I like cars! (or) More proof that I'm an American. (American cars edition.)

I really do like cars.  I find so much charming and excellent about them that I easily overlook their most egregious faults.  You know the ones, the killing the environment and negatively impacting our quality of life in a real and visceral sense.  I'm gonna ignore those faults.  Not to mention that driving them, the cars not the faults, can be dangerous, aggravating and promotes laziness, a lack of exercise and helps cement our place in the world as fat, over-privileged, natural resource hoarding assholes.

It's 1972 again! Somerville, MA 5/12.

But dude, tell me you can look at that car and not get all misty eyed and irrational!  So what if I can't can't tell a spanner from a spaniel!  I just know that if I found a sweet fixer-upper I could learn to become a crackerjack mechanic in no time at all!  And after I was done getting the engine and suspension squared away I'd make a temporary paint-shop in my driveway like this guy did and finish the job right!

Mass Ave Matchbox, Cambridge, MA 5/12.

Ok.  Maybe I am delusional.  After all I really don't know much about the inner workings of an automobile, simple or complex.  Just ask my girl-friend who thought I was lying to her when she asked me what kind of oil her car took and I said, "Uh...huh?  I dunno."  Beyond, push right pedal down go fast, push other pedal down go slow, all I really know is what colors I like and that American cars have sucked for, like, ever.  

These American cars do not suck.  At least they don't suck to look at.  And I bet they don't suck to drive as long as you don't have to turn very much.  And I know they sound damn hot.

Sharing the Sidewalk, Chelsea, NY 1/12.  

For me cars represent potential (I, too, could be mechanically talented!)and fantasy (Race-car drivers are so dreamy and macho!  I drive cars too.  Am I dreamy and macho?)and a connection to a glorious past that I struggle to find true connection with.  My dad *Madmen alert!* used to work on his cars in the driveway in his jeans (for weekends only) a white t-shirt (called an undershirt back then) with a beer close-by and a working knowledge of all the tools in the box.  There was probably a transistor radio mumbling the play-by-play of some game in the background competing with the drone of a few lawn mowers being piloted by dads in distant yards.  I was like an electron circling the whatever an electron circles, bouncing around the driveway, the garage, the backyard, with excitement until that magic moment when he pulled himself out from under the car and while wiping his hands off on a dingy towel he'd survey his work as if he could see through metal.  He'd take a long pull from his can of Budweiser (the KING(!) of beers) like a performer cranking up the drama before settling into the groan of the drivers seat to turn the key and prove yet again that he was a wizard.  

The suspense was delicious and safe.  I knew that darn car was going to not only start but after the back-fires settled and the exhaust cleared it would purr like it had the day it rolled off the assembly line.  

Jacked Nova, Los Angeles, CA 3/12.

And it usually did.  Try telling an 8 year old kid that's not magic, and not powerful, and not proof that his dad has some kind of super-powers.

So yes, cars are a powerful image holder for me and as such I take a lot of pictures of cars of all types and in all conditions.  I've had fun driving and admiring the ugliest shit-boxes to the swankiest of the swanky and honestly I've found fun and personality in all of them. 

California Convertible, La Jolla, CA 3/12.

Some are easier to love than others of course but as long as they don't strand you on the side of some forsaken highway in the rain they all have their charms.  Plus all of them, no matter how humble, go vroom-vroom if you roll up the windows and make the noise with your mouth as you step on the gas.  And that sounds frickin' awesome.

Sad Face, Somerville, MA 1/12

I say goodbye for now with one last photo of a car so damn hot that it melts many parts of me simultaneously.  My eyes, my heart and my brain all succumb to it's automotive charms, not to mention my loins.  Speaking of, as always, touching the photos makes them bigger.  If only everything reacted thusly.

Too Darn Hot, Somerville, MA 10/11.

Yummy!

Moving pictures or Planes, Train (Boats) and Automobiles.

Ok.  This is bordering on ridiculous.  Here it is 3 months after my last post and I'm wondering where-oh-where has the last quarter year gone?  Two posts a week?  More like 2 a year.  Sigh.  Self-discipline thy name sure as shite ain't Wham Art.  Oh well.  Nuthin' fer it but to git back on that horse and ride it hard until its shoes fall off and it need to be put down due to exhaustion and dehydration.  Or sumthin' like that.  I'll be right back.  I need to find my 6-shooter just in case.


Certain themes in my work come to my attention as I comb through the archives.  Sometimes I realize things like, "Huh. I take a lot of pictures out of the windows of moving things."  So then I gather them all together and look at what I've got.  This entry showcases some of a group of pics I'm working on recently.


