|
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Park Circle Fire Station Open House, Arlington
It doesn't get much better than the open house over in Arlington Heights this morning. The Arlington Fire department
was celebrating the opening of the newly finished Park Circle fire station and they threw quite a party. There was an engine
and ambulance that the kids could play in, lots of coffee and donuts and even a lollipop or two. Wow.
The guys from the station were all around - really very nice. I think this is the primary piece of equipment
for this station - this ladder truck. You can see that the bay inside is really only a one truck deal. There are three bunks
in the back of the ground floor, but they had no mattresses on them. The jakes in the kitchen were joking that they weren't
sure what was back there since they were never given a chance to sleep anyway.
The two vehicles in the back that the kids could climb on were backup vehicles. They are normally kept at
the main station, but were brought out to Park Circle to give the kids a thrill. Obviously the station itself was not in service
this morning, but the people I spoke to were really happy with it.
By the way, you'll never guess who that kid was who was sitting on the front bumper of the ladder truck in
the first picture. Yes, that was Alex eating a muffin. Actually, shredding a muffin is more like it. Look at this mess. I
don't think we'll be invited back :^(.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Porter Square Commuter Station (To Concord and Back!)
Alex and I went on a train ride today. But rather than go to West Medford and take the commuter rail into town, I decided
to go to Porter Square and take the train out to Concord. Alex gets bored in tunnels, you see, and I also honestly just haven't
been out that way on the Fitchburg line and thought it would be interesting. Now, obviously I had my camera the entire time,
however, I was only motivated to shoot at Porter Square. After that, I got all wrapped up in Alex for the rest of the trip.
But a quick look around the Porter Square commuter rail station revealed some oddities. Like this sidewalk. I'd guess
that the majority of people walking up top on this sidewalk have no idea it's a shell game.
Next, we have the odd sign. I'll explain below.
OK, so the obvious visual joke is that there's no there there, right? I mean, there's no platform. If you
are actually standing on the platform looking at the sign, you immediately infer that it means the platform you are standing
on. Duh, right? Most people are not stupid enough to sit on the edge of the train platform, but in this case the platform
is not actually raised - it's ground level. So sitting on the platform would be rather like sitting on the edge of the sidewalk.
I just don't get it. So I took a picture of it.
But the coolest thing there were a number of locations like the one below, where there were imprints of plants
on the granite side-walls of the station. They must have gone through recently and cleaned the actual plants off. I was surprised
by just how striking these are.
I can imagine that if you were an observant commuter who always took the train into Porter Square, you'd have
seen the entire evolution of those marks - from the growth of the vines to their sudden disappearance and trace impression.
Cool, huh?
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Not Your Ordinary Vase Photo
This is the latest photo I've been mulling over. But there is a super-phenomenal story behind this one. Of course, I
don't have time to tell it now, so I'll give you the highlights.
A friend of mine who is a former professional photographer was going through his attic last week and decided to get rid
of some old equipment. I'll call him Mr. S. So Mr. S. asks if I can use this stuff and I say, sure, of course. And the next
thing you know, I'm setting up a Cambo 4x5 view camera and taking test photos. That's what the vase picture is all about.
The thing that is totally awesome about a view camera is that you can change the orientation of the lens to
shift the plane of focus around. In the vase picture, you can see that the plane of focus is not parallel to the film plane
- it's tilted. I shifted the front element to try to move the plane of focus to keep the volcano dancer sharp. OK, more on
this later, but it's been a huge week for me working with this new equipment, for which I am very grateful to Mr. S.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Halloween Car in Belmont and Arlington
As some of you know, I'm a full-time father in addition to a consultant, photographer, blogger and everything else. But
today is one of my work days: no kids. I had a ton of stuff to do and I got up late because of some late night web site maintenance
I did last night.
So one of the things was the Zeff/Dorian run. Zeff Photo for paper and ink, Dorian to drop off some negatives for printing. Yeah, I still do film too, I just don't talk about it all that much. But anyway,
I see a car with stuff stuck to it in my rear-view mirror as I'm passing Cross Street coming up to Pleasant Street. I turn
right onto Pleasant, over the Route 2 bridge and deliberately slow down to ponder the glory of the spirit of this person.
To my surprise, this car (which I had let overtake me on the left) stayed on Pleasant Street and I pulled in behind it.
I was able to catch a few more shots of it as it turned off up into the hills above Pleasant Street in Arlington.
Just a regular 'ol drive to the store to get milk, I suppose. I suspect this person lives in Belmont (rainbow bumper
sticker) but spends a lot of time in this part of Arlington. They definately knew where they were going and yes, I scrambled
the license plate for privacy reasons.
Please note that I do not condone, advise or otherwise encourage people to take pictures from cars while driving.
Do not do it. Even if you are not driving it can make you sick.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Medford's Veteran's Memorial Rededication
I knew that this was happening today, Sunday, but I really didn't think I'd have any chance to shoot it. After
all, I have the kids all day. But when I dropped them off at Sunday school I figured I might as well drive by and see if anything
was going on.
There turned out to be quite a lot of activity on the scene. Shortly after I arrived, they pulled out the
enormous American flag to get it ready for hanging, with a twist. The flag had not been properly rolled when it was put away
in Washington D. C. yesterday and so anyone standing around was conscripted to help reroll the flag. This would all be simple
except that the American flag is not, I repeat, not supposed to lie on the ground.
With that simple story as the backdrop, I'll share seven photos from today. One additional note: these are
mostly photos of people. This was both a newsworthy and public event. If your picture is up here and you are not comfortable,
send me feedback and I'll remove it. And if you are pictured and like it, send me feedback and I'll send you a print. This kind of event is ultimately about people and recognition and so forth, so I'll just let the
photos tell the story for you...
New England Baptist Church Sign: October 14, 2007
By the way, I don't think it literally says this in the bible, although I hear there's some stuff in Hebrews 13 that's on message.
|
