Brian’s PhotoPile

I read some articles in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s newsletter today about hate crimes and people who take advantage of poor immigrants. It’s hard for me to feel compassion or love towards people that cause so much grief in fellow human beings. I have to almost put blinders on to be able to see deep inside them, to see what their hurt is, why they can act the way they do and what it is that can make me love them still.  It’s difficult. I often think I can feel love or compassion towards everyone, but in reality I haven’t reached that point yet. I keep trying.

I’ve been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by life these past few days. I feel somewhat like a sponge, absorbing whats going on around me, but not able to produce anything I really feel is of any value. I want to do more things than I seem to be able to do. Sometimes my “creative” life seems to slow down to a standstill. My computer is still acting up. The tower’s drive is full again although since trashing and transferring files a week ago I haven’t saved anything on the drive. I haven’t taken what I feel are really extroadinary photos in quite awhile. I’ve been relying on my little pocket camera too much. I get disappointed with the results expecting it to do more than it is capable of. And to top it off when I downloaded the most recent pictures I find they are all blurry because there was a nice big smudgy greasy fingerprint on the lens. But I do kind of like these photos I’ve posted today. They are of a work crew from the county jail who just finished cleaning the Inner Loop around downtown. I liked the way the steelworkers looked from inside the parking lot. I felt like I was in a race while waiting at the light… so many people are in a hurry all the time. Record Archve had a lot of cd’s on sale for a dollar each. People flocked to the event.

I got a little hung up today taking photos of the dummies and reflections in a clothing shop on Monroe Avenue. I didn’t notice the name of the store; it’s near the corner of Marshall Street. One time a year or so ago I took similar photos and looked up the prices of the dresses on the internet. They are expensive. The store must be doing alright because they seem to have expanded and now also have a storefront devoted to children’s clothes as well. I think I’d like photographing live models but never have. Actually once at the George Eastman House a photographer had a short class on photographing models and I attended. We took a few pictures of a model he brought along. It’s one of my better people photos. Anytime I’ve had friends pose for me I never seem to get quite what I’m looking for.  These store dummies seem to satisfy that desire somehow. I found the art students photo on a bulletin board near a gallery I visited over the weekend.

Friday evening I forgot my pocket camera so these photos where all taken with my iPhone. The gallery shot is Jeno Horvath’s exhbit at the Community Darkroom. He along four other photographers exhibited some photos relating to their own identity. The show is titled “Self” and runs through May 17th. I thought Jeno’s was especially creative in that all the people you see in each of the photos are Jeno in various poses. It’s well worth taking a look at. He has a funny sense of humor even down to the biographical information that you practically need a magnifying glass to read. The others photos I’ve included are some shots around the George Eastman House. I played with many of them by moving the camera while taking the picture then raising the contrast and saturation a bit with the computer. The lawn hasn’t been raked yet since winter so I got some interesting effects with the green lawn and yellow thatch.

Wow, it’s been over a week since last post. As many of you who receive “the almost daily photo” in your email know, I ran into some major computer problems last week. That seems to be somewhat resolved now and I will try to resume postings on a regular basis once again. Someday maybe I’ll figure out a way to link a small thumbnail photo that goes with what I’m writing but for now I’ll leave that up to you to sort out from the ones that appear below the text. The first picture is of Marta Filipek taken at her Visual Studies Workshop MFA Thesis Exhibition last Saturday afternoon. The exhibition is at Small World Book’s upstairs gallery at 425 North Street in Rochester and runs through the 18th of this month. The next picture of the logs I took because while sitting in Webb’s Cafe across the street from the lot I thought I saw a cow where what turned out to be the log on the right. Then there is a few pictures of ground objects as well as a few for my growing collection of embedded objects in the pavement series and splattered paint series . I thought it was funny the girl waiting for a bus on a cold snowy day with only a tee shirt on and a red winter coat unzipped. The sphere in City Hall’s atrium was being dismantled. I never found out where its next stop will be. Last but not least is the radio tower at East High School included because after photographing it I had a dream about climbing up a metal stairway inside a similar tower and speaking with the tower custodian about why the top twenty or thirty feet was not supported by guy wires like the rest of the tower. He didn’t answer the question but from the top of the tower I could see a water spillway that kids were gliding down on air mattresses. The spillway was man made but resembled a river carved into the hills below the tower. It went on and on for about a mile before ending on a beach by the sea where I commented to my young nephew that isn’t it a little cold to be playing in the water. (don’t forget you can click on the thumbnails to make them bigger)

Sometimes bits and pieces of our lives are scattered about left to be lost here and there, eventially scooped up by giant earth movers, raked into the garbage heap of civilization, ittle toys broken, discarded, forgotten. So much for the arm left on the porch and the train engine lying in the dirt.

I like to go downtown, wander around the streets, look at the heart of Rochester. Today I saw a young man with the coolest jacket and tee shirt combination. I wanted to photograph him. I thought of trying to surreptitiously snap a picture of him, but when he caught me looking at him I went up to him and asked if I could take a photograph. Simple, no spying, secret sleuth, embarrassment, etc. He was curious why, but obliged and with his friend asked if I could picture both of them. Next thing I knew a whole gang of people got into the picture. It reminded me of the time in France at the grammar school when the same thing happened with the kids in the cafeteria.

Later this evening I listened to my favorite jazz group at the Little Cafe. Margaret Explosion is so mellow. Their music resonates with something deep down inside me. I could listen to them for hours.

(note: you should be able to click on any of the pictures and have them open up into full size. However, I’ve been having some trouble making that happen. If it still happens, I’ll talk to the webmaster, Bill, and see if he can correct the problem)

I walked around the old Iola complex today. The county sold the property to a developer that has (had?) great plans for the area. Some of the buildings where going to be rehabbed, some demolished. A hotel was going to be built by the canal, an apartment complex with a shopping mall was also on the plans. Its been years now sitting vacant. Vandals have stripped some of the buildings of the fancy ornamentation. Today I found one building where vandals had busted open a door and stripped all the wood molding off the rooms and piled it all in one of the rooms ready to be carted off. I called the maintenance man to see if they were doing any of this work and he replied that they were unaware of the vandalism. It’s sad to see these buildings destroyed like that. They’re not much older than I am. The cat’s where sunning themselves by the door and a whirlybird flew overhead. The two guys walked by the car while I was entering some info on the laptop in another part of town.