The Ghost Goose

The road from Mammoth Hot Springs to the Norris Geyser Basin passes two small Twin Lakes, North and South. Fog is common most mornings, and on this day I was lucky to capture a ghost goose as it lifted off from the North.

Fading

North of Livingston, Montana, a barn resists the tug of gravity…but not for too much longer. The day was bright and blue-skied, but I've employed Photoshop to interpret what the scene felt like: fading, and mostly forgotten, a snapshot in time.

Might As Well Jump

I was watching oak leaves fall by the basketful yesterday and got to thinking about words. Like the leaves, too many to count. A couple came to mind for no apparent reason.

Fall was first, perhaps because of what I was seeing, but my mental movie then skipped to a forever hapless character in pursuit of his ever-elusive target, and that got me to thinking about todays' time change, which (as I explained to the cats as they waited impatiently for breakfast) is remembered as fall back.

Hot on the heels of fall was jump. I've got a tune by Van Halen on my iPod, so David Lee Roth came at me in mid-air, but I was able to move quickly and avoid him, and go on instead to the noted photographer Philippe Halsman, also a master of suspension. Halsman's subjects were many and famous, and the photographer employed what he came to call jumpology during portrait sessions. "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." Out of that practice came Philippe Halsman's Jump Book in 1959, featuring (among others) a spry-looking Richard Nixon.

The Photography of Vivian Maier

Hummingbirds in our area normally begin migrating southward in early September, but we leave a single feeder hanging outside the kitchen window until November just in case. Yesterday morning we were rewarded when a female arrived for a fill-up: she stayed for several hours, alternating between a cotoneaster shrub and the feeder. I'm glad my wife looked outside when she did: otherwise, the tiny bird would have remained undiscovered to us.

There's a parallel between our feathered visitor and those talented photographers who remain anonymous during their lifetimes, their photographs unseen by the public until one day after they're gone someone happens to look in exactly the right place, and there they are.

Vivian Maier (1926-2009) is one such photographer. Her work would have remained hidden, too, but for John Maloof. John is a Realtor® in Chicago, a writer (he's co-authored a book on Portage Park with Daniel Pogorzelski, available from Amazon here), and a photographer. He was at an auction searching for historical materials when he purchased Maier's archives. "I was looking for old neighborhood photos for a project. I saw negatives of Chicago and purchased them because they were interesting, and also I was hoping to find local images…there were no local photos but I did have a great find."

That included over twenty thousand negatives (mostly medium format) and, amazingly, nearly one thousand undeveloped rolls. "I'm down to about 600-700 rolls of 120 film now (12 or 24 expsures per roll)," he says. "They're Tri-X, from the 1960s to mid-1970s, and require a couple of minutes longer to develop. Some come up faded here and there, but, all in all, they're salvageable. It's been exciting and still is."

The greatest excitement, however, is the quality of Maier's work. John has started a blog to showcase her photographs and, as he learns more about it, her life and times. A visit is well worth your time.

Don't Look Down

Zion National Park is unquestionably one of the most scenic and inspiring locations in the Southwestern United States, providing endless opportunities for outdoor photographers. And, in places, it can scare the (insert a favored word here) out of you. The trail to Angels Landing is, by most accounts, the worst of these (seven hikers have died here since 1983).

Photographer Jeff Tangen visited Zion recently and made that perilous walk, which he's chronicled at this link. If you get nervous viewing the photos—don't say I didn't warn you.

The Home Field Advantage

There are exceptions, but I believe it's true that someone who lives in a place comes to know it better than a traveler who's passing through. The resident's advantage is time: weeks and months into years devoted to discovering, at their pace, the character of the place. The short hours a visitor spends there may yield surprises, if they're lucky, but little depth.

I'm reminded of this whenever I browse a bookstore on my travels, because their calendar racks are invariably awash in a cascade of beautiful photographs of the local area, the kind I didn't shoot because the weather was awful, or it was the wrong season, or the weather was too good (no clouds). My efforts, next to all this glossy work, seem pitiful (I don't buy the calendars: who needs a constant reminder?).

