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...

Blurb, and Berenice Abbott

On another note, I found all my old prints last night. There were many more views of the railroad yards that I've forgotten about. Most date to 1977, a few from 1976, and a very few from 1978. (By 1978, I was moving forward with the rephotographic project.) It will be a difficult decision to choose for the book. Many of these newly-discovered photos are rather illustrative of the yards, showing warehouses, trucks, the "Q," and other features of a diverse industrial area.

I also purchased "New York Changing," a play on the title of a book from the late 30's, "Changing New York," by Berenice Abbott, one of my favorite photographers. She photographed the city in about 1938, including the outer boroughs, and a contemporary photographer rephotographed many of her sites in the late 90's and early 2000's. He was fortunate enough to be able to use one of her 8x10 view cameras! Lovely, wonderful prints with great descriptions. Here's what stood out: building are tilted (!), he worked over a period of time, instead of just one year (as we are--2009-2012), and his affection for the city is obvious. That's the most important thing. I still feel great affection for Denver. Despite the parking lots of 1978.

Solution to the zigzag structure

After consulting with three engineers, I can now safely assume that the zigzag structure on or behind Windsor Dairy in the 1937 photograph is a cooling unit of some kind. The 1929 Sanborn map for that part of Blake Street noted that there was an ice cream manufacturing unit in that part of the building and the word "condenser" is seen on the map as well for that site. Someone recently sold an image of the Windsor Dairy, c. 1947, on eBay. I missed the sale by a few days.

Sam and I are still conducting research at Denver Public Library, Western History Department. Librarian Bruce Hanson has provided us with incredible amounts of information, which we're still sifting through. Yesterday, I photocopied the pages of the 1937 Denver city directory that pertain to each of the streets we're working on. Now we know the names and addresses of all the businesses located on the streets, which will be extremely helpful in identification. I'm also entering a lot of that data into the spreadsheet that describes the project.

Sam and I dropped in to the new Historical Society/History Colorado library, and met one of the librarians there. I explained the project--its scope and progress--and received information about their use policies and how to obtain images of the old negatives. At this point, I'm not sure if we want scans of only some or all of the old images. For sure, Windsor Dairy will be one of them!!

On another front, I've decided to create a small personalized book of my railroad yard photographs, to be published by blurb.com. My photography teacher from Metro, Barbara Houghton, created a beautiful book using blurb, and I am inspired to do one of my own. The book will be entitled "Love Letter to the Railroad Yards," and will feature 23 images plus text. This is riffing on my "love letter to Denver" idea; that's how I think of the Rephotographic Project. More on that when things move along.

I'm not sure I'll be posting many more photographs on this blog site. Apparently Google bought blogspot and is sweeping up images and information for their search pages from that site, among many others. I have mixed feelings about it.

Infrared film and the railroad

I've been pulling out my old photos of the yards from 1976-1978. Not documentation per se, but an artistic treatment of the area, trying to find beauty in a fairly utilitarian, often ugly place. Watching a coal train the other day make its way on the mainline through the Central Platte Valley, eclipsed and dwarfed by the lofts and other buildings, I got a hankering to do some more infrared work and catch the view of the diminished railroad in its "new" urban setting.

Kodak doesn't make infrared film anymore, just as the company knocked off Kodachrome this summer. But Rollei does, and not just in 35mm. 120 as well, so I can put my 1953 Rollei TLR to use again. It's such a great camera.

I'm excited, but wary; in truth, I'm not hopeful. The place is cluttered. Will the long rays of autumn make up for the lack of railroad?