I'm not always piloting these machines, in fact, I really do try and be as safe as possible while still being true to the artists' creedo, "Nothing, not even the safety of innocent bystanders, is more important than expressing my personal vision that teeters on that sublime edge between genius and, uh, super-genius."


I love that creedo.  Also, no horses were hurt in the creation of this blog entry.

"Bridges of Whatever County Philadelphia is in"

4/2012

I shot this, obviously, while hanging on to the fuselage of a plane as it was about to abort it's first landing attempt in Philadelphia (the second attempt was successful!  Yay!).  I do like shooting out of an airplane's window for a couple of reasons.  One of course is that I like to use my unapproved electronic device at times when I'm not supposed to be using it.  It helps me tap into my inner rebel to not follow the rules on purpose.  Hey, I'm smashing the state from the inside one tiny little brick at a time.  The second reason is that it still tickles me to be hurtling through the sky in an aluminum tube with a few jets strapped to it hoping to arrive alive.  In that last sentence feel free to replace "tickles" with "scares the ever-lovin' crap out of".  Taking pictures out of the window helps to distract me from being terrified.

Red Boathouse, Lake Julia.

4/2012

I went to Minnesota last month to see some dear friends.  As we tend to do as a group we had a very aggressive good time which had a profound effect on both my mental and physical state.  This pic was snapped (pressed?) from a moving boat.  As in the case of shooting from the airplane window to keep myself from freaking out, I was shooting from the boat to keep myself from throwing up and befouling the pristine waters of Lake Julia one of 10,000 or so lakes/ponds that clutter the otherwise lovely landscape of this most friendly state.  It worked.

Another Motherscratchin' Water Tower, MN.

4/2012

Looking back at my photos from Minnesota I realized I had a zillion lot of shots of water towers.  It got me thinking: does Minnesota have more than it's fair share or can you just see them all at the same time because it's so darn flat out there?  It would seem to me that a state that claims to have so many damn lakes and other waterways should have less need of water towers.  This, however, was not the case.  Oh Minnesota!  You have confounded me yet again!  This one was shot out of the right-hand (passenger) side of the car I was traveling in at what I conservatively estimate to be 70mph.  Sometimes you compose a shot for minutes at a time and you are still left wanting.  Sometimes you stick your camera up and press the shutter release button and you get lucky.

Red Light Motorcycle Man, Cambridge, MA.

5/2012

Ok.  I was driving, or at least in the driving position, when I took this picture.  I just liked how everything lined up so I felt compelled to not deny the world yet another slice of my vision.  My motorcycle riding friends had a lot of constructive criticism for this guy ranging from the practical and helpful (Riding in the rain can be fun but keep it under 55...) to the snarky and catty (He's not in gear at a red-light...he looks like a shlub.)  It did take him a beat or two to get going once the light turned green.  I appreciated his gear-finding pause more than the guy behind me, Mr. Quick Horn, because it allowed me more time to gaze lovingly at the beautiful work I had just created using only my brain and my phone.  I'm heavily into simplicity.

Gas station. Night. Rain.  Somerville, MA.

5/2012

Again from the passenger side, this is another example of press and pray.  Sometimes you get a blur that looks like a blur.  At other times you get a blur that, once you tell people what it is, it becomes clear that you are not only a genius but something of an expert in blur-analysis.  This is also an example of a work of art with an obtuse title that may have nothing at all to do with what the subject of the image is.  That always drove me crazy until I started giving my images titles.  Now it makes me smile smugly.  

I'll end with another rainy, night shot yet again taken as a passenger in a moving car.  Many thanks to my drivers, my camera and my big, beautiful brain...and of course you dear reader without whom this would be a big exercise in self uh congratulation.  You are out there right?  RIGHT?!?

Rainy Night Tunnel, Boston.

5/2012

The fact that this one looks like a painting of the Leroy Neiman school really tickles me to no end.  And really, thanks for reading/looking.  As always clicking on the pics makes them bigger.  Go on, no one's looking.  Do it.

The Backyards of Somerville - iPhone!

So much for two entries a week.  But yes here I am again plying away determined to not give up, not give in, never surrender.  Yes my goal has been altered but that is no reason to give up completely!  Soldier on I must so soldier on I will.

This series is pretty much self-explanatory.  It is pictures of, well, backyards in the town in which I live, Somerville, MA.  All the photos were taken in the past month or so which help give these yards an extra helping of emptiness and disuse, uh, because it's winterish.