A case in point is photographer Lisa Wareham. She lives in Butte, Montana, which you know from previous postings I recently visited. Just when I was starting to feel satisfied with the photos I'd taken there I stumbled on Lisa's Web site…go there and see for yourself how one photographer (who's lived in Butte for twelve years) gets immersed in a place and eventually, with time and hard work, produces an insightful and interesting body of work (the photos with this post are hers.)

Yellowstone Morning, Artist Paint Pots

Red Leaf Envy

I've been flitting around internet photo sites this week looking at dozens of fall color photos from the northeastern United States, the Midwest, Maine, et cetera, and I have a bad case of Red Leaf Envy. Oregon is mostly an evergreen state, a few aspens, cottonwoods, and larch notwithstanding, but you have to really snoop around to find reds.

Trick Or Treat?

For adults, Halloween is mostly a take-it-or-leave-it event. While stores are frighteningly full of hideous costumes and brightly-themed decorations, it doesn't get you out of work like real holidays—even Columbus Day can do that (my wife is sleeping in today to prove that point). Unless you're a witch, or a little kid, who cares?

And if you live at the end of a dark, creepy driveway (like we do) you may not get any children to come and ring your bell at all…the wind sighs, lightning flashes, and the night passes uneventfully.

I asked my wife what she remembered best about Halloween and of course it was that big bag of sweets she harvested from her neighbors. What did she do with her treasures? Well, DOH, you pour it on the floor and take stock of your haul, what else? Some things are so obvious.

It sounds just like editing photos, doesn't it?

You fill your monitor (or light-box, if you're an unreformed filmaholic) with as many frames as you can, sit forward in the chair, and…Somebody put an apple in my bag! A mistake, definitely. Hey, six Three Musketeers! Now we're talking.

Do you look for tricks, or treats?

Forces of Nature

The Arnica Fire in Yellowstone National Park was started by a lightning strike in mid-September, and had charred less than a hundred acres when we arrived in the park's Lake area. Two days later the blaze had strengthened and would eventually build to over ten thousand acres, disrupting the travel plans of park visitors but giving photographers a chance to see a unique pairing of force.

Move the cursor over the image to reveal controls for viewing the slide show.

Comfort, Restored

Early in our trip we over-nighted at the Grand Union Hotel in Fort Benton, Montana. Among the comforts once again offered by the historic establishment are a fleet of inviting leather chairs.

Photographed in the warm glow of afternoon, this one adds elegance to the second floor, next to a slightly dusty piano.

A Frame of Time

The question can be asked, why photographers choose to set up their tripods at a ruins when another, newer structure waits a mile farther up the road.

Answers will vary, but unless posted with KEEP OUT signs a ruin is more appealing for several reasons. Two of these stand out in my mind.

It has nothing to hide, and is usually open for inspection right down to the foundation. The intricacies of its decay are fascinating.

It tells wonderful stories to our imaginations, with characters uniquely our own.

I fell under The Spell while rounding a bend in the highway in southern Saskatchewan, near Rockglen, diverting quickly over a fading path to the graying homestead. Grasshoppers popped through tall grass and weeds but it was otherwise a silent scene, the location on a slight downhill out of the winds. A yellow plastic bucket intruded on the sense of timelessness, and there was no way to know when the house was last occupied. I was again struck by how small these prairie houses are, although it's really not surprising. Comfort and convenience hadn't arrived yet when this place was built. Nor had electricity.

I took away what I could in a half-hour, leaving other treasures behind for the next photographer, and mice, to discover.

Along Highway 12

From Wikipedia:

Vananda is a former unincorporated village in northwestern Rosebud County, Montana, USA, along the route of U.S. Highway 12. The town was established in 1908 as a station stop on the Chicago, Milwaukee,
St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, then under construction across Montana. The railway used Vananda as a water stop for its steam locomotives, and built a small reservoir near the townsite to ensure an adequate water supply.

