Old Photos

On the way home from the Deer Isle trip a few weeks ago, Tracey and I stopped at a roadside Flea Market to look around. I found a small snack bag filled with 1.5"X2.5" snapshots from what looks like the early 1920s. They were a mix of photos of some European places (seemingly Italy) and a few from the top of the Empire State Bldg. but this photo urged me to purchase the whole bunch...


(scanned, cleaned up and dropped on black for clarity)

How many such snapshots must have been made of this Awe-some sight by tourist and Ellis Island bound immigrant alike since the Statue of the Goddess Liberty was dedicated in 1886 (a mere two years before 'The Kodak #1' gave birth to amateur photography itself)? It still never fails to inspire, even as a quickly shot snap.

Old photos have that magic about them. So often I hear folks say, "Well, my photos aren't any good. I throw most of them out." That is a shame. While professional portraits are a nice thing to have as well, I think that everyone should make (and print!*) as many photos of their every day lives as they can. More especially of the people and places that they care about. One, for their own enjoyment years down the road when those people and places may not be around any longer, and two, for posterity to enjoy and learn from those same lost people and places.

One of my favourite books of photography is the 12 volume set of Burton Holmes' Travelogues that I found in great condition at an old book shop a few years ago. Burton Holmes traveled the world with a camera in the late 1800s and early 1900s and provided a window into the rest of the world that at the time, was the only glimpse of another culture that most people would ever get. Today, these Travelogues (he coined the phrase) serve as one of the best documentary looks at a world that could not fathom global conflict (much less two of them in such short time) that would destroy so much of the natural beauty and the wondrously executed works of man that then existed with the ruthless hands of ignorance and war.

'Fine photographic art' has its place of course, but there is plenty of room in future history for snapshots as well. The moments fly by as the speed of time and if they aren't recorded, they are left only to the fading prospective memories of the few people who may have been witness to them and have been paying attention.

(*does no good to make lots of cool digital snapshots and not print them...committing an image to print gives it a chance of survival to be seen by future generations...keeping it ONLY in a temporary electronic form, almost certainly dooms it to being lost as technologies change and CDs and hard drives are corrupted with the ravages of heat, moisture and time.)

Bucksport/Deer Isle

Tracey came with me to photograph a wedding on Deer Isle. We made a weekend of it and stayed a few nights in Bucksport.
I'm bored on the way up...


and then got a few photos of the new Penobscot Narrows suspension bridge...and one with Ft. Knox also the next day...

Bambi

Bambi's mom jumped up out of the road and into the woods as I was driving up to our house. Bambi here, looked a bit perplexed as to what this big rumbling gold thing in the road was. Stared at me long enough for me to get my camera out and take a few photos through the windshield and then ran off in the other direction from mom...

Wierd Onion Ring

No commentary. Just a cool onion ring...

The Cats

(The grrrls wanted me to post photos of their cats.)

Keiko


Starbuck


Cassie

Stuck in Hogwarts Hel

So the last of the Harry Potter books came out last night. While I've not been all that interested in reading them myself, my wife has began reading them to the grrrls soon after the second book came out and we've all been going to see the movies. Like any red blooded grrrls, mine are smitten with young master Radcliffe and really like the series. All manner of media frenzy has broken out over this last of the books release and MuggleFest Portland was conceived of.

While the concept of any such socially phenomenal event such as this is often brilliant, it is another thing entirely to pull it together in reality. The energy of the event was palpable, and in the long run, I suppose we can say that we are happy that we were among the 5000 people who purchased tickets, but it was a trying many hours. Here are some of the photos that I made of the event to give you some idea of what you may have missed:

The Narrow Gauge Railroad on Portland's Eastern Prom was transformed into Hogwarts Express for the afternoon.


"All Aboard!" and the train is away ...well, except for those of us who wouldn't push and shove our way to get onto the train...we gave up waiting for a second attempt at boarding and we walked down the tracks to the event...It was a pleasant walk at least.


A half a mile later we arrived and queued up to get our (sold out!) tickets punched and our green arm bands. We then adventurously entered the warehouses of The Portland Company Complex which had been converted for the day into Diagon Alley.

There were certainly many colourful characters and great costumes from volunteers to attendees:




There were shops in the 'alley' from a number of very good causes such as Habitat for Humanity and the Barbara Bush Children's Hospital and there were on hand even some commercial entities such as our favourite local Portland Purveyors of Spritual Goods...


Again, the concept, the design and all the work put into the event...and all of the awareness and money that was probably raised through the event is admirable and to be applauded, but there were 5000 tickets sold to this event and everyone wanted to stick around until midnight to get their books. Sadly, what I will remember most about MuggleFest was 10 hours of this:


No, there is nothing quite like a 10 hour experience with 5000 sweaty nylon costumed mugglespawn all near brainless sugar-high on Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Droobles, Ice Mice, Fizzing Whizbees, Cockroach Clusters, Jelly Slugs, Blood Pops, and Chocolate Frogs crushed in tightly together suffering +100° heat and high humidity in a 161 year old collapsible firetrap of a warehouse complex built to hold maybe 1000 people comfortably and safely.
Oh the joy of the shared social experiences that I get talked into forking over cash for!