I enjoy finding forgotten corners of the world, places that seem like they may never have been visited even though they exist in the midst of a busy and crowded world.  

I also like the effects I can get using the various apps available for shooting photos on an iPhone.  The ease with which you can apply filters and a tilt-shift to your work is pretty darn cool.

The barbeque grill standing alone, rusting in the brown grass and dead leaves strikes me as a particularly lonely sentinel.  How can the source of so much summer sustenance, the fiery focus of mirth and merriment be so easily discarded?  And if it can (and obviously it can) what else can be so easily tossed aside?  Mommy? 

OK.  I don't really get too worked up about these empty pieces of the world but they are speaking more loudly than I realized at first.  It is easy to pass them by without a second thought.  But I'm glad I stopped to look.

They remind me of days gone by and make me nostalgic for times that I have no specific memory of and yet I believe must have been better, shinier, and more full of hope than any that came after it.  (Is nostalgia always tinged with sadness?)

I hope I don't leave you with a negative impression of Somerville.    These photos could have been taken a lot of places.  I just happen to live here and have a feel for this kind of scene.  A lot of my work plays with and explores themes of emptiness and loneliness and this series is yet another variation on those themes.  

I threw this one in there to show you the backyards of the forlorn can be found other places too.  This one is in Brooklyn.  I promise to re-visit these spots when things turn green and warm and see if it's the season that gives them their bleak personalities or if it's me.


Thanks for looking.  As always click on the pics to make them grow!

Cross-tastic! At least 10 reasons why cyclocross rules.

1)  Playing in the mud is a lot of fun!


There haven't been a whole lot of true ol'fashioned Belgian mudfests the last two seasons here in New England and I for one miss the heck outta them.  For those of us with more bike handling skill than fitness the mud can be a great equalizer.  For now, since the season is over and global-warming, er, climate change is having its way with our weather we are stuck watching interweb feeds of the European races to get our mud fix.  

2)  You get to carry your bike when you forget how to pedal it due to oxygen-debt.


This isn't as easy as it may seem.  Often you are running with your bike because it's actually faster to do so than to keep trying to turn those darn pedals over anymore.  And like many cyclists I ride a bike to avoid running in the first place so the idea of adding some running into my training regimen make me laugh so hard that my energy drink shoots out of my nose.


That said it just might improve my results.  Darn.

3)  Duffers like me can ride the same course as National Champions.  That's Tim Johnson passing the beer garden at Gloucester last October.


This is actually pretty darn cool.  A few hours after we get the course ready for them, the pros race on the exact same course we amateurs have flogged ourselves on.  In fact it is our tires that have shown the pros which lines are NOT the fastest allowing them to improve on our lap times.  It's a service I happily provide.

4)  Crashing in 'cross is rarely a disaster...


...except for your ego.  Even though it often feels like you are abso-freakin'-lutely flying around the park the speeds you reach in a 'cross race are nowhere near those you'd approach on the road.  That in concert with the fact that much of the race takes place on grass, dirt or sand, crashes happen often without dire consequences.  Just don't do it in front on the beer-tent and everything should be ok.

5)  If you buy a cool looking kit your kids might think you are a pro.


It's as simple as buying a jersey with sublimated logos and ads.  Do that, pin on a number and pay your 30 bucks and you'll look 80%-85% pro-tastic which is plenty to fool even the most savvy 10 year old.  Go overboard and shave your legs (men or women) and you're 95% of the way there.  The highlight of my 2011 season was undoubtedly the moment when my son looked at a photo of me racing a few years back in an old wool (no logos) jersey and said, "That's from before you were sponsored."  Yep.  My son thinks I'm a pro.  That's better than actually being one what with all the training and travel and pain.  Woo-hoo!

6)  'Cross fans are the best!


I think the above photo says it better than I ever could.  I get the impression that maybe, just maybe these two took a wrong turn on their way to the regional dog-show and had bought beer coupons before realizing their mistake.  It speaks to the spectator-friendliness of the sport that they stayed.  Bonus points if you can spot the Tour De France stage winner in the pic.

7)  'Cross is tough on your bike.


Any cyclist worth his or her doping program is first and foremost a gear head.  Nothing but the latest and greatest will do for us the recreational weekend-warrior.  "Should I drop $2500 on those carbon wheels?" isn't a question that even gets asked because it's tantamount to asking, "Should I breathe this fresh air?"  Those wheels will potentially shave .5 - 1 seconds off your laps times which is the difference between 35th and 38th place!  Plus they look damn hot.  Cyclocross racing will break shite on your bike making it imperative that it be replaced with something better, lighter and shinier.  That makes us gear junkies very happy indeed.

