Thematic Photographic–Monochrome

Black and white photography.  That’s what I cut my photographic teeth on.

When I was in high school my dad put a darkroom in the 2nd closet of the room that would become my bedroom.  We weren’t rich, so all we could afford was the equipment for black and white photography.  That was perfect, I learned a lot about photography by taking and developing my own B&W photos.

Here are some of them.

We lived on the edge of town, right at the feet of the Wasatch mountains.  That meant our neighborhood was the winter feeding grounds for the deer.

Main Street in Salt Lake City, circa 1977.  That’s the Salt Lake LDS Temple on the right, and right in the middle of Main Street and South Temple Street was a statue of Brigham Young.  Traffic had to go around him.  He’s been relocated up half a block, to that almost traffic-free block in the picture that has become a park between the Temple and the Church Office Buildings.

If you’ve seen the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, you may recognize this building.  It’s in the Southern Utah ghost town of Grafton, where they filmed several scenes from that movie.

The Bonneville Salt Flats are an eerie place.  I went out there on a cloudy, moon-free night and it was so dark I almost lost the car just walking 10 feet away from it.  I took this picture another night when it was clear and a full moon.  The salt reflected so much of the moonlight that I could take this picture without a flash.

Freeway-to-be.  The I-215 belt route around Salt Lake City, before it was finished.

And finally, my brother and his 1978 Ford Country Squire towing a boat – as we leave for Lake Powell.  Yeah, the back is sagging a little bit, but it made it all the way down there like that.

For more Monochrome photos go to:

Thematic Photographic–Where You Work

I have a huge office.  It’s about a 35 foot (10.7 meter) square.  I only have it to myself for about an hour a day, the rest of the time I have to share it with 30+ other people.  And every 50 minutes, they all leave and 30+ new people file in.

My workspace:

Of course, the stuff I do in that big area takes a lot of planning, correcting and recording.  For that I have two separate workplaces.  One in the big room:

and one at home:

But even though I spend a lot of time at the two workstations and  walking around my big office, most of my work ends up here:

thanks to an iPad connected to a PC connected to a projector.  Chalkboards, whiteboards and even smartboards are a thing of the past.

And, in his usual excellent timing, Carmi picked this theme the week that my work partners finally show up.

Tomorrow is the first day of school, and I have to meet 160 12 year olds, getting to know each one of them and (hopefully) motivating them to take their work seriously.

Tonight I’m not going to sleep well, I never do the night before the first day of school.  Emotions run the gamut from regretting that my summer is over, excitement to meet a whole bunch of new people, fear that I’m going to have a class from hell and the knowledge that every day for the next 5 months something is going to happen that will a) piss me off, b) frustrate the hell out of me, c) embarrass me, d) make me laugh out loud, e) melt my heart and f) give me that incredible feeling when the light bulb goes off over a head and the student realizes they can do it.

It’s a rollercoaster, from the minute we hit the floor running tomorrow to the last day when we say goodbye. 

What a job.

To see more workplaces, just look here:

Thematic Photographic–Far From Home.

Well, the farthest I made it this summer.

Price, Utah.  Only 120 miles away from my home, but I did feel like I went back in time 50 years.

We had lunch at this little café, looked like the last time they remodeled was sometime in the 50’s.  And not that “trying to look like the 50’s but all new or refurbished” look, I swear it was the real thing.  Tall ceilings, old booths (in good shape), even had the soda bar along one side.

I had the bacon cheeseburger with curly fries.  Well, more like curly fry.  It looked like they took a whole potato and just spun it around cutting it into one long curl.  The meal was awesome.

Just up the street from Farlaino’s was this J.C.Penny.  Again, it had been a long time since their last remodel.  Except for what they were selling, they hadn’t changed a thing since the 60’s.  They even had the offices above the entry way with windows that looked down on the sales floor.  And there were people up there.

Those two put us into an old-thing mood, so we headed up to Helper, about 5 miles back towards Salt Lake.  Helper is got it’s name because it was built to store extra train engines they used to help the coal trains get up the steep hill to Soldier Summit.

Main Street is now a hodgepodge of old buildings, some abandoned and some used for various purposes.  The next few pictures is the La Salle Hotel on the south side of town.  I fell in love with the building, if I had the money I’d buy it, refurbish it, not reopen it as a hotel, but just keep it from being lost.

That little building on the side of the hotel is the La Salle Lounge and Barber.

The family dining room was on the main floor, but…

… around the side and downstairs was the adult dining room, with dancing.

An old washing machine?

Here was the local E Clampus Vitus chapter, whatever that is.  We got a little peak inside and there was a bar, looked kind of like a club house.

Enlarge the picture above and you’ll see a couple of mannequins looking down at the street.  Just up the street, as we were looking at the Piggly Wiggly sign (below) the local postman pulled over to chat with us (With a population of about 2,000 people, I’m sure he had no problem identifying us as tourists.)  First thing he told us was that the Piggly Wiggly sign was a fake, put up for some movie that was filmed there.  We asked him about the mannequins in the window and he told us that they were in homage of the “working girls” that were allowed to openly ply their trade until Utah Gov. Norm Bangerter sent in the  Feds to shut them down in 1982.  As he put it, they had “legalized” prostitution in Helper until 1982.  We talked to him for about a half hour, he’d lived there all his life and it was obvious he loved and was proud of his little berg.

An old building that has been taken over by artists.  Quite a few artisans have found Helper to be a creative place to be.

Just some door front that looked cool.

And here we have the Strand movie house, where I discovered I’m not the only one that wants to buy an old building on that street and fix it up for no reason.  He was working on it as we went buy, the first thing he said to us was, as I took the second shot below, “I’m gonna have to charge you a nickel for every picture you take.”   He was just joking, we talked to him for a while and found out that he bought the building and was fixing it up, with no intention of ever showing movies there.

This is the reason we have child labor laws.

Tile on the outside of the building?

City Hall.

Arguably the tallest miner in the world.

Um, I just couldn’t resist.

This sign is authentic.

We had another excellent meal, dinner at the Balance Rock Eatery.  It was inside an old Mercantile, and although it didn’t give the immediate “flew back in time” that Farliano’s had, but it was still cool.

For more “Far From Home” pictures, visit:

Thematic Photographic–Liquidity.

GoPro captures liquidity as I drive through a puddle.

Liquidity is fleeting in the desert.  Saturday: Liquidity so bad I couldn’t get the Jeep out of the hole.

The very next day.  Sunday: So dry the Jeep came right out with no help.

Reflections on the Great Salt Lake.  Can you tell which one is the right way and which one was rotated 180 degrees?

For more liquidity pictures, check out:

Thematic Photographic: Aged

I have no idea how old the sign is, but the Ritz Classic Bowling Lanes opened for business in 1958.  Unfortunately it closed down about a year ago.

This is what’s left of an old pier out on the Great Salt Lake. 

Strewn across the western landscape are these huge concrete arrows.   They are remnants from the early days of air mail delivery.  Before the advent of GPS and other directional technology, the pilots flying the U.S. Mail would use these arrows to direct them on their routes.  They would fly in a straight line, until they came to the next arrow, about every 20 miles, where it would indicate which direction they need to change to.

And finally, this guy.  I have no idea how aged he is, but he sure doesn’t look like a spring chicken.

For more “AGED” pictures, head on over to Carmi’s blog: