Don’t panic!
Okay…so I figured this shot cried out for references to either Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Star Wars (“…in a galaxy far far away”) and HHG won.
Archive for the ‘Red’ Category
THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE
Posted: November 20, 2015 in Automobiles, Cars, Details, Old cars, Photography, Red, Wabi SabiTags: Douglas Adams, Junkyards
5
RED CARS
Posted: November 17, 2015 in Automobiles, Details, Old cars, Photography, Red, Rust, Wabi SabiTags: Junkyards
Subtitled: Wabi Sabi Finds Her Bliss in Northern Georgia
Four thousand-plus junked cars spread out over 34 acres. No car newer than a 1972.
Seven miles of trails winding back and forth through those 34 acres. And trees. Trees growing up in and around the car bodies. Piles of leaves and brown pine needles on everything.
It was a brilliantly sunny day and I was worried that I’d be fighting glare and harsh shadows, but the tree cover not only filtered the light, in many cases it provided beautifully soft and dappled patterns. It didn’t interfere with my shots. It enhanced them.
Mood lighting for old cars. Who knew there was a setting for that?
I spent four hours shooting, took several hundred shots and only covered maybe 20% of the grounds.
Still to come: hood ornaments, broken windshields, taillights, and rust. Lots of rust.
FISH HOUSE
Posted: September 19, 2015 in 17-85mm lens, Canon 7D, Details, Doors, Old buildings, Photography, Red, Wabi Sabi, WisconsinTags: Gateway Hotel, Land 'O Lakes, The Good Old Days, Wabi Sabi remembers...vaguely...her youth
Behind the Gateway Lodge in Land ‘O Lakes, Wisconsin.
The Gateway was quite the swanky place back when it was built in the 1930’s. Heavy timbers, a massive fireplace in the main lobby, trophy heads all over the walls–the quintessential hunting lodge in Wisconsin’s north woods. The dining room was huge, with high timbered ceilings and room for a band at one end, the bar dark with leather-upholstered booths. A long list of B-level celebrities stayed there over the years and their autographed black and white photos line the walls. (Trophy heads of a different sort, I think.)
I worked here as a waitress, summers and holidays, from the time I was 16 until I was 21. The Gateway was already in steep decline from its glory days but it was still an adventure and an education for me.
Like Kellerman’s from Dirty Dancing, there was an alternate universe at the resort where the help existed, especially the summer help.
In the kitchen, wait staff quickly learned to fear the chef–a cruel and moody ass. His assistant had a serious speech impediment, so often you could only smile and nod and hope that you had somehow not agreed to bear his love child. Do not piss off Sylvia, the salad dominatrix, or your life could be a living hell.
I will spare you the rest of the stories: how to stack a tray and carry it above your shoulder on one hand, how to smile at rude and boozy patrons, fold napkins into boats and chip candle wax out of the table lights. It was both an adventure and an education.
*** *** ***
Taking a week or so off for adventures of other sorts: a houseboat trip on the Mississippi is next on the Wabi Sabi agenda. Packing all my camera gear for this one.
And meclizine. Lots of meclizine. It is only just now occurring to me that I am not a big on-the-water kind of gal.
Uh-oh.
CHERRY ORCHARD
Posted: July 15, 2015 in Abstracts, Details, Door County, Fruit, Photography, Red, Wabi Sabi, WisconsinTags: Cherry orchard
Door County, Wisconsin.
Motion blur, light manipulation (and, really–isn’t that what photography is all about?) or, as I think of it: light scraping. Pulling out the details and leaving an impression of light and color. Whatever it is, I can’t shake my fascination with trees and reeds and other lovely upright botanical marvels shot in this impressionistic style.
You do not want to be driving in the woods with me. Trust me.
SHIPYARD TOUR: INTRO
Posted: May 3, 2015 in 17-85mm lens, Bay Shipbuilding, Canon 7D, Details, Door County, Freighters, Photography, Red, Sturgeon Bay
Once each year, Bay Shipbuilding opens a portion of its 55-acre yard to the public as a fundraiser for the local Rotary Club. Tours are conducted by Rotarians and at each stop, retired shipyard workers talk about equipment, procedures, and the ships built and serviced at the shipyard. Access is certainly prescribed and ships are off-limits but it is nonetheless a golden opportunity to see the mysteries behind the chain link fence.
And, you are guaranteed to learn amazing things, but you need to listen carefully. I was puzzled when our guide told us we were on our way to the “gravy dock” (company cafeteria? “Belly up to the roast turkey bar, boys.”) until I finally tumbled that he was saying “graving dock.”
Graving dock. Ahhh…
The blue gantry crane that I’ve shown you many times is the largest in the U.S. The operator is 135 feet off the ground, reaches his perch via elevator, and there is no bathroom up there. Someone asked the gnarly old shipyard guy about how fuel reached the engine, located on top of the crane.
“Five gallon gas cans,” he said solemnly. “”Every time someone goes up, they bring a can with them. As you can imagine, it’s a slow process.”
He could only fake solemn for ten seconds before he broke down into a gnarly old guy chortle.
No one can gnarly-chortle like an old guy.
*** *** ***
This is the Arthur M Anderson, a 767 foot long Great Lakes freighter built in 1952 as a part of the US Steel fleet. The Anderson‘s claim to fame? In 1975, she was the last ship to be in contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald and the first rescue ship on the scene.
Let’s close with a little Gordon Lightfoot and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6DUFPNILvM
Tomorrow: Shipyard “Found Art” and a Wabi Sabi tale of woe.
LUNENBURG
Posted: April 7, 2015 in Architecture, Canada, Fishing Boats, Old buildings, Photography, Red, Wabi SabiTags: Fishing village, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
From the Wabi Sabi archives, a look at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Lunenburg is not only on the National Geographic’s list of “Canada’s 50 Places of a Lifetime,” it has also been named a UNESCO World Heritage site as well.
OLD BARN: HINGES I
Posted: December 11, 2014 in 17-85mm lens, Barns, Details, Doors, Hardware, Old buildings, Old Wood, Photography, Red, The Old Barn, Wabi Sabi, Wisconsin, WoodTags: Wow. When I started going through my pictures of the Old Barn I realized I have too many hinges for just one post. That;s a whole lot of hingeing going on. (Is that a word?)
Five images
Okay. Start humming “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” then check out this first shot:
Majestic or what?
The rest of today’s offerings are much calmer.
I was–and am, I confess–pretty enamored of this last shot. I entered it in a juried competition but it didn’t make the cut. However, I am happy to report that a non-barn picture was selected for that show which opens in January. (Insert emoticon of Wabi Sabi doing cartwheels across the page.)