8)  You can look like a gazelle.


As any resident of the African savannah can attest, gazelles are not only graceful they are also steadfast, honest and true.  Not many humans can claim to be all of those things but for a few brief, shining moments on the 'cross course we can get a taste of the elegant majesty these animals represent.

9) (Almost) everyone's butt looks better in lycra.


There are of course exceptions and they can be horrifically memorable but for the most part lycra does a fantastic job of holding-in, molding and shaping in an eye-pleasing manner.  This "ass shaping" phenomenon is similar to the "hot-butt/wet-suit" corollary seen in surfing circles.

10)  It's fun as hell to bust-ass around a racecourse on a bike.


Our society does a great job limiting the fun opportunities of adults.  Riding a bike sorta fast on a usually pretty fun course trying to go faster than some guys/gals who you suspect might be assholes in real-life is, to put it mildly, a hoot.  I look forward to 'cross season all year and then mourn it's passing about 5 minutes after I stop throwing up after the last race.


If this post has made you even slightly curious about my lil' sport wake up early-ish one January weekend and point your browser at www.cyclingfans.com and take in a European cyclocross race.  Most big races start at 9am eastern-time.


To check out my results from this just finished season (and seasons long past) click on this link:


http://www.crossresults.com/racer/24946

Island, part prir (3), the Bay of Smokes.

Combining the words "city" and "Iceland" is a bit of an exercise in, uhm, lying.  The only town of any size at all is Reykjavik and it is small by almost any measure.  Sure it's charming and picturesque and fun but it is just plain darn small.  Reykjavik (The Bay of Smokes) is known for a few things the most famous of them is that it's party (partay) central.  We saw evidence of this (lots of bars, piles of vomit, a fair number of gin-blossoms) but did not partake unless partake means "was kept up all night by drunken fools singing James Taylor songs in the cutest accent imaginable".


It is tough not to be charmed by this the capital of Iceland and it's one and only city (biggish town).  A full 2/3's of the country's peeps live here.  

Harpa Opera House, Reykjavik.

This building, the Harpa, is the jewel of downtown.  It was just about completed when we were there and they were scrambling to dot the t's as we explored it.  It was designed in collaboration with some sexy Scandinavian design/architecture firm and artist extraordinaire Olafur Eliasson.  I am a big fan of his installations (he was behind the waterfalls in NYC a couple years back)and as such I was taken with this building in a big way.  

Harpa from the water, Reykjavik.

It is designed to need no artificial lighting manipulating the incoming light to dazzle and illuminate, a noble goal, but one that seems to have not come to complete fruition.  Light does move in strange and interesting ways inside the building and makes the outside sparkle like, well, an Icelandic jewel (not an Icelandic Jewel, that's Bjork).  It is a success?  I think so.  I showed my appreciation by taking a ridiculous amount of photos of it never quite getting what it is I thought I wanted.  I shall return.

Finishing Touches, Harpa, Reykjavik.

The rest of urban Iceland can be summed up thusly:  there ain't no more.  The second city of the country is the quaint Akureyri (population 17,500).  Here is a picture from the downtown.

"Downtown" Akureyri.

There is a good amount of public art on the streets of Reykjavik and I'm sure I took many pics of many cool pieces of graffiti and modern sculptures but I can't seem to find them.  I will do so and address them in later entries.

Like I said, I have unfinished business in this compelling lil' country and I will be back.  

Nature Baths, Myvatn.

Any country that actively encourages soaking in hot water and drinking beer while shootin' the breeze with your friends, neighbors and countrymen(and countrywomen)is one that speaks my language.  Even if that language is almost 100% incomprehensible. 

Island, part tveir (uh, two)

I could go on for a long time about the virtues of Iceland as a travel destination, a place to live, a photo-subject, a place to eat puffins and whales and putrified shark.  Instead I think I'll just go on for a moderate length of time about all those things and more and punctuate my points with photographs.


There are glaciers in Iceland.  A glacier not only looks awesome (in the original sense of the word AND in the "Valley Girl" sense) but it seems like a living, breathing thing.  It makes noise.  It moves.  It has a presence.  Walking around them and even on them provides many of those "My puny little life has no meaning." moments, like watching a whale swimming, or staring into the Grand Canyon that I kinda like and some others find scary and depressing.

Skalafell maybe?  A glacier definitely.

If it wasn't for global warming climate change this sucker would be comin' for ya!  Instead it's in full retreat.  D'oh!  


