Re-Opening the Garage

In August I was introduced to a small part of Birmingham's Southside known as the Garage. After developing some long-dormant film from my Canon EOS 3, I rediscovered some more photos that I took at that time. One of them is almost identical to a photo taken on my Canon T2i, but I am posting this one regardless, mostly because I am very fond of it.

Revisiting the Ensley Steel Works

Back in October, I posted some photos from a visit to the Ensley Steel Works in Birmingham that had occurred about a year prior to that past. Yet I recently developed a roll of Kodak BW400CN that was shot on my Canon EOS 3; the film contains shots from several outings dating back more than two years. That roll contain several shots from U.S. Steel's Ensley Steel Works that I had forgotten that I had even taken, some of which I liked even better than the similar photos taken on the Panasonic LX3, which can be seen in the previous post (linked above).

For additional photos of this ilk, I have also previously posted about Republic Steel's East Thomas Plant in Birmingham.

Turkey Creek

Turkey Creek Falls :: Canon EOS 3, EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5, Fuji Superia 400

Since first learning of Turkey Creek last fall, I have been several times, with various friends. While I was working with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Fall 2010, I learned of a number of protected and endangered species (like the vermilion darter) who live only in these waters; it's kind of interesting to know they don't exist anywhere else in the world. 

Roots :: Canon EOS 3, EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5, Fuji Superia 200

 In October, members of the North Jefferson Kayak Club hosted a clean-up effort here at Turkey Creek, where a large red oak had fallen across the creek and was causing erosion of the banks and buildup of debris. Some video and photos from that outing can be found here.

The Turkey Creek Nature Preserve has done a lot of work to promote and preserve Turkey Creek as a local refuge, not only for critters but also for people. There's also some good paddling to be done here, but mostly there's only enough water right after a rain.

Turkey Creek Nature Preserve :: Canon EOS 3, EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5, Fuji Superia 400

And here's a little video of Tyler and me testing out a rope swing over the chilly waters today.

Great Grandma's Farm

Though I have spent a significant amount of time on Great Grandma's farm in East Texas, I (sadly) have very little to show for it, photographically. During my earlier years, I wasn't yet a photographer. And in the years since, I have lived no less than 600 miles away, thus allowing for fewer opportunities.

In the the couple summers after my first two years, I was able to take my first "keepers." And just to forewarn, one of them is somewhat disturbing.

Canon Rebel 2000, EF 100-300 f/4.5-5.6

Canon Rebel 2000, EF 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 III

Mamiya M645, Sekor C 45mm f/2.8

 And here's the story behind that last one. One of aunts informed me that there was a cow that had been dead a couple of weeks that was out in one of the pastures. So my dad and I took the golf cart to go see it. I took a couple of cameras along. As I approached, gingerly, a cloud of flies ascended off the carcass, startled by my presence, only to settle back down for more dinner and egg-laying. The smell is indescribable.

In the years since, I have only really had one additional opportunity. For Christmas 2008, I received what was at one time the camera of my dreams: Canon EOS 3. And I always assumed it would be a dream to own it, because it cost upwards of $800 in the early 2000s. However, with the digital revolution and the subsequent plummeting of SLR prices on the used market, I was able to obtain one for 1/10 of the original price. And it's everything I had imagined it to be. My first photos with it were at the Farm, which was also the first outing for my EF 20mm lens.

Canon EOS 3, EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Canon EOS 3, EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Canon EOS 3, EF 20mm f/2.8, Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Canon EOS 3, EF 20mm f/2.8, Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Hopefully, future trips will bring equally appreciable fruit. I've spotted a few prospective shots; now it's just a matter of getting back.

Addendum:
Some of my favorite, or at least most vivid, childhood and adolescent memories occurred on the Farm:

• Jumping off the dock at Aunt Reba's, and feeling the fish occasionally nibble at your toes while you were in the water, all the while wondering if Chuck was telling the truth that water moccasins could bite you under water (I still don't know).
• Shooting at turtles in the ponds. You never really knew if you hit one, because even in the event that you were close enough to have hit it, the turtles went underwater either way. So we just generally assumed success.
• An all-boys camping trip, involving cousins, second-cousins, friends - I don't know who all was there, but there were an awful lot of us. And just as we were getting things set up and hotdogs were cooking, a flash flood dropped on our heads, and we ran through a couple of pastures back to Great Grandma's, wet and having slipped and slid through every puddle along the way. So instead we camped in the living room, lying scrunched together like refugees.
• Throwing fire crackers at one another on July Fourth weekend. Matt trying to blow up the remains of long-deceased frogs and squirrels with M-60s.
• Playing hide-and-seek in the hay bales in the barn. They were usually stacked impossibly high. And when that got tiresome, rope-swinging from the rafters into large piles of hay on the barn floor.

There are more, but they're not occurring to me at the moment. Does that make them somehow less memorable? I'd like to think not.

Below is the conversation this spurned among cousins, on another forum:

 

After the Fog Rolls in

Canon A-1, Fuji Neopan SS

 Unreal City, 

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn

When T.S. Eliot penned those words in The Waste Lands, he so adeptly captured

the essence of the transformation which a city undergoes, when the fog sets in.

____________________________

Even the simplest, most innocent structures become surreal, eerie,

almost compelling you to look for something sinister in their midst.

Calumet 4x5, Schneider-Kreuznach 135mm f4.7, Ilford Delta 100

Holga, Arista EDU Ultra 400

And nature is no different. Peaceful mornings among the rudimentary, ancient woods that predate our own habitation, take on a different tone. One of isolation and solitude, whose connotations are of loneliness rather than a voluntary, if temporary, distancing.

Panasonic LX3

Panasonic LX3

_________________________

Carl Sandburg's Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Holga, Ilford Delta XP2 Super