Fail and fade away

Nearly a week has gone by and I still cannot think of the words to say. Countless times I have started to write, then deleted, re-wrote and deleted again.

You see, this is the curse of having a public blog. I am actually very uncomfortable keeping this thing but I think pushing yourself to do things that are frightening is a part of life. And maybe (maybe) this will teach me some discretion.



I have both so much and absolutely nothing to say about this building. Clarification: I cannot say most of what I am thinking, and that is unfortunate. The ideas are banging at the inside of my skull and the visceral portion of the journey is prickling at my skin. I feel bound, tied with my own ethics and fighting with the idea of trust and what is right/wrong.

Here is the key element that moves me about this power generating station: over the last 18 months a slow drama has unfolded. Inadvertently, Trav and I have found ourselves in a series mystery, piecing together the history, rise, and downfall of the power plants of the city. We never went into this with any sort of intent; it literally just happened. And little by little the story unfolded in a way that was random as coming across a piece of paper in a folder tucked away in a box in a building that had seemingly no relation to the present. I have mentioned before (jokingly) that exploring these buildings is like a computer game in that you have to pay attention to every detail and every piece of junk around you. You never know what might be useful in solving a problem... later.

The journey started with one power plant. Then there was another. And another. And another. And each time we opened a door and saw new sights, new clues came tumbling at our feet. These were hints, references and puzzle pieces to a story that seemed vaguely familiar like a past life. In a flash of understanding I began to truly see: they are all connected. And while this fact is so painfully obvious to anyone who is paying attention to The System it was lost on me for the longest time. I know that they are all links in a chain of a larger parent company, but they are connected.

And for some reason seeing the bigger picture was a pivotal moment. The crowning instant was finding photos of the initial demolition of West Harbor's smokestacks tucked away in an envelope...

... under a pile of books...

... under a hard hat...

... in a dark corner office between endless banks of switches and dials.

What were the chances I would climb those stairs, step back there, move the hat, move the books, and open the envelope? But I did! And I will remember that moment for the rest of my life!



With shaking hands we put the photos back in their rightful place. In the envelope. Under the books. Under the hat. I felt like we had defiled a grave, but maybe there is no reason to think that it was just a romantic analogy. It was reality. We had, in fact, discovered documentation of a dead entity at the very moment of her fall from grace. Whether or not the building actually cares matters very little to me; I was embarrassed and sad for her to be digging up evidence of an awkward moment.

Ethics be damned. Any reason for which I feel guilt is balanced, here and now, by this strangely important realization. I can't forget it no matter how hard I try.

See spray

Not sure where it happened, but somewhere along the line the words “San Francisco” became linked in my head to “graffiti.” And not talking about the lame pot leaves and profanity that you see most of the time, but real art sprayed across walls by daredevils at night.


Seeing it in person did not leave me disappointed. Of course there is the stuff on the sidewalks, the stuff on the doors and walls of the stinky alleys of the Mission District (it reeks - in a climate where it barely rains human waste is allowed to seriously fester and bake in the sun) which is nice in it’s own way. But in the lesser-known areas is where the true gritty art comes forth, the art of every daring kid that has something to say in their own free time.

My friends were great, intelligent, resourceful people but still we had a few bumps along our way. First we unsuccessfully tracked a pair of photographers who were probably figments of our imagination because they disappeared so completely and quickly. I noticed that some of the homeless out west snack on Japanese food and carry their own lighters. I learned that Sam is quite the bendy monkey and that Anya has endless patience with me. We had some fun analyzing the chemical content of a little cove in the bay – a cove shallow enough to lack water, but instead was a bog of jelly-like green scum that smelled like rotten eggs. The seagulls didn’t seem to mind, as their footprints were all over the jiggly bubbles. The sea lions, however, didn’t really venture there. I think I heard one honking at us as we shimmied our way across via 2 inches of concrete using our tiny fingers.

There comes a time every now and then when I look at my situation and think to myself, “Self, you really are going to get hurt this time. You’re a generally lucky person but this is It. You’re done. And then what are you going to wear?” And I get a little scared. I like Sam a lot but we’d pretty much just met. I would not want to have to make him fish me out of the gelatinous green goo that was the result of concentrated bay buildup over countless years. Talk about a bad first impression!

Fortunately that time didn’t come (yet). I warned them both that I am a slowpoke with a bum ankle and to please bring a book to read or something while they waited for me. Shuffle, scramble, grip, slide. Also, I never carry my tripod strapped to my backpack, so the weight distribution this time was… new.

I had a good morning despite my frustration. California is new terrain in many different ways and I am completely unused to the light, the climate, the business operations and the general practices of society. Apparently. If there could be a subtle nuance in the exploration of old buildings, this was it. Even the packing company building was the same as the stuff I’m used to, but completely different. I could get to like this.



