While it should be a wet rainy winter for me, my thoughts are with family who live in snowier climes. I hope for a mild winter for them. Last winter was ridiculously easy in the northeast. Is there payback coming? Am I a bad son for choosing not to live there?

This photo was actually from last spring in Gloversville, NY. But, the meaning of the plow is unmistakeable. This is one of the last photos from my busted Rolleiflex. I hope to afford a repair soon.

I’ve redone this photo countless times. The color has been very elusive, tricky, deceptive.

Might be my last pic of Gloversville. Not sure what’s left.

Still fascinated by this random building in Gloversville, NY. I think of it as Gloversville’s ‘Flatiron’ but that’s not really a comparison. Who knows how many layers of painted signage are revealed here? I’ve gotten this superstar a couple times before, as well:

Four Gloversville Structures
Walkin’ Around Gloversville

It’s so inexplicable. Nothing is permanent.

Oddly, this house is next door to a castle-like armory in Gloversville, New York. The troops don’t seem to scare the ghouls. Shit, maybe the wraiths are arming themselves!

I kicked some mud off my boots as I got back in the truck. Last run of the day and this batch had been a bitch. Sunset was the worst because you never knew when one of the stiffs was gonna wake up early. But, this was good. Jonesy had scoped out a real winner for the Doc, military, kay-eye-ay in double-ya double-ya two, so that meant we’d get paid double. I dunno what the Doc is cooking up there at the college, but they don’t call it “zombie university” for nothin’ I guess.

Damn, my neck is itchin’ somethin’ fierce.

Back in oh nine, after Ferrania called it quits and I found out late, I was scrambling to pick up what I could. Someone told me that Arista’s 100 speed color was rebranded Ferrania. Sure enough I called Freestyle they said that their color was discontinued, too. But, I went to the main store in Hollywood and asked. There was a dude that worked there who looked kinda like me. He thought they were out, but he’d check. Thank god, he came back with the last one-hundred foot can. I’ve been living off that sparingly ever since. I know it ain’t the last Ferrania in the world, but it’s gettin’ expensive on eBay.

I got into this film game way too late.

I have a few rules in life. One of them is when you get a lens back from the repair shop, you have to go shooting with it immediately! You have to even if you’ll freeze your fingers off in the process. So when I got my 24-105 back from Canon USA today, I had to get something. Hey, was I interested in a rusted truck outside an abandoned business that radiates lost Americana? Is Coors frost-brewed??

(CLick for large version)

I haven’t uploaded much recently. I blame the holidays!

ANyway, last night I actually dreamt about this old frame from a few months ago. It’s very subtle, but I think I do love it.

Rolleiflex Automat

I find myself drawn to detail and space in Gloversville far more than neighboring Johnstown, at least of late. Here are some more Gloversville structures. I particularly like the faded sign on the wall behind the Gloversville Diner for “The Morning Herald.” That paper is long-since gone, folded into the current “Leader-Herald.” Soon that sign will only be a memory.

Rollei Rolleiflex Automat K4A
Rollei Retro 400 film
HC-110 Dilution B

On a milkgrey fall afternoon, I found myself wandering through the vast Prospect Hill Cemetery in Gloversville, New York. I meandered aimlessly amongst the dead and pondered superstitions of the living. Our civilization is adamant about marking the resting places of our loved ones, and just as adamant about neglecting those markers and letting the elements do the erosive forgetting for us.  I bore brief witness to names that passed away a hundred and fifty years ago. If there is anything to the idea of a resting place, I thought Prospect Hill seemed as pleasant as anywhere, noble trees holding up the rolling hillside.  But, I’m not a believer and the absence of any sort of spiritual presence weighed on me, a tactile emptiness…

As I angled down a shallow gully, a striking momunent caught my eye in the distance, an immediate impression of a powerful towering physique, athletic with a great sense of motion… except as I focused on it, I realized it was actually a tree. And, what a tree! Gnarled and black and crooked. I have no idea how it appeared to me as a human figure. I approached it with high curiosity and could not help but notice how out of place it looked, how sinister. Yikes! At the base of the tree sat two dislodged headstones, smoothed by age — or perhaps to protect interlopers like myself from some terrible knowledge. I wonder who would know the truth.

I dropped reverently to one knee: And, I framed a photograph, noting with perverse glee the dilapidated house in the background complete with rusted out recreation vehicle — how very Gloversville. And, on cue, a black crow added punctuation to the ridiculous scene with a hollow cry that was swallowed up by the endless grey sky.

Leica M2

Voigtlander 35mm

Arista Premium 400

HC-110 Dilution B