My website is up

My website, www.dianerabson.com, contains several examples of "Changing Denver" photographs.

Published a photo book!

This past week I published a book! The one I planned to do through blurb.com: "Love Letter to the Railroad Yards." The 30 or so photographs featured in the book came from my 1976-77 images of the yards in Denver, done with B&W infrared film (no longer made by Kodak). As I noted before, I was very passionate about trains in those days and particularly the yards in Denver...the yards which don't exist anymore, at least behind Union Station. This is out of the scope of our rephotographic project, of course, but led to the project, which I undertook in 1978-79. I used to pass through LoDo on my way to the yards...with some trepidation, I might add. Streets largely deserted...some weird people hanging around...I usually hurried on to my subject of the time. Union Station was also deserted in those days and I often sat in there writing or just resting from a couple of hours photographing. It was a great time. I went out everyday and shot at least a roll of film; developed it in the evening and printed contact sheets (anyone remember those?!); and on Saturdays, would spend the whole day in the darkroom at Metro printing the best images. Then to class the next week with the finished product(s)...

I'm really proud of this work. Blurb.com did a great job. Used a premium paper--lustre--and was very very careful to prepare the photos in Picasa before uploading them to the Booksmart template. Yes, Picasa. I don't have Photoshop--at this point. And I used scanned prints instead of negatives...my scanner has trouble with negs. Ah--post-production is beyond me. I can take great pictures...but I haven't made the darkroom to digital leap yet. I will soon enough.

It's Halloween 2012...we had 35 trick or treaters tonight...the most ever. I'm drinking hot carob milk and trying not to think about the upcoming election and what will happen if...

A little rain

Finally we're getting some rain in Denver, but mostly it's wind and thunder. One can only hope that the lightning doesn't spark another fire.
Got the negatives back from that smoky morning I photographed in Denver. The intersection of Wynkoop and 16th is highly frustrating. Once again, the Tattered Cover building is very dark and the EPA building is very light. Sam thinks I should try dawn! We need another cloudy day, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards quite yet. Cloudy, without lightning and rain, obviously.
Tomorrow is a tour of a building on the National Register and a discussion about its original purpose, renovation and great architectural features. Looking forward to it!
I'm making progress on the railroad yards book. I'm searching for a graphic artist now to come up with a good cover.

Exile, and the railroad yards

In 1976 when I was studying photography at Metro State, the prevailing custom in the field was to work on a "series," photographs that detailed a particular subject. One of my teachers chose to document gardens in Maine, focusing on hydrangeas, which she hand-colored on black and white prints. My series would be the railroad series.

I've long been interested in the places around people, the background, the contexts we move in and live in. The built environment, if you will. Denver was a place of exile for me, and as a Jew, exile is a common life theme. At Passover we say these final words: "Next year in Jerusalem." (However you define Jerusalem).

The problem with exile is that you always want to be someplace else: home, a most elusive concept. But one has to make do, wherever. Initially disliking Denver, a city with no apparent center, I chose to work in a place that was essentially an exile from "normal" Denver. Here I would wander with the camera and plant my flag.

In Neal Cassady's day, people lived in the yards, businesses operated there. By '76 the area was desolate, rather unsafe and even hostile. Yet I learned that this was an important place. Freight cars were sorted, separated here, reconnected; trains were created, dissolved, then newly created. I was careful to stay out of the way.

This was the time when coal from the Northern Plains, mostly the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, began to supersede other freight on the Western railroads. Much of it rolled through Denver. And you can bet that the computer you're using right now is probably powered by coal, carried by rail to the huge coal-burning plants around the United States.

Two years later, because of coal, I would be working on the railroad myself, as a locomotive fireman on the old Rio Grande, in Minturn and Pueblo, another exile. A story for another time.