The tagging was even better than I had ever expected. Some was fresh, and many were old. But it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I thought I had seen interesting graffiti in my time out east but I was dead wrong. Omigod colorful. Where do these people learn this? Are art schools better (cheaper) over here, or is the inspiration just in the tap water? The locals, I am sure, just pass a blind eye to this kind of thing. Heck, they probably protest about delinquent minors or good-for-nothings since they’ve got to protest about something. Ha ha.

Two things stick out in my mind: One, the bucket o’ bones sitting next to the opened box of ashes from a local crematorium. I don’t think any of us are really willing to admit that they were human bones but they were big, bigger than a dog, maybe bigger than a pig. Usually I see at least one dead animal or the remains of a dead animal in every building, so as, um, nervous as that made me I was able to check that off my list.

Two, the cat on the roof who was scared to death of us. We were talking about something (Cameras? Possibly. Smugmug gossip? Probably) and Anya is yelling at me from about 50 feet away. Eventually I can make out “CAT! See the cat??” but only as something hairy is bolting right at me. Its paws are barely touching the ground it's moving so fast, and it makes a sharp turn at my feet and loses purchase on the ground, slams right into Sam’s shins and runs down the staircase. Hmm. If I were a cat, that’s not how I would have done it.



Apparently the left and the right don’t quite see eye to eye, but that’s OK. We have better buildings in the east, but since the art is so pretty I’ll let it slide. I'm really interested in seeing how Sam's Mark II and large format captured it.

Here is my gallery, also a recent victim of a watermarking experiment.

In step

For those of you not present anywhere else, here is my most recent trip to the left. I am certainly not going to re-type this out, particularly as I already spent two days writing that. Yes, there are pictures, though nothing terribly artistic.

So there you have it. Now... back to life, back to reality.

More coal dust and other people's photos

Busy weekend, she's 3 for 3. Next up is a re-visit to coal country.

I say it a hundred times and I'll say it again:

1. I'll get up at any ungodly hour to go shooting with good company
2. Any time my face hurts from the sheer force of laughing qualifies as a 'Good Time'

Actually, it's been a while since I have experienced the latter point. Mr _H (who we met up there) makes such a feat impossible to resist. I mean, even when we got there I knew it was meant to be: I drive a VW with an Apple sticker. He drives a VW with an Apple sticker. He's the first explorer I've met who has been able to talk with quite some authority on IR photography and ND filters. Don't get me wrong: I know that gear does not make the photographer but I split myself into two categories in my free time (photography and old buildings) and very, very rarely do they overlap. He knows his stuff!

The main strike against _H is that he shoots Nikon. Tsk tsk, we have to do something about that. (JUST KIDDING!! sort of) But he is incredibly creative when it comes to group portraits, as proven here. And I learned that IR photography does not make me look fat. (A girl's dream!)



It was a bloody hot day. Inside it's cool and nice because it's dark and sheltered and the breeze comes right through. But... wow. On the top floor, walking into the coal chute you can feel waves of heat radiating from the corrugated metal, even standing 3 feet away from the wall. I was surprised they weren't glowing red.

Despite the harsh weather, wildlife abounds here. We all ran screaming from a crazy bat that flew at our faces, hid from a deadly chipmunk with an impudent tail and froze in terror when we discovered a huge snake in a mound of coal chips. Sure, that's an exaggeration but there is quite a bit of hidden life in the decay. I am convinced that the mythical crane that sits perched on a neighboring hill is really located in the 8th circle of hell - this is the second time I've followed my friends trying to find an outlying building, only to have it escape us. And yet we continue to hike through the thick summer spiderwebs, wasps, bees, and wading through soft dunes of ground-up coal dust, perishing from dehydration and being slowly smothered under the merciless sun. OK, chances are it was just bad to me but I whine enough for 4 people. The point of it is that we never found the crane, even though it's huge and practically a building in and of itself.



At 8 AM the building is a treasure trove of peaceful god beams. I'm ignoring the fact that this also indicative of the carcinogenic soup of coal dust in the air. But it sure is pretty. A few more photos have been added to my original Lauraville gallery.

That's all from me this week. My itinerary in the words of the Utah Saints:

We're coming over southern Utah, we wanna go to New York and then Memphis and see if we can stop off in San Francisco. Not quite sure how that works but... I like it.

Flashback

I am really fascinated because in these photos my parents are about the same age as me, maybe a little younger. They aren't particularly talky about their younger days but in these photos they're very human to me - dirt-poor graduate students with little to do in their free time except play with the camera that my dad loved.

And those couches... I didn't know until I saw these pics that they had those chairs when they were so young. I grew up on those couches, spent endless hours curled up in them with my nose in a book. The armrest covers would constantly get lost in the cracks if I wasn't putting them on my head pretending to be a superhero in a cape. The fabric helped me learn the different color names when I was small, tracing the lines and saying them out loud. I remember the rough, synthetic material that was coarsely woven together to make them. The old springs in the seats would creak when I struggled to dig myself out of them, so that my mother would hear I was coming to run and give her a hug when she got home from work.

