Photographed yesterday and today

It's beastly hot in Denver; high 90's. On June 16th (2010) I was able to make 6 exposures on 14th and 15th streets, 10-10:15 am. By then the temp was well into the 90's. I stopped then to go on to my oral history consulting.

Today (71/17) I was on the bus in Boulder at 7:15. Had some kind of drug reaction to an allergy medication so by the time I got to Denver, I felt woozy and sick. After a bagel at Einstein's, I went on to photograph at 8:30 am. Got 30 exposures made on 19th street, Curtis, Arapahoe, Lawrence and Larimer. Felt upset about a nice-looking federal style building that no longer exists (it was there in 1978). Don't have the old image, unfortunately. By 9:45 I was totally wilting. It must have been way over 90 by then. Sun very strong.

Not many people on the street, but I did try to get some in the photos and de-emphasize cars. People looked, one lady said hello. I'm always a little shy and self-conscious photographing on the street. I could never have done it in the 60's.

Reading a wonderful book after Googling "rephotographic projects." This is by Douglas Levere, called "New York Changing." He re-did Berenice Abbott's work from the 30's ("Changing New York") and was able to even use one of her cameras. It's a beautiful book, a Cadillac compared to my Corolla. Starting to think the real value of my project is reference rather than beauty, although there are some very interesting views. Partly: Norred's images were not very good in many cases. Maybe he was rushing at that point to get everything covered. And what happened to the rest of the downtown images? Were they ever done? The CHS records are flimsy in that regard. Think he was laid off by WPA before the project finished.

Another problem: I only have xeroxes for the older ('37) photos, except for the 40 or so I prepared in the early 80's fo9r exhibition. The CHS photographer in those years used a stabilizing machine, brought over from his original lab, to make photographs from the original negs and of course, by the mid-80's these images were hardly stable. I had to throw them out because they were polluting my files and couldn't been seen anymore or even xeroxed. So I only have the 1978 views. More on that later.

Sam and I talked last night about the culture of Lodo. He mentioned that the sports bars down on Larimer, Market and Blake attract different clientele. For example, the hockey bars are rougher than the Broncos bars and the baseball bars are more refined than either of those. Also, on Saturday nights, men with taco pushcarts come to Lodo to sell their food and do a brisk business. I believe I've seen some of them during the day up around 17th and 18th streets. It would be fun to document that.

The red bicycles are also interesting. Saw a couple riding them today down Arapahoe.

Will wrap this up and water tomatoes and make shakshouka.