I find all of this beautiful.  I dig the desolation, the majesty and indifference of nature, the universally picturesque. It is endlessly compelling.  Some more examples:

Somewhere north of Reykjavik

Julia told us when we left Reykjavik we'd stop every two minutes to take a picture of the "most beautiful thing we've seen in the last two minutes" and she was right.  This was one of those moments.  If Reykjavik had a skyline we could've still seen it from here.  There are loads of farms in Iceland.  They fall into one of three categories: inhabited, abandoned, inhabited but look abandoned.  I'm not sure which that one qualifies for.

I like to shoot buildings, especially simple ones.  Iceland had me covered.

West of Saudarkrokur, on the road to Drangy.

The suburbs of Mjoifjordur (pop. 37)

The road into Mjoifjordur was an epic journey all to itself, one that left Tracy making her peace with the universe assured of our impending doom.  I wasn't ready to die either but rolling our little Toyota down an impossibly steep ravine in the wilds of Iceland wouldn't be the worst way to go.  Imagine the story our families could tell!  We obviously made it.  Our reward was one of the more photographed sights in Iceland.

Abandoned herring boat, Mjoifjordur.

Ain't that pretty?  My Icelandic-Grail was the Norwegian whaling station that lay on the southern shore of this fjord.  Inaccessible by our 2wd econobox and 7 clicks from the head of the fjord we couldn't easily pull it off so we didn't.  It sticks in my craw but it also gives me an excuse to return.

One last glacier picture.  Next post will be on urban Iceland, truly a contradiction.

Island, or as we call it here, Iceland!

Before I get to it I want to say (yell) I WANT THESE PHOTOS TO POST BIGGER!  Click on them and see what happens...please!  I pass the work on to you rather than to spend 5 minutes to figure out what the heck I'm doing on this darn blog.  It's one of the ways I keep the costs down so don't complain.


Iceland was as wild and wonderful as I was hoping it would be.  The only regret I have about our trip was that it wasn't longer.  I am a sucker for bleak desolation especially in my landscapes and Iceland, much like it's sister wind-blown island(s) friend New Zealand, has it to spare.

A couple of toungues of the Vatnajokull Glacier.  West of Hofn.

This photo really captured what the heck I was talking about above.  A bleak landscape that has it's own presence.  There is something invisible looming in the foreground that balances the power of that glacier.  It's invisible sure but no less powerful for it.  Plus there's some power lines too!

Iceland does pump out the power in a rather geothermically slanted way.  I like thick pipes as much as the next guy so that was a plus.  I also like the fact that steam (and boiling mud) hisses (and bubbles) out of the ground just about everywhere you look.  At this one huge geo-power project (Krafla)all the mucking about and drilling they did caused an earthquake!

Pipes from the Krafla power station.

Power is also generated by the various waterfalls that litter the landscape with their aggressive "picturesque-itude" and their awesome "beauty-ish-ness"

Solitary man (no vertigo) Godafoss.

One thing that was refreshing to our jaundiced American eyes was an idea that was pervasive in this wonderful little country...the idea of personal responsibility.  (There is a tad bit of irony present given the fact that Iceland defaulted on shitloads of foreign loans after the economic crash and then basically said "Fudge you!" when given the chance to work out some form of payback.  Personal responsibility on an individual level yes.  On a nationwide scale, not so much.)  You can go just about anywhere you wish.  This idea is illustrated in the above photo where "Mr. Heights-don't-Scare-me-You-Stupid-Foss" is walking right to the edge of the foss (waterfall) that would love to crush him like the puny little human he is.  There might be a sign that reminds you that the world can be a dangerous place and you should learn how to best protect yourself but beyond that you are on your own.  So go forth and explore.  Just remember you might slip and fall and be crushed to death by hundreds of thousands of litres of water or be pecked to death by 1000's of angry puffins.  Quick! Send the lawyers to Iceland!  They got some freedoms to impinge upon!

Lonely barn between Myvatn and Egilsstadir

This one again illustrates that thing I so dig.  The majesty in the bleak.  I realize that I am ascribing a human feeling to an inanimate object but you, dear reader, are going to have to deal with the fact that I'm much more comfortable expressing my deepest feelings indirectly through my photos.  So instead of "Old Barn" by Sometimes Lonely Photographer, you get "Lonely barn".

In all honestly, the barn seemed fine, not the least bit lonely.

I'm gonna make this a two parter so more pics and witty commentary will follow in the next day or so.  I leave you with another from Godafoss.  

Restaurant at Godafoss.

I can't say if it was a lonely restaurant or not.  It was yellow.