Bored Photographer Hits the Road

Sometimes Clay County, Illinois is one of the most boring places on the planet.  For me today was one of those days.  I've been thinking about taking a day trip to New Harmony, Indiana, so this afternoon I looked up New Harmony and saw that they were having an antique market in the downtown.  I don't need any antiques but I thought I might spot an old camera that I couldn't live without.  It was a nice show but not many vendors or people.  Not seeing anything I couldn't live without I ventured into some of the galleries.  There are some great artists in New Harmony. In one gallery the lady said they have a paint off week in April.  The artists paint a small picture and then later a bigger one.  I found it interesting to see how the artists had changed their paintings from the little one to the big one.  I commented that Fairfield has a time in the fall when artist paint and she said she had judged it in the past.  If you get down there make sure you check the galleries out.  I then walked towards the New Harmonie area.  On the way there I took this picture of a side door of The Saint Stephen's Episcopal Church. I don't know the age of the door I hate to think how much it would cost to day to have a door made like this. If you could find someone who could make it.

  I also noticed a window on one of the original log buildings.  It does look like the window has been replaced. 

I then walked to the corner of The Roofless Church and the Red Geranium restaurant. Last time I was in the Red Geranium  was Mother's Day many years ago. My sister-in-law's brother was with us and he asked our waitress who had a really good tan for May how she got it.  Her reply was "I bought it." meaning a tanning bed I assume.  As I passed by The Roofless Church I notice this piece of art work in the lawn area.

I continued on my journey but only after I shot a picture of a Southern Magnolia not fully open.

  

I decided to make my way back to the truck.  First of all I was getting thirsty and I really didn't see anything more to shoot, except for the top of this building.  

As I drove west I came to the New Harmony Toll Bridge.  Thanks to Wikipedia I learned that the bridge was built by the Big Wabash Bridge Company of Carmi, Illinois in 1930 without federal money. It was one of the few bridges across the Big Wabash which is in both Illinois and Indiana.  The bridge was closed in 2012 due to the condition and the lack of money to repair it. (It is on President Biden's list in his infrastructure bill.)  I crossed that bridge in the early 1980s and it wasn't in the best of shape then. 

 

My final stop in New Harmony was The Labyrinth State Memorial. Originally constructed by the Harmonies the one today is from 1939.  If you're interested in more history of the bridge or labyrinth I'll let you look it up on your own. 

 

Deciding it was time to leave New Harmony I made my way out of town.  Since I didn't have a planned route I decided to drive through Griffen, Indiana.  I've been by Griffen too many times to count on the Interstate 64, but never actually stopped and looked around.  There isn't much there today a few houses and a grain elevator which was built before the railroad was removed.  I did notice an old gas station from a simpler time and before self service.  I had read a book about the Tri-State Tornado in school.  It arrived in Griffen at 4:00pm on March 18, 1925 and whipped the town out.  My dad would tell stories about finding letters and postcards from southern Illinois in fence rolls as a boy.  I thought it ended in Griffen, but sign says it went on to Princeton before it ended.  If the Fujita scale had existed then it would have been considered to be an F5.  At this time there is no bigger ranking for tornados. 

 

After leaving Griffen I decided to drive through Grayville as I hadn't been in the town for years.  The last time I was there I went to Walter Oil Tool to rent some tools.  I was glad to see they are still in business. I noticed one equipment yard there were two drilling rigs.  One standing in the air and one laying down, rusting away.  I hope someday someone drags them out and start drilling with them.  Like they did back in the 1970s.

I then turned on Rt. 130 to make my way to Albion thinking I would go west to Mt. Erie.  On the way I noticed what was once a rest area.  Everything had been removed except for the concrete for parking.  I also noticed out of the corner of my eye a two story brick home, probably built after the Civil War.  This triggered a memory from one of the vacations my parents took me on. One year and don't ask me the year or where we were going we stopped in that rest area and ate a picnic lunch.  As usual my dad had a hard time getting away so we got a late start.  Rather than eating at home where he could get caught with something to deal with and my mom having a kitchen to clean up we left. When I was young and we were on vacation we always ate a picnic lunch.  They said it was to let us boys stretch our legs.  It may of been, but it was also cheaper and faster than stopping at a restaurant.  In those days there were few fast food restaurants like there are today. If you're wondering what we ate I'd bet it was a cheese and pimento sandwich.  My mom always made cheese and pimento to start a trip on (that was when I could eat cheese). Like I said it had been a long time since I traveled that area and in Albion I realized that I wanted to turn west at the West Salem crossroad.  

