Cylindrical Decrepitude
Focal Length: 20mm | Aperture: f3.2 | Exposure: 1/800 | ISO: 100 | Post: CS4
A friend took me down to a little nitty gritty nook roughly between the end of Maple Street and the sewage treatment/rail yard a mere stone’s throw from the waterfront on Saturday. It was the official first day of Spring and sunny skies with temperatures upwards of sixty degrees were forecasted but nay, a cool wind and grey clouds smashed any grandeur of Spring. Nonetheless, I was at home amongst the industrial grime that surrounded me, luscious rust, vibrant graffiti and delicate flakes of paint peeling before my very eyes. Retrospectively, it was a fantastic first day of Spring spent with a friend and her dog in the dirty kind of environs I dig on with my camera in hand. Perfect.
Learn To Fly
Focal Length: 58mm | Aperture: f13 | Exposure: 1/2500 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
I highly recommend freely wandering the grounds at Shelburne Airport. It’s the closest you’ll probably be able to get to any aircraft in this day and age. I was in and out of hangars, peeking into cockpits, and just generally nosing around and exploring without a hint of authority looming over me. I was respectful, of course for there is that constant fear that your being watched even if it seems no one is around, so I played by the rules. When I stumbled upon the flying lesson hut, I fell in love with the sign “Learn to Fly” because it doesn’t specifically state that interested parties will be instructed in aeronautics or general aircraft piloting. And who doesn’t want to learn how to fly?
South End Grit
Focal Length: 20mm | Aperture: f4 | Exposure: 1/125 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
I was lucky enough to link up with friend and Chicago-based photographer Ian Merritt (IDM Photography), the day after Thanksgiving and ramble through what has become one of my favorite wastelands of industrial decay in the South End of B-Town off Flynn Avenue. I really cherish the exploring via the lens with a chum who shares the same excitement for photography and grimy subject matter, you find yourself feeding off of each other’s energy, almost pushing each other to find the ideal grab. It’s also really fun to see how the same place or subject is captured through another’s cam, what catches their eye, how they frame the shot etc. Ian is no exception, his work is incredible and I very much enjoy his keen eye and prolific body of work, swing through his kick-ass blog and be sure to peep the 50 Portraits Project he has underway, he also Tweets much more frequently than I, under the handle of @IDMPhoto.
Lusciously Mundane
Focal Length: 28mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/400 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
So let’s be honest: I fucking adore color, especially in often overlooked everyday circumstances. The bright orange of a traffic cone set against the dull and dirty background of asphalt, vibrant graffiti lining the walls of an avoided alley, the vividly colored plastic of trash or recycling bins on the sidewalk, I love all these things. Fortunately, I’m surrounded by such occurrences on a daily basis (most of us are), the trick is putting effort into actually observing and appreciating the splashes of color that are apparent in our everyday lives. Take a walk and soak it up.
Lost Highway
Focal Length: 18mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/4000 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
A little less than 1.5 miles of an empty four lane freeway spur off of I-89 spans from South Burlington into Burlington. The project was abandoned in the 1980’s due to funding and a few other programs that weren’t in the right place at the right time, deadlines were missed and eventually ideas shifted. Now this stretch of asphalt lies dormant and untouched, plants have begun to stake claim in cracks resulting from the ground shifting over the years. Jersey barriers adorned with colorful spraypaint block off the ends and a portion at the intersection of Industrial Ave. and Pine Streets has been turned into a makeshift parking lot for nearby businesses. It is a wasteland, an eerie graveyard of a public works project gone awry, a monument of what could have been. It’s also great place to add some miles to the shoes and snap a few rounds with the cam.
Barrett’s Trucking
Focal Length: 18mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/500 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
While wandering Flynn Avenue, I walked into a truck yard with a few luscious industrial structures in various states of decay. This is the kind of stuff that makes me beam with delight upon discovery, worn colors and rough textures in areas that typically display bright “No Tresspassing” signs with chain-link fences and razorwire. More often than not, someone has already found a way in and I merely follow the tracks of those before me, camera in tow.
Burlington Brick
Focal Length: 31mm | Aperture: f9 | Exposure: 1/320 | ISO: 250 | Post: CS4
Delicious simplicity, texture, color and composition. I love how you can see where the city has made an effort to remove the graffiti from the brick, yet traces of it linger…
Stockton Street
Focal Length: 18mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/125 | ISO: 100 | Post: CS1
When venturing to Chinatown in San Francisco, you are most often lead to Grant Street, where numerous shops and storefronts sling a wide array of all things China. Smells of Chinese cuisine drift towards the nostrils, camera batteries are sold, that beautiful Chinese calligraphy labels all of the shops and restaurants. Golden dragons, colorful lanterns, and vibrantly intricate garments are all there. Grant Street is the Chinatown for white people or tourists. The real Chinatown runs one block up the hill and parallel to Grant and that is Stockton Street. Here is where the SF residents of Chinese descent shop and eat and swap wares. It’s less glamorous and more genuine, it’s stinky and sticky and incredibly dirty, I love it.
Patriotic Minimalism
Focal Length: 22mm | Aperture: f5.6 | Exposure: 1/320 | ISO: 1000 | Post: CS4
This past Saturday, I ventured into Essex to check out the Champlain Valley Fair. I hadn’t been in over a decade, and well… not much has changed really. Murphy’s Law was in full effect as the one day I attended was the only day it rained, and the rain almost amplifies the level of depression at the fair. Lot’s of stuff you don’t need for twice the price, agricultural exhibitions, rickety rides, and oh yes: fried dough. Discovering the red white and blue Winnebago out behind a poultry showcase was what made my day, I adore simply composed pictures with color and grit. Yum.
Seattle Grime
Focal Length: 20mm | Aperture: f3.8 | Exposure: 1/20 | ISO: 400 | Post: PS7
Like candy to a child, I fail resistance to dirty, gross and gritty alleys. I love them. They are the often neglected backside to commerce and residence; deliveries are made, trash is stored, air ducts converge, kitchen noises waft and textures are abundant (in addition to stench). I cannot simply walk by one without veering within to explore. What stood out for me in Seattle was the fact that the streets and downtown areas are impressively clean for a populous metropolitan locale, but not the alleys, the alleys are just as fantastically “grungy” as any other urban corridor I’ve had the pleasure of getting gum stuck to the sole of my shoes in.
Vice Peddler
Focal Length: 28mm | Aperture: f4 | Exposure: 1/30 | ISO: 400 | Post: CS1
Lottery, smokes and booze, all that separates you is a counter and the man who trades money for vice. This was my corner “stop ‘n rob” when I lived in the NOPA section of Western Addition in San Francisco, I was in here daily, in fact, if you look closely on the counter there, you’ll see my PBR tallboy and a Sparx (not the baby bottle) to start off my evening of debauchery.
Dogpatch
Focal Length: 22mm | Aperture: f5 | Exposure: 1/100 | ISO: 200 | Post: CS1
A few of my favorite things: grit, color and composition, luscious. The Dogpatch is one of my sought out areas in San Francisco simply for the fact that it provides a satiating amount of visual fodder in lieu of the fore mentioned attributes in it’s semi-neglected industrial landscape. Fun fact: the photo of me that now resides on the Bio page within this site was taken in this very same spot by Phillip Hua.