Although the land around Vananda attracted numerous homesteaders during the decade following the railroad's completion, the region proved to be far too arid and inhospitable for intensive agricultural use, and by the 1920s the town was in decline. The railroad through the area was abandoned in 1980, and Vananda is now a ghost town.

The Vananda townsite has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

My hopes, whenever I hear ghost town, invariably end up in the ditch alongside chip wrappers and plastic bottles, and I'm sorry to report that little remains in, or near, Vananda. The day we passed was gray and moody, underlined by a stiff, unwelcoming wind. No one was around, not even a curious dog. A fence and padlocks kept the curious away from the brick school building, the sole reason I'd stopped.

We moved on, slowly. A short ways down the road I found further dereliction and was grateful for the subtle colors. In their awkward, abandoned positions both trailer and bus appear resigned to the fact that their time, like Vananda's, is long past.

Under The Big Sky

Butte, Montana

Until last week the closest I'd come to Butte, Montana, was on another trip several years ago when I pulled off Interstate 90 to buy gas. "One of these days" I promised, I'd actually go into town and look around.

I knew of the town's rough-and-tumble history, how it had earned the nickname The Richest Hill on Earth through subsequent booms in gold, silver and copper mining, and how, after living well beyond its means, it had fallen into a long decline.

And there's all that decadent old brick, blocks and blocks of it clustered on the hillside and beckoning to the photographer.

So last weekend we drove north out of West Yellowstone, up Highway 191 towards Belgrade, and bucked a headwind into Butte, arriving in late afternoon. A short stop at the visitors center proved helpful in getting our bearings, and we headed uptown towards the historic district.

First, though, we cut over on Park Street to the Berkeley Pit, the mammoth hole left over from years of serious digging. They weren't charging admission, and we had the viewing platform to ourselves. It isn't a large space, but the entire pit sprawls out before you. On this day the water's surface was calm, and the steep walls reflected on it reminded me of our own Crater Lake. Except, of course, these waters were anything but blue.

Armed with a map of historic buildings, my wife pointed us towards our first surprise: the Hotel Finlen. When she'd mentioned it was under renovation I expected scaffolding and a CLOSED sign on the door, but instead we walked into a wonderfully upscale lobby and simply stopped in our tracks, small figures in a forest of copper-accented pillars that reached to a high ceiling. Chandeliers completed the magic. "May we see a room?"

I could argue for fluffier towels, but that's nitpicking: all else at the Finlen was excellent. My sole regret is that we couldn't stay longer.

It's a great base for exploring the town on foot, following the numbers on a historic map (Old Firehouse, et cetera) but mostly walking around and imagining the town as it might have been when it was fresh and alive. Quite a number of buildings are being restored to their past opulence (so sayeth the brochures) but there are also many storefronts that are vacant or downright derelict in condition. In the rich evening sunlight I looked for vibrant bricks, neon signs, and other, unexpected things, and was not disappointed.

And I only scratched at the town's surface. We were tired after two weeks on the road and headed home. What would a second (or third) day have brought? We didn't have time this time to answer that question, but Butte is no longer merely a dot on the map and a place to be passed by hurriedly on the way to somewhere else.

4008 Miles

Whew.

We concluded our road trip yesterday, and today I feel like one of the hapless characters in Zombies of Mora Tau. Unlike the film's bad acting, however, my stumblings are real and unscripted.

So I'm not going to make a mistake we photographers often succumb to after returning from a trip, which is to say I'll be going through the approximately 4900 digital files in a leisurely manner over the next few days, or weeks. It is tempting to blitz through the take in one sitting, looking for the remembered Best Shots, but as I've discovered previously it invites an unpleasant thought: Is this all there is?

Wild Horses

The south unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park contains a number of wild horses, and it was our great luck to cross paths with this small group in the afternoon.


As we continued along the park's loop road we couldn't avoid the resident prairie dogs: they've well-established towns in several locations close to the route. Go ahead, tell me you could resist.


Photographers who pursue landscapes instead of wildlife won't be disappointed here either. There are panoramic views aplenty, and one can always get up-close-and-personal with a rock.

