Architectural oddity ~ NYS Rt. 28 - Adirondacks / Otter Lake, NY • click to embiggenIn a comment made by Joe Reifer on civilized ku # 264-67 ~ my Friday night room, Joe suggested that "50/60's motels in the Adirondack region would make an interesting larger project."

I agree. Especially so since so many of those motels have rather interesting neon signs. But ... for me, at this particular time, it's a matter of so many possibilities, so little time.

However, when I do get around to such a project, it will not be limited to 50/60's motels. As the picture with this entry illustrates, the Adirondacks are filled with lots of 50/60's architectural gems / oddities. Some are still in use, others are not.

The building pictured above has special meaning for me because, as a kid in the 50s, it signaled to me that our seemingly endless car ride to our Summer destination - Inlet, NY - was almost over. I don't remember what the building's purpose was but I think it was some sort of tourist souvenir shop or, quite possibly, a restaurant. It would be easy enough to find out.

In any event, a 50/60's architectural project should be undertaken sooner rather than later since many of these places are either crumbling into dust or being renovated.

Rain saturated landscape ~ NYS Rt. 5 - near Wampsville, NY• click to embiggen
Rain saturated landscape ~ NYS Rt. 5 - near Wampsville, NY • click to embiggenLast Saturday, as I was driving to Taughannock Falls, I was listening to our 3 CD set of The Greatest R&B Hits Collection - one of those late-night tv not-available-in-stores "special offers". The volume was on the rather amped-up side and I was definitely in the groove - listening to soul music and, as much as the seatbelt would allow, dancing like a white man.

Long about Utica, NY, I was overcome with the desire to talk to a black person so I called my good friend Jimmi Nuffin (the alias he comments under here on The Landscapist). I splained the situation to Jimmi and he was very understanding.

We conversed for about the next 20 miles or so when I noticed that I was passing by quite a number of picturing possibilities. When I came upon the scenes pictured in this entry, I just had to stop. Once again, I spained the situation to Jimmi and, once again, he was very understanding - he waited patiently on the line (on the microwaves?) while I disembarked and made these pictures. All the while I was picturing - I was pretty quick because it was raining pretty good - Jimmi was listening to the click-click-click of the car's turn signal sound, courtesy of our bluetooth-enabled car.

So, under the circumstances, I felt that naming this triptych the Jimmi Nuffin Triptych was the honorable and courteous thing to do.

Moose River and old mill ~ Adirondacks/McKeever, NY • click to embiggenNot every picture I made this past weekend was part of a triptych.

This picture could have been a perfect candidate as part of a man +- nature picture, but, to perfectly honest, I just wasn't seeing / thinking that way at the moment.

Cottage No. 3 ~ Adirondacks / Inlet, NY • click to embiggen
Closed for the season ~ Adirondacks / Inlet, NY • click to embiggenThe final triptych count from this past weekend is 10 and, as mentioned in an earlier entry, the triptychs will be the basis for a POD book and Folio entitled Saturday ~ November 14th. My intent for the book/folio is twofold.

First and foremost is simply the intent to create the book/folio. I will use all of the pictures in the book and select 10-15 pictures from the book with which to make the folio. They will be offered as a set and separately.

However, second and almost as foremost, as a set, the intent is to illustrate an exercise in editing - the book will be composed of the triptychs (all of the pictures) whereas the folio will be composed of single pictures from taken / edited from each triptych. An exercise wherein I will select, IMO, the "best" single picture from each triptych.

But, that said, IMO, here's where it gets interesting. Each purchaser of the set will have the option to return the folio of my edits and request a new folio composed of their edits, or, Each purchaser of the set will have the option to return the folio and request 1 24×24" print of their choice - chosen from the entire group of pictures in the book. Now this assumes, of course, that the folio is returned in pristine condition (cotton gloves will come with the folio).

The intent of this exchange / exercise is to create a two-way learning experience - I get to learn what others think of my "selects" while a purchaser gets to have a peek into my edit / selection process and thinking. And, to aid in this whole process, I will make myself available to purchasers - via e-mail, snail-mail, or even by phone (US/CA) - to discuss my/their opinions on the matter.

All that said, first and foremost, pt. 2 - the time has come to get an online gallery of folios and POD books launched. And I'm not just talking about my folios/books, I'm talking about your folios/books.

This past weekend when I was talking with Paul Maxim (on the phone prior to meeting), I mentioned that I was going to Taughannock Falls to make pictures. He asked, "What are you going to do with the pictures?" and I answered that I would be posting them on my blog.

