resettled town Chimney Cove would be re-inhabited at least he could afford it. I remember Elaine telling me that she sold property in Trout River overlooking the ocean for $5000 and now someone trying to sell land overlooking Bailey’s Point for at least ten times that amount. I could afford it – yeah right – but could those who actually live there?

When there, we were remarking about the parks people and the townies and how they seem to be in parallel universes, looking through the real estate section I am beginning to see that the park is winning.

I am gobsmacked every time I look at the colour snaps, like being at the end of the road in Woody Point and would like to hanging around the place, but more people like me moving in can only hasten the change of the area.

THANKS

REENTRY

Didn’t really have a plan when I left the ferry in North Sydney, simply knew that I didn’t care much to see the ferry dock nor to look at that expanse of water.

Saw Klunder and his brood in his machine and went over to say good-bye. It was somewhat reassuring to see him off island as from now on I would be searching for things newfie as a hint of some connexion.

Wanted to hit the Tim’s in North Sydney but missed the turn off. Didn’t want to go to the next as this was where everyone was stopping. Kept going, watching the Newfoundland number plates become fewer and fewer.

While Cape Breton was a nice build up for the rock, not quite tenuous enough to be the island but good hints as what is to come.

Now it worked to ease the shock of not being there. Newfoundland with the “messy bits” taken out. A bit tamer, a bit more hospitable in the lay of the land respectable bodies of water but not quite the same. Here humans have tamed their surroundings.

Raced across the island getting lost when I was to leave Cape Breton by a rotary which led me to my double double and two cranberry muffins. Couldn’t eat the muffins.

It slowed me down a bit a made some snaps of phone boxes and a tiny boat in a pathetic pond.

Photographed a puffin statue for Jen missed the McPuffin outside the McDonalds.

On the mainland, the road became a proper freeway and once again Klunder passed me in his escort. Played tag with me until Sackville when I pulled off for a pit stop.

New Brunswick was preparing me for the states as the Trans Canada to Fredericton was the type of road I hadn’t seen even on the Avalon, no pot holes, missing cities – the type of road that doesn’t connect but moves people efficiently. There were more machines.

Making Fredericton meant that I could make the journey back in the three days allotted. Pressed on and the Trans Canada reverted to a road for a sparsely populated land. Welcomed the frustrations of having to wait to pass slow cars.

While there was no turning back when I saw the sign for I-95 I could see more doors closing. Turned off on provincial 95 and sooner than I expected I hit the border.
- where were you born?
- Baltimore
- What was the purpose of you trip?
- I was artist in residence at Gros Morne National Park
- And exactly what is that?
- What do you do in the States? What is your job?
This is why I have come to hate this States. How much more exact could I get than saying I was artist in residence and what defines one more down here than what your actual job is.

Mentioned that I had a bunch of photographic equipment in the machine another question was asked which I don’t remember but mentioned that I had Kendra’s bag in the boot.

Red flags. All of a sudden I was a threat. They asked what exactly, clothes a printer, a camera. Who is this person. Where I tried to explain the size of planes that leave Deer Lake and how all her belongings wouldn’t fit. She is a grad student.

I had to pull over fill out forms – one officer went to the computer the other to the car. I explained yet again what was going on.

The place was plastered with memorabilia from 11 September.

Remembered the trip up with the Customs Canada official and the idea of trust. Coming back trust would become a rarity.

When it was over I was called out to the motor to show that my argyrotype chemistry was leaking and had done so over my film boxes luckily the ones with raw film in them and thus completely sealed.

Thanked him again thinking that they feel that they are just doing their job and thus have to be hard edged but they were really normal joes. Pity all this fear and paranoia.

After being a bit out of sorts – not knowing where to put the leaking bottles – they didn’t offer to dispose of them. placed the stuff on the back seat protected and headed down I-95 seeing that I had only 300 miles to cross Maine and I had just gained an hour.

Stopped at the Tim’s and felt strange paying in funny, smelly green money. The shock of seeing Tim’s competing with a Dunkin Donuts, an Irving Gas Bar beside a Citgo.

Even though the road was efficient – so much so that I took the road to Portland also in an attempt to save money – it was still unpopulated.

The ended with New Hampshire, it only got worse with Massachusetts. It was getting dark and I was close to 900 miles that day.

The rains from Katrina were beginning to hit, I was in a mood for a pizza so Worcester was the goal for the first day.

Thought about stopping to say hello Anna and Stasiu in Boxford but thought again,

Arrive in the city at 9PM but got lost and only found a hotel and a restaurant at 10. I had to wait a good 30 minutes while the person at the Comfort Inn had to deal with someone on the phone. Chose the place as it had internet access.

The pizza was replaced by some dreadful aubergine parmagian and almost a Smithwicks but my rule of having something local over came my nostalgia and had a local pint. The monitors in the bar showed sports. The men my age had women half that all falling out of their blouses with hair so blond that Scandinavians would wonder.