Theodore Roosevelt Park is unabashedly rugged and full of life, a fitting memorial to its namesake.

An Inside Look

The sky is lightening in Watford City, North Dakota, where we stopped for the night yesterday and are now poised for a day in the badlands of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Temperatures are unseasonably hot and our car is festooned with the remains of grasshoppers who, along with the heat, are the main topic of discussion.

As I've driven along the smaller highways of northeastern Montana and into North Dakota I've been looking for "Americana" (your definition may vary) and not finding it. Few buildings remain that offer a hint of their heyday from the 1950s, victims of harsh weather or the desires of people to build anew.

The items I've found most interesting to photograph have been inside the places where we've stopped, poking around a historic hotel in Fort Peck, Montana, and falling under the dusty gaze of a mounted moose head, or discovering the warmth of an old leather chair in another.

I wonder what photographers in 2040 will think of the things we've left behind.

The Pioneer Internet

This morning I stood on a bluff above Fort Benton, Montana, and gazed down at the Missouri River, not unlike residents in the 1800s who came up on foot and horseback to catch first glimpses of approaching steam boats. Perhaps someone fired a gun (or two) to alert the town of an eagerly anticipated visitor from St. Louis, or simply rode back down with the news, which traveled at a pace, and in a manner, we cannot imagine.

Side Streets

By long-haul driving standards, yesterday wasn't that long: from Eugene to Wallace, Idaho, a bit less than six hundred miles. We stopped when the evening began to wane and shadows reminded us how short September days are becoming. After dinner I went outside to see if I could find an "Ulrich Photo," so named for my friend and able lensman Ulrich Rossmann (if you haven't visited his Web site to see what he shoots after-hours, now's a good time…the link is in the sidebar.) I was struck by this scene, made all the more moody by the late hour.

Over Yonder

My wife and I are going to wander over yonder to Montana and North Dakota, beneath that famously Big Sky and across mostly-empty prairies where windswept dots of towns cling tenaciously to the maps. It’s going to be a car trip, which suits us fine, this time. Like bison and bears, buses and trains disappeared from this landscape long ago, and it’s too far to walk, although the pioneers didn’t know that.

We’ll see lots of countryside for the first time, and I hope it surprises us. I’ve searched on Flickr and Googled, too, but that only whets the appetite. I want the real thing, with Wi-Fi on the side.

After a week spent weaving through both flat and bad lands (so-called) we’ll drop into Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park (I’ll leave this sentence construction as-is: after sitting for so many miles a hot soak will feel wonderful). We consider the place an old friend, with the rich memories that brings. Fingers are crossed that we arrive as bull elk are bugling to their adoring harems.

Autumn will be in full stride farther south in the Tetons, and after a short stay in Jackson home will begin pulling us back. If my blog posts are infrequent over this time, I hope the leaves blush orange and red wherever you are.

Summer In The City / David Schalliol

In May, after stumbling upon the work of photographer David Schalliol one evening, I posted a link to his Web site and three selections from Isolated Buildings, one of the collections you’ll discover when you visit.

Because I was interested in his work I decided to ask a few questions, and was pleased by his gracious response. I hesitate to call what follows an interview…it’s just one photographer being curious about another.

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LFT: You describe yourself as a “sociologist and photographer.” Which came first, the sociologist or the photographer?

David: I see my development as a photographer and sociologist as interrelated. While there were all sorts of influences on both—from early art classes to a love of reading—my general interests in social issues and their expression developed while a teenager in a northern suburb of Indianapolis.

As one of the suburban alienated, I simultaneously found critical books and punk rock. On the book side, dystopian novels were first, but they were pretty quickly followed by more journalistic fiction like The Grapes of Wrath and then popular sociology like Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier. This general foundation found resonance in the Indianapolis hardcore punk scene of the early 1990s, which was intensely political.

