Another one bites the dust ...

No, it's not a still shot from the next Transformers movie.

It's not been a good few weeks for historic sites in Anamosa. First the old middle school, and now this house just two doors down from me. It's been the subject of much discussion. Some say it's an original structure from the 1840s. I respectfully disagree, as Iowa was pretty much wilderness back then, or at least this part of it, and I doubt a structure like this was being built. (But I'm happy to be proven wrong.)

As much as I'm into historic preservation, in order any structure to be saved, the bones must be good. In this case, these bones had a severe case of osteoporosis.

The equipment was parked on the lawn the day before, and they got to it bright and early the next day. (I overslept a little.) By the time I cleaned up and got down there, about a third of it was already gone. Quick work was made of old house. The rock and plaque, as you see was daintily moved out of the way, noting the historic sight of the Gideon Ford House where Indian maiden Anamosa visited in 1842 will be cleaned up and reset after the new house is completed later this summer.

I really tried to get as many shots of these "jaws" looming in from outside of the frame. (Yeah, I've a dark sense of humor. Whaddya gonna do?) Enjoy the pics!

Beautiful Ruins

Well! This snuck up on me! A couple weeks ago, I wrote about an area middle school being torn down, but it had been going very slowly. Late last week, I was walking home, and I heard the sickening crunch of wood. No! I don't have my camera! I ran up the hill, and they had just started. I quickly beat it back home, had lunch, and waited for the rain that had stated just as I got home to let up some. After about half an hour, I was on the site. Two thirds of the building was gone! Fortunately, between this post and the last one on this topic, I grabbed some establishing shots, showing the school as a whole. But for now, here are some artsy shots of the various stages of ruin.

The one on the left is the only one I enhanced a little, due to the crappy, overcast day. Everything else

turned out pretty good. I chose black & white to class things up a bit.

 

 

 



I think the one on the left is my favorite. It really looks like a battle scene.

(Not that that's a good thing, but if I was going for eerie, this one succeeds.)

 

Destruction

An old middle school is being torn down. It's a shame, really, as these types of buildings have the best "bones." They've stood for over a hundred years for a reason. But a new middle school has been built, so what to do, what to do? Time to tear it down.

This is where the gymnasium addition was connected.

It was demolished a few weeks back.

I like the jagged edge of where the gym was connected leading out to the nothingness.

A few more variations of that "nothingness" angle. The tree line adds a nice texture.

 

I'll be taking more pics as demolition continues. And, quite frankly, the gates are not securely locked, so I suppose one could roam all over if they had a mind too.

Pretty Pictures

Several projects are in a state of flux at the moment, not really at the point of writing about them, and I realized I hadn't posted photos that I've taken in quite a while. Enjoy!

This almost looks like the Nexus from Star Trek: Generations. (Too soon?)

 

Mother Nature has the best paint brushes. I did not edit these except to throw the watermark on there.

My camera registered the blues as they are seen here.

 

 

This was a lucky shot. The plant reminded me of a hollyhock, but it wasn't as tall.

I couldn't really bend the stem, so I placed the camera where I thought it'd work best.

 

There be ghosts here ...

I’m in the process of pitching an idea that plays up certain aspects of an area cultural site. But before I could proceed, I had to make sure it was a viable one.

As a rule, I don’t go for gimmickry in photography. I like a pure image, untouched by Photoshop’s hands. I even try to crop the image as I take the picture. I want to do as little correcting as possible. Ideally, the only thing I should do with the photo is resize it, and pop into place. Ah, those best laid plans.

(To be fair, when I’m doing something artsy, for my eyes only, the above paragraph gets tossed out the window quicker than ... Well, you can use your own metaphor.)

This cultural site calls itself a “ghost town” so let’s play with that.

To help get the idea across, I wanted to combine these two shots …

 

The first is one I took several years ago to document cemetery theatre. The latter was taken a few weeks back.

 

 

After erasing all scenery, the fun part was resizing the figure so it was proportional to the buildings. Then I played with the transparency layer to get it sufficiently “ghost” like. Finally, I applied a sepia tone to make the end result more age appropriate. This will look better with more "ghostly" people milling about, maybe even some horses for this particular shot, but it’s good enough to get the idea across.

If I get the green light, I believe there's a much simpler way to go about this, and I'll fill you in should it happen.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Experiments in Sepia

Lately I've been dabbling in sepia. I've always liked sepia-tone photographs, but admittedly lazy in applying the technique to my own. But with these results, I'll strive to do better. The textures really come out, as that is now the focus rather than the colors.

The peonies are about done this year, and as stellar as these shots look in color

(you'll have to take my word for it), I love them even more in sepia. I think

the bottom left is my favorite.

 

 

These I took just before the leaves started coming out. Not a fan of the two

on the right, however the two on the left are very neat, if I do say so myself.

 

All of this is leading up to when I finally put my photos online to sell! It is a work in progress, several more archival CDs to go through and pick the cream of the crop. I hope to have an announcement sometime in July.

Alley Shots

 

 

One Saturday afternoon I decided to cut through the alley bordering the old movie house in town. I enjoy the patterns created by the flaking paint and variations in the brick and stone. Definitely a subject worth revisiting, but I'll need a stepladder to balance things out more.

My God ... It's full of bricks and mortar ...

Next to the public library is an additional parking lot for the auto dealership just up the street. At the edge of the lot is a towering stack. It's been there for as long as I can remember. I need to ask Bob at the tourism office what used to be attached to it.

In any event, it was a very nice partly cloudy day with abnormally high temperatures in January when I took these. And as clouds add texture to any outdoor photo, the softness of the clouds against the roughness of the brick makes for an interesting set of pictures.

 In the photo on the right, you can see a ladder. It took a lot of restraint not to climb it.

I've been asked many times if I enhance my photos. Not always. I try to let the camera do the work, cropping as I align the shot. These were not enhanced or cropped in any fashion. (And please forgive the horrible reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey in the post title.)

Summer Experiments

It’s been a while since I’ve done some fun photography. I’m not sure yet where this is going to go, but I thought I’d post some preliminary results.

 

Over the summer, we had a lot of Japanese Beetles. They're about 1/2" long with shells that are this iridescent green/purple/black. They like to gather en masse on leaves, slowly chomping away, leaving the ribs of the leaf. As the dog was trying to catch grasshoppers during walks, I began noticing the remains of these beetles’ appetite. I hadn’t really paid attention to the architecture of the leaf before, and thought it could make some interesting photos.

 

I’m still playing with the lighting in some of these, and noticed it’s best to get the shots at night. The pictures themselves are ok, but converting them to black and white and playing with the levels a little give an eerie effect. The inverse is weird, too. Pretty funky stuff. Hopefully further messing around will produce similarly abstract results.

Sunrise/Sunset

I think this is the first sunrise photo I've every taken. While my body is up at the crack of dawn, my brain usually decides to join the party a few hours later. The sunset was taken this past winter. I like the blackness of the branches against the pasel hues.

I took a little walkabout over Memorial Day weekend after realizing that I've hardly taken any pictures this year. Of course, it was hot and humid. Welcome to summer in Iowa. I'll post when I've sorted through them.