On the east side of the Little Wabash bridge and north is the community called Blood.  I have no idea where the name came from and there is no clustering of houses. We worked on a lease in that area many years ago.  I can't tell you the name of it or what we did but I'd have to say nothing became of them since they are just a small part of my memory.  I never knew where Mt Erie was when I was a boy but my mom would say her mother could see Mt. Erie from the top floor of her grandparent's house which stood south of Clay City where Larry Harvel built his new house.  If you don't know that location is the highest point on Route 50 in Illinois.  After leaving Mt. Erie I made my way home.  When I left the house about 2pm I didn't really know how the afternoon would shape up or what I'd see.  On the way home I decided to share my day with you.  Feel to contact me if I need to correct something, but the part about the highest point.  You'll loose if you do.  

Behind the camera.

Last week I stopped by the Clay County Republican newspaper office to renew my subscription and to shoot the bull with Smitty also to tell him I'd be shooting some high school baseball games this spring.  That conversation lead to how often photographers take a picture but didn't see the play.  He told of a friend who would ask him what he thought about one of the plays.  His replay was, I was shooting and I don't remember that play.  One day Smitty  put a camera in the guys hands and had him shoot a game.  At the end Smitty asked him about a play, and the guy couldn't remember it.  When I look through a camera I am removed from what is happening.  I am focused (no pun intended) on getting the picture.  To me it's almost like watching an event on television.  I've heard conflict photographers say the same thing.  Bullets are flying, bombs are going off.  But they are only concentrating on getting the picture.  That is why some many of them are killed and injured in their line of work.  It's the same with crime scene photographers who photography a horrible gruesome crime.  As long as they are behind the camera they don't realize what they are shooting until later when they are home.  That's when what they saw that day hits them.  In 1981 when I was at the first launch of the space shuttle I was on top of a van shooting pictures.  My camera was a Minolta XGM that I had just purchased.  At that time there wasn't a motor drive available for it, so I would focus and shoot then wind the film  (later when they were available I did purchase one).  So I'm on this van shooting as fast as I can during the launch.  But I don't remember seeing it.  What do I  remember about it?  The sound and the wave of heat that hit us.   It wasn't until I got my film developed that I realized what I had watched.  When my step daughter played high school basketball I would take my camera and sit in the stands shooting pictures of her playing.  My wife couldn't understand how I couldn't get excited and show outward emotions.  I learned when I started shooting games in high school that if I got emotional I would miss the picture, so I trained myself to not get wrapped up in the game.  Once again I was just trying to get a good shot of her.  Had I gotten emotional I would of missed a good picture of her, because my brain would of been in the fan mode and not the photographer mode.  I do remember one shot I missed, which would of been a great one.  Why do I remember it?  Because I missed it.  One time when my wife and I were in Hawaii we stopped at a small road side park because there were some whales in the bay.  I start shooting as the whales come up out of the water and go back down.  One of the other persons standing there watching said, "Did he get it?"  My wife looked at me and said "Yeah he got it, he always gets it."  Since I was shooting digital I could immediately see what I had watched through the view finder.  And yes I did get it.
Have I missed out on important happenings in my life, while I was looking through a view finder?  I'd have to say no. While I may not of been aware of everything going on around me.  All I have to do is pull up the pictures and I can see the main event all over again.  Ironically of the thousands and thousands of pictures I've taken, a majority I can remember.  If I can't remember I can usually take a look and tell you if I took it or someone else did.  So the next time you see a photographer taking pictures at a game and you think how lucky he is with his place on the sideline just remember you'll probably remember more about the game than he will.

NEWSPAPERS

This morning on NPR "Morning Edition" they were talking about the LA Times newspaper and it started me thinking back when newspapers were a main source of news.

