Inessential Stuff

Wallace, Idaho was filled with treasures:  the alleyways, the brick buildings, the fire escapes.  But for me, one of my favorites was the Mining Supply Company buildings.  There were several of them.  And all of them were painted, from top to bottom, in a rich rusty-red.  The effect was remarkable, and really accentuated all the lines of the buildings.  I loved the geometry of it. I shot and shot and shot some more.  Here are some photographs.

I like lines.  More than color, more than light and shadow, what I see in an image are lines.  Wallace, Idaho had lots of great lines:  bricks and mortar, the pattern of windows, the shapes of buildings sandwiched together, and the lines their rooftops make against a blue sky splotched with clouds.  Here are some photographs of some of the lines of Wallace.

And this is part one.  Wallace, Idaho, of course.  I made a day trip to Wallace, having heard it was a quaint town.  I parked on the north side of town, and then crisscrossed my way, on foot, systematically, through the streets and alleys.  The town was quiet.  Not many people out, in spite of the unseasonably warm weather (about 40 degrees in February).  Many businesses were closed, either seasonally or for good.  I also hadn’t known that Wallace was the Center of the Universe.  Now I know.

It’s a beautiful little down.  Resting below tree-covered mountains.  Sleepy streets.  And fantastic buildings:  brick walls, transom windows, fire escapes.  So this is a bit of Wallace in photographs.

I have driven past Ritzville, Washington too many times to count.  It sits 60 miles west of Spokane, just far enough off Interstate 90 to be easily ignored, either as I head on toward Seattle or as I turn off onto US Route 395 toward the Tri-Cities.  I have, on several occasions, gotten off the eastern exit of Ritzville (it is a two exit town), sometimes as a place to launch off onto back roads, and once to stop at a highway mini-mart.  But I had never been past that mini-mart, down the road, into Ritzville itself.

It was never ritzy—it derives its name from its founder, Philip Ritz, not from monuments of glamour and glitter.  Even so, I had heard it was a fine little town, with a picturesque, though deteriorating, downtown. So one evening this week, I drove off the first eastern Ritzville exit, and continued down the road past the mini-mart, to see what I had been passing by all these years.

I take pictures here and there all the time–at Marcus’ t-ball games, on the way back from weddings, on photoshoots. It gets to be an odd assortment of photographs that aren’t easy to categorize and, therefore, don’t usually end up in a gallery on my blog. So I decided to lump them all together into a category of their own, and here they are. Will notice a rural theme, and an acute interest in hay bales.

When I was in Seattle to do the shoot in the Seattle Public Library, I was taken again by how beautiful the building is.  Absolutely stunning.

So after the shoot, I just wandered around a bit and took some pictures.  Great colors.  Great lines.  Great spaces.

If you haven’t been there, and are in Seattle sometime, do go. You won’t be disappointed.

Since I had spent time in Salamanca in the summer of 2006 (and took a ton of pictures), during my 2006 visit, I made an effort to see buildings that I hadn’t seen before. One such building, just off the plaza next to the cathedral, was the Hospederia de Anaya.

Built in 1715, the Hospederia was originally a dormitory for graduate students preparing to take finals in civil service or the church. Now it part of the University of Salamanca, housing the Faculty of Modern Languages, and featuring a quiet little courtyard.

There are also a few pictures from a courtyard from a faculty building right next door, which I visited at the same time.

The project to photograph train stations (see below) took place on a train that ended in Avila. And since we hadn’t spent a lot of time in Avila before, we spent a few hours looking around. Of particular interest (as always) was the cathedral.

Unfortunately, as made clear by many, many signs, photography was not allowed inside. This means that all the pictures you see here didn’t really happen. And if they seem a little sideways or crooked, that’s because the pictures were taken at waist-level without the benefit of a viewfinder. Sort of proves what I’ve always said about travel photography: even a blind monkey with a disposable camera can get some good pictures of a cathedral.

Actually, this is about the train stations in Spain. It’s the first of a handful of posts of pictures from my time in Spain in August.

I went over with this idea: to travel on some regional trains (that make lots of stops) jump off at each stop, take a quick picture, jump back on and continue traveling.

The stations in Spain are small and often in sad states of decay. Forty years ago, trains were the primary method of transportation in Spain. After Franco, the roads vastly improved, the price of cars came down, and now people drive from town to town. So the train stations have fallen into neglect.

I had planned to do a big loop, but I discovered that the regional trains basically run only twice a day–once in one direction in the morning, and the return trip in the afternoon. I studied the train maps for quite some time, but determined that I would have to be content with just one line.

That line was the Salamanca to Avila, which would have at least 7 stops between the two stations, and potentially 9: there were two stations that were “by request” only. Ends up we stopped at the first optional station and skipped the second.
Going into the project, I had no idea how much time I would have to get a shot. I didn’t know if the train would stop for a minute at each station, or only 30 seconds.

At the first stop, I had a terrible angle and thought about running up the train platform for a better picture, but no sooner had the thought crossed my mind that the train hooted its departure. I jumped back on the train. Thirty seconds would have been a luxury. I had about four.

This increased the photographic challenges. I had time to jump off the train, shoot, and jump back on. Or else I would be stranded, with no other trains scheduled to go through. It added to the intensity of the shoot.

So then, here are the stations, with commentary.

Marcus and I spent several days in Seattle, visiting Cousin Akian, Aunt Laura and Uncle MacLeod. I thought he might really enjoy the Space Needle (he was ready to go down after two minutes on top); I also thought the highlight would be going to an Angels game at Safeco Field, perhaps the first baseball game Marcus will remember (he has been to at least 6 others, all in his first year, starting at three months, but I don’t think he’ll remember those). Ends up that for Marcus, the highlight of Seattle–and I think this makes him unique among almost all people who have ever visited the Emerald City–was the Monorail. At any rate, we had loads of fun.