In addition to playing in bands and participating in scene-based activism, I photographed shows, protests and the often marginalized neighborhoods surrounding show spaces in Indianapolis. As I became more comfortable with my camera, I sought the unfamiliar on the edges of suburbia—typically the abandoned farmhouses waiting to be demolished to make way for another housing development. I felt an urgency to carefully frame a doorway or kitchen sink, knowing the landscape was transitional, temporary. By the time I finished college, all of the farmhouses were gone.

I was able to further unite my interests in college and quickly became certain I wanted to head into academia in order to teach and research about social problems. After considering political science and economics, I settled on sociology for its flexibility and interdisciplinary theoretical grounding. I've since thought of my formal academic and photographic work as focused on transformation and social stratification. Despite the overlapping themes, it's only been in the last three (or so) years that I really feel like I've been able to unite the two—and even doing that is difficult. I still think of myself as sociologist and a photographer.

LFT: How did you become an alienated teenager?

David: My initial push towards being an alienated teenager occurred when my family moved back to Indianapolis from San Diego at the beginning of junior high. Being in an environment that was at once familiar and significantly transformed gave me a detachment from the dominant social setting that amplified with time.

LFT: What was the attraction of punk rock? What instrument did you play?

David: Punk provided a creative voice for my observations and my burgeoning political conscience. In the bands I typically played guitar, although I also sang or played bass. If you're interested in hearing a song from a band I was in during 1994 and 1995, I uploaded one here.

LFT: Any posters on your bedroom walls?

David: I mainly remember posting local show flyers, although I definitely had a British REM poster for their Green tour and some ridiculous heavy metal magazine pullouts.

LFT: Your earliest photo efforts...the marginalized neighborhoods, for example...were those in color or did you start out in black-and-white?

David: Most of my photographs from 1992-1999 were in black and white. I love good black and white prints, but I mainly shot in that medium because it was what was available. I sought darkroom instruction in junior high and high school, and in those classes (and, later, independent studies), I learned to process black and white film and color slides. We rarely had the chemicals for color work, so I stuck with the black and white shots. In college I only had access to black and white machines, other than one summer when I worked at a small photo lab.

LFT: Does any of that early work survive today?

David: I'm still really happy with some of my photos from those periods, and I have all of the negatives and prints. Unfortunately, the few bad scans I have online aren't the best from then, but they'll give you an idea of the landscape: Mid-1990s Hardcore and Indiana, 1994.

I’ll eventually go back and assemble a collection of my favorite photos from the era, but I don't expect I'll have the opportunity for some time.

LFT: You’re shooting digitally these days: what’s in your field kit?

David: I have a mix of antique and contemporary cameras and lenses, although I typically shoot with a Canon 5D Mk II, with a Canon 5D as a backup. When I go out into the field I typically bring the following: 16-35mm f/2.8 L II, 24mm f/3.5 L II and the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, although it depends on what I'm planning on shooting.

LFT: How do you find your subjects? Do you have contacts that help, or is it simply the photographer driving around and looking?

David: The vast majority of the locations I photograph are discovered through exploration. Of course, certain subjects (like those in my Chicago Housing Authority series) are based off of predetermined locations, but I spend a lot of time simply traveling around the city looking for interesting subjects. The initial direction in which I travel is usually determined by thematic interests alongside environmental factors like the quality of the light.

After that initial direction is determined, I'm flexible. I continue until I see something that piques my interest; after that, I usually follow that course until something suggests I go in another direction -- for example, particularly bright lights on the horizon. Given that the built environment is always changing in response to light, human use and other factors, I'm able to return to the same neighborhoods dozens of times with dramatically different results. Even after years of photographing for hours a week in some neighborhoods, I'm still not tired of any location on Chicago's South or West Sides.

LFT: Some of the derelict neighborhoods look dangerous, especially at night. Do you work alone or have an assistant?

David: I almost exclusively photographed alone for the first few years of shooting at night in Chicago, although I've mainly been exploring with my girlfriend and the occasional friend for the last year and a half. The dynamic is a little different when I'm out with someone, but the process is basically the same. I'm always driving when photographing at night, so I usually stay near the car in case of trouble, and I do my best to be aware of my surroundings. I've found that people are typically simply curious about what I'm doing in their neighborhood and usually enjoy talking about where they live. Of course, there are occasionally problems, but they have been few and far between.