As a child growing up our house was full of newspapers.  My parents took the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, The Decatur Herald, The Wall Street Journal, The Effingham Daily News, The Clay County Republican, The Flora Daily News Record, The Wayne County Press and The Clay City Advocate Press.  The Globe and Decatur Herald were morning papers.  The Flora and Effingham papers were evening.  The Clay County was a weekly and I don't remember how many times the Clay City paper was printed.  So there was never any shortage of papers to read in my house.  As a child I started reading the comics, especially Peanuts.  As I grew up I started reading more news stories.  My first exposure to a newspaper office was in grade school when we took a field trip to The Clay County Republican to see how a newspaper was made.  The type machine made a big impression on all of us, with it's molten lead pot and the reversed letters. I will never forget seeing the masthead which looked to be gold, although it probably was brass, but as a kid it looked like gold to me. That was back when most papers did their own printing; although I don't remember if we got to see the press run.  That was also the time of paper boys delivering papers to people's houses.  My parents always wanted the Sunday Globe which you had to pickup at someone's home or a restaurant in my home town of 1000 people, as they did not have home delivery on Sundays.  In a few years that stopped and we had to travel seven miles to Flora to get one.  One Sunday after a big snow storm my dad and I piled into my four wheel drive Jimmy and drove to Flora to get a paper.  Probably not the smartest thing to do but we had fun.  The Sunday Globe was at least an inch thick or more, which was mostly coupons and store ads.  Oh and color cartoons.  I understand that today you can't buy any Sunday papers in Flora.

Later when I was in high school I was asked by the editor of the Clay County Advocate Press (the Advocate Press bought out the Flora Daily News and changed their name.)  Jack Thatcher to shoot basketball games for him.  It was my first paying photography job and my first time being published in the newspaper.  I will never forget how proud I was when I saw my name in print.  Jack would stop by the high school office the day after a game and pick up my film leaving me an new roll for the next game.  This also taught me to get the shot, because if he didn't use any of my pictures I didn't make any money.  By the time basketball season was over there were editions where my photos filled a page.

I thought about going into photojournalism at that time but my high school English teacher told me I couldn't write and never gave me a grade above a C on any paper (you may agree with her after reading this).  In college I found out that she was teaching an outdated style of writing that no one used anymore and by the end of the quarter I was getting A's and B's in my writing class.  When I transferred to Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, I stopped by the office of the photographer for the school to introduce myself to him.  He was from my home town and his mother insisted I stop by his office.  We talked photography for a while and for a brief moment I almost asked him how I could get on working for him.  That was a different time in news photography.  The term "photojournalist" was being used to describe photographers who also wrote the story.  I was never interested in writing the stories so I did't ask him for a job or change my major to Journalism.

Today many newspapers have eliminated their photography departments. As well as cutting the number of staff just trying to make a profit and stay alive.  Their reporters use iphones so they can shoot their own photos and papers buy the work of freelance photographers.  I have not helped out the industry.  Like most people I now read my news on the internet.  The only paper I subscribe to is The Clay County Republican which is emailed to me every week,  so I don't even get it in print.  We will never again see the time when big city newspapers were published sometimes twice a day, and the newsstand is also becoming a thing of the past. However, I will admit when I stay in a motel that has that provides USA Today I will pick it up and read it,  even though I also have it on my ipad.  I guess there is just something about the smell of news print and getting ink on your fingers.

If you're interested in seeing some of my work, check out my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Bayler-Fine-Art-Photography/120797441359190

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Looking for gallery representation.

My first 35mm camera.