They would be so tacky now but they are so full of memories...

Needless to say these two photos are very special to me.

Paris Hilton, parentheses, pissy

Someone out there really hates (or really likes) Paris Hilton. So much that the ghost of her greatness (or lameness) follows him around everywhere, even to empty power stations buried in the woods. The gentle rush of the babbling brook can't quiet his thoughts of her, how tempting (or irritating) she is, chase her from his thoughts.

Whoever he is, he's got an.... interesting... artistic interpretation of what he imagined they did in this building (or maybe didn't imagine, who knows, but I need more parentheses) and to protect the innocent I refrained from photographing any of his stunning work.

That said...

This was a spontaneous trip that ended quite well. After the last power plant excursion it was a bit underwhelming but even if I hadn't recently visited the best power plant in the country I might not have really liked this little cutie. It was a beautiful, unseasonably un-humid Saturday afternoon that was unexpectedly free of plans. When life hands you lemons, go make lemonade, right? I prefer limes (and gin), but you get the gist of it.

The most remarkable thing about this place is the graffiti. I have nothing against real graffiti art because it's beautiful and -- I found out tonight -- it is amazingly easy in post-processing. Shush! In the past I'd recognized photos of this building because of the colorful tagging, so you could I went just for that. Funny, eh? I don't need to test my monkey-climbing skills just for that. Oh well.



Speaking of monkeying, that was the other big bonus point for this building. I'm not a rock or a mountain climber who just squirrels up huge cliffs just for the hell of it like CCG (that's my acronym for "Cute Climber Guy" but I doubt he reads this) but I do enjoy other contexts of climbing. This place didn't disappoint and I always feel a little more accomplished after a successful shimmying.

One thing that pissed me off is the amount of crap strewn about all over the floor. This is not me bitching about how messy an abandonment is, but me getting on my high horse and wanting to throttle every bored/stoned/drunk/otherwise chemically altered individual who came in here and decided that destroying the property was a good idea. I know, I know: bless the spray paint and curse the mess, it makes no sense, right? Maybe. Taking on a slightly more selfish tone, I was more than irritated at the fact that EVERY. PLACE. POSSIBLE. that I wanted to stand to get that perfect shot was ruined by a mound of trash that rendered it impossible to securely plant my tripod. Insert sailor mouth and steel-toed boots.

I think Trav got much better photos of this place than I did. Lately my brain has been shutting off, approaching my hobbies like work and I'm unable to be witty in these now-train-of-thought blog entries. Maybe I need a decent night's rest, maybe I need a smack on the head. Whinge, wank, whine, whatever. On to the show.

Timing

I finally got to visit the newly constructed and not-quite-finished New York Times building over the weekend, accompanied by the best tour guide possible - my mom. I'm enormously proud of my mother, a tiny little Asian woman who is so unpreposessing until you find out that she regularly (but humbly) snaps the whip over dozens of powersuit-clad IT peons. And she likes it.

Walking through the front door, I thought we had the address wrong. This can't be the Times! Perhaps the MoMA? You almost want to pay an entrance fee. It's beautiful, spacious, minimal, with such bold colors your instinct is to wonder when they'll go out of style. They are not, at least not yet, and you walk through the glass and wood cathedral to the elevators.

The modern twist is played on all levels. Golden hallways beside snow-white walls. Eye-watering crimson behind plain silver cabinets. Everything is clean, square, and efficient. Revolutionary and perfectly modern. In some cases the playful furniture may not actually be furniture. But is it art?


The most striking thing to me was, of course, the photographs that line the walls. If not represented in top-of-the-line LCD screens, historic shots are reprinted and hung along the center wall space of the offices. The extensive history of this company (of which I grew up taking for granted) displays such examples of world-class photojournalism right next to their bathrooms and water fountains. Only now, almost 3 decades later, I come to appreciate them. Eventually my family was gone, leaving me staring at a grainy black and white print, thinking about the decade that it was taken - usually long before my birth but sometimes soon after it. This was a different kind of Photographer's Zone, the kind contemplating the will of steel of the journalist behind that lens, living on fear and persistence and against all odds to take that one shot, capturing the raw emotion that made it worthy of being reprinted and framed in a building in 2007. Is that Marilyn Monroe? Why yes, yes it is. And there she stands, her satin-wrapped curves standing in the spotlight ten feet from a WWII fighter jet pilot looking down on the Statue of Liberty.

The presence of these images in their original, intended forms, separated from me by a single pane of glass -- not in a museum where people travel to come and see and pay for the honor, but hung on a wall largely unnoticed and unappreciated by the people who sit within feet of them 5 days a week -- was more moving and meaningful to me than anyone will ever be able to understand.

Anyway, I didn't capture things very well that day. Don't get me wrong: I think I did all right for myself, and it was for fun... but I got nothin' on Annie Leibovitz.