LFT: Any tips for photographers contemplating this type of photography?

David: I don't know if this advice is obvious or not, but following one's instincts is important. I've found that my mind is aware of much more than conscious thought. One example took place on a morning when I'd been photographing a series of abandoned houses. It was early in the morning, and I was familiar with the area, so I wasn't being as mindful of the immediate surroundings as I should have been. I was walking around the side of a building when I had a feeling that something wasn't right. I immediately stopped and actively listened. I heard voices coming from the back of the house. As I backed up, I saw a circle of young men standing around packages that I assure you weren't luggage. I'm sure that wouldn't have been a good situation to walk into. Since then, I've been even more careful, and I try to be all the more aware of what my instincts tell me.

Other than that, my main advice is to learn to read the environment in order to better understand what is going on around you.

LFT: How did you come to live and work in Chicago?

David: While I applied to sociology programs in urban and rural settings, I ultimately selected Chicago for the University of Chicago and the opportunity to closely study the urban manifestations of social stratification. Clearly, it's been instrumental in my photography as well.

(Ed. note: As we exchanged emails during the summer David moved temporarily from his Chicago base to Detroit.)

LFT: You've spent the summer working in Detroit. What was that like?

David: This question finds me on my first full day back in Chicago. In total, I spent two and a half months in Detroit.

Given recent media coverage of the city, it goes without saying that working there was challenging. Considering so much of my work is based on the particulars of the built environment, moving from Chicago to Detroit provided considerable difficulties alongside the obvious opportunities. Of course, the primary issue was crafting a body of work that could contribute to a conversation about Detroit with at least some nuance. While I planned to continue working in under-served neighborhoods, I was determined to present more than the ubiquitous Detroit "urban exploration" scenes.

I did continue working on series that addressed phenomena shared by Chicago and Detroit, but a few strategies helped focus my attention on Detroit as Detroit. One was reflecting on the few functioning streetlights off of the main streets. While most every neighborhood in Chicago is fairly well illuminated, Detroit neighborhoods are not. Even our street in a highly functioning neighborhood in Mexicantown was totally unlit until about a month into the summer, when one light bulb was installed in one of the streetlights. I addressed that issue in most of my night photographs by producing generally dark images that emphasize privately owned light sources: two examples are here and here.

Another strategy was thinking about the relationship between occupied and unoccupied buildings, rather than exclusively addressing abandonment. There are an obscene number of derelict structures in Detroit, but given how well those structures have been documented, I wanted to represent how those buildings are integrated into residential and commercial neighborhoods. Again, two examples, here and here.

Those issues (among others) were exciting to address, and I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to work in Detroit.



LFT: Your Detroit work includes several examples of people-in-the-environment. Are you heading away from a straight documentation of buildings?

David: While I do have a sketch of a long-running series of photographs involving people on Flickr, the proportion of photographs that featured people in Detroit was certainly larger than usual. Those images were partially a conscious decision to represent the presence of life in Detroit, but they were also the result of a variety of special situations in which taking photographs of people was appropriate. I'm particularly pleased with a few of the images, so the experience may lead me to include more images of people in the coming months. In part, that decision will be based on what is going on in Chicago. Regardless, the built environment will continue to be my primary subject.

LFT: At the time you were there the Pistons signed Ben Gordon away from the Bulls. Coincidence, or are you also going to jump over to the Motor City?

David: I am neither able to confirm or deny any association between the actions of the Pistons organization and my temporary relocation to Detroit.

LFT: 2009 was a busy year for you. What can we expect in 2010?

David: I'm expecting a lot more activity in 2010. If all goes well, I'll be continuing my current photographic and sociological projects and more tightly linking the two. I also have plans to start a couple of new projects I've wanted to do for a while now, including one that may be getting some funding. If that goes through, expect to see more shots from elsewhere in the U.S. added to my Chicago and Detroit series. It promises to be an exciting year.

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