Like I said in my first blog.  I had never handled a 35mm SLR before I got my 201.  Even at sixteen I had learned that jumping into something you know nothing about usually results in failure. I most definitely didn't want to break my new camera so I read the instruction book.  Nervously I removed the PX 13 battery from it's package.  Being very careful to handle it with my handkerchief, as the book said that oil from your skin could cause the battery to not work. (Today I just open the package and put them in with naked fingers, no handkerchief insight.)  Attaching the lens.  Carefully I removed the rear lens cap from the 50mm and the body cap from the camera.  Making sure I lined up the The red dots, one on the lens and one just below and between the "n" and "o" on the name plate on the prism, and rotated clockwise. You can't take any pictures without film (at least back then you couldn't).  So I carefully loaded the film.  Making sure it advanced.  Back in that day film speed was known as ASA or DIN.  ASA stood for American Standards Association while DIN stood for Deutsches Institut fur Normung.  Today we know film speed by ISO, International Organization for Standardization.  I had no idea what film to use but the local newspaper editor told dad to get me some Kodak 400 speed film.  Film loaded, battery in, (without being touched by human fingers) and lens attached.  But how do I know what speed to use and what f stop.  By the way what's and f stop. Back to the book. The f stop I found out was the opening of the aperture of the lens, like the iris of our eyes.  A lower f number and the more light was let in,  larger less light is let in.  Then it talked about depth of field.  Take a picture of a picket fence with a high f number more of the pickets will be in focus, lower number less will be.  Today photographers will go to great lengths to achieve bokeh in pictures.  I don't understand what the big deal is.  If you want one subject in focus and the rest blurred you increase your shutter speed and lower your f number.  Of course you have to do this in "M" or manual which many of today's photographers have no idea how to use.  To obtain the correct exposure on the 201 you looked into the view finder and moved the shutter speed or the aperture until the needle with the circle at the end was over the straight needle.  Very simple metering but it always worked and I still think it was one of the best meters I have ever used. The 201 had two micro prism focus rings in the middle of the viewfinder.  When it was in focus they looked smooth, out of focus and they were rough.  Not the best focusing system but I soon got used too it. Actually I got quite fast focusing the lens.  Which if you remember I never take too long to shoot a picture.  Later in high school I shoot basketball games for a local paper, with sports if you take your time you won't get the shot.  
Ready to shoot some pictures.  My first one was of my sister-in-law who had stopped by the house. From then on I've been shooting anything and everything. Looks like I've used all the exposures on this roll.  I'll load another roll and get back to you later.  

Let's Give This a Try

I’ve never written a blog before.  I’ve read blogs and follow some.  But this is a first for me.

I’m a 54 year old guy that always loved photography but didn’t choose it as a profession because of one adjective, “starving”.  I didn’t want to be a starving photographer and also at that time I didn’t want to leave the small Southern Illinois community where I had grown up.  So my life took a different path, while photography was just a serious hobby for me.  Now due to my age I and some other issues I’ve started pushing the career I should of chosen many years ago.

I started taking pictures at a very young age with a Kodak 126 Instamatic a very cheap Kodak 126.  I suppose my parents got me this camera because I was always wanting to use theirs.  My father had two cameras.  A Argus C3 which he shoot slide film in and a Rolleiflex twin lens that he brought back from Germany after the war.  My mom had a Kodak 126 Instamatic but it had a motor winder that advanced the film.  I have no idea how much her camera costs but she didn’t like a young kid handling it.  After all I might drop it and break it.  And so I started shooting pictures.  To the amazement of my mother I never took long to take a picture and I would get the shot. I still don’t take long and I get impatient with photographers that do.  Push the button, take the damn picture and move on!!  My next camera was a Kodak Instamatic 110.  I wanted a camera that I could slip in a pocket and wouldn’t be a burden to carry around. (My wife would like it if I still only used that camera today, especially when we travel and I load four bags and cases in the car.)  Taking pictures on school trips made me popular with everybody, and for a kid that wasn’t popular that was important to me.  Everyone wanted me to take their picture and then see the pictures when I got them back.  Fame. As a side note it was a camera that got me a date with my first girlfriend but that’s another story for another time.  A few months before I turned sixteen my family went to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. I noticed all these people taking pictures of the flowers with their 35mm cameras.  What they were doing looked neat and interesting.  A Pontiac Trans Am or any car for that matter was out  so I decided I wanted a camera for my sixteenth birthday.  I didn’t know anything about 35mm cameras and I didn’t have anyone to ask, so I started doing some research.  Now remember this was a long time before the internet and I lived in a rural community so I had limited resources.  National Geographic a few other magazines and Bennett Brother’s Blue Book catalog from Chicago. National Geographic was a major source of research for many young men before the internet.  I think I read every ad about cameras in all the magazines and about every camera the Blue Book had listed.  Most of it was greek to me.  Nikons were the choice of professionals but I knew my dad wouldn’t go for spending that much money for a camera so I settled on a Minolta SRT 201.  Which was in the middle between a SRT 200 and a 202.  Now which lens?  The standard lens in the day was a 50mm and since I didn’t know that much about f stops I choose the f1.7 rather than the more expensive f1.4.  When my birthday came I had no choice than to read the book.  After all I had never even handled a 35mm SLR let alone load film or set the exposure.  Reading that book taught me things about photography that I still use today.  (I’ll discuss a Minolta SRT 201 and bokeh later.)  The first picture I took with my new camera?  My sister-in-law standing beside her car.  That’s all the shoots on this roll.  I’ll load a new roll and get back to you later.