That's when it occurred to me that just posting them on the blog was not enough anymore. I've said it before and I'll say it again - pictures as PRINTS are the thing. Anything else is half-ass.

In addition, I want to become a "collector". I want to hang the work of others in my house - not the work of the "big-name" picture makers, but rather the work of so many others who are making great pictures but just not displaying them in the big tent. Those who probably wouldn't mind a little fame and fortune but who, nevertheless, make pictures just because they love to make pictures and would also like to share their work with others.

And, as I have stated before, this thing can't work without the participation of others. By "participation of others" I mean, simply, the pictures / books / folios of others.

How about it?

Dear Meadows Motel & Cottages ~ Adirondacks / Inlet, NY • click to embiggenDependent upon one's personal likes / dislikes, one of the preeminate charms / banes of Adirondack tourism is the "classic" late 50s / early 60s-era mom&pop-run roadside motel. They are, quite literally, everywhere.

Some, like Dear Meadows, are meticulously maintained - clean, comfortable, and with a modicum of modern amenities like cable tv and in-room coffee makers. Although, like the Dear Meadow sign indicates, "Phone" means that there is a phone somewhere on the premise but it won't be in your room. However, on the plus side, one phone is much better than no phone because, more often than not, like in Inlet there will also be no cell service either.

The reason for the plethora of 50s/60s-era motels in the Adirondacks is due mainly to the 50s/60s-era advent of the interstate highway system after which tourism in the Adirondacks went into a serious 3 decades-long decline. People in the region were going on vacation much farther afield and, quite obviously, taking their tourism dollars with them. Consequently, very little "upgrading" of accommodation facilities took place. In fact, many traditional and glorious Adirondack lodges / inns went the way of the burn-it-down-for-firefighter-practice due to financial insolvency.

Stream bed pool below Taughannock Falls • click to embiggen
Stream bed below Taughannock Falls • click to embiggenTo be perfectly honest I found the 3/4 mile walk along the trail to Taughannock Falls to be considerably more interesting than the falls itself. That was due in part to the fact that the water level was rather low so the stream bed was very exposed in spots which revealed interesting shapes/patterns, colors, detritus, geological features / details, and the like.

That said, some might get the "insider" joke, photography-wise, that is part of the triptych - the picture on the left is my take on the ubiquitous / cliche-ridden / done-to-death / hope-I-never-see-another-one pictures of the moving rocks at death Valley's Racetrack Playa.

Browsing Old Forge residents ~ Adirondacks - Old Forge, NY • click to embiggenSpotting deer in and around villages and towns here in the Adirondacks is not that unusual. That said, these deer and about 7-8 of their relatives seem to have taken up permanent residency on Main St. in the central Adirondack village of Old Forge.

Main St. in Old Forge is also a section of the primary, in fact, the only highway that traverses the Adirondacks. Consequently, on my 100s of trips through the park, passing through Old Forge is just part of the trip. I been through there 100s of times, both night and day, and the number of times that I have seen groups of deer - at times as many as 8-10 deer - just browsing on Main St. is just down right weird.

This picture was made around 9AM last Saturday just before I went into the diner for my wide-and-fat short stack (see civilized ku # 263 below). The deer were just browsing and paid little attention to passersby. The somewhat humorous thing about this is that it is the middle of deer season and these deer seem to have discovered that the safest place to be is right out in the open on Main St. where, quite obviously, no hunting is allowed.

Aluminum storm door on weathered structure • click to embiggen
Deer boar hunts / ostrich/emu farm ~ Adirondacks - Otter Lake, NY • click to embiggenEven though my weekend roadtrip picturing objective was Taughannock Falls, I certainly knew that I would make as many other pictures as possibilities presented themselves along the way. As it turned out, I took advantage of those possibilities only between the hours of 7:30AM - 3:30PM on Saturday. My intention was to not only picture my way to Rochester on Saturday but to then picture my way back from there to Au Sable Forks on Sunday.

There was no picture making on Sunday due to a long lunch with Paul Maxim and, consequently, a late start back to Au Sable Forks. On the ride back I was thinking about my Saturday picture making and, for some reason, my conclusion was that I had not made all that many pictures. However, after transferring my picture files from Saturday to the digital darkroom and starting my initial processing, I ended up with about 70 pictures worth processing.

Many of these pictures, in fact, most of these pictures ended up as triptych presentations. With the exception of the triptych found in the ku # 645-49 entry, none of the eventual groupings were intentionally created.

This is nothing new for me. I tend by nature to explore a given referent from differing POVs, not so much to find the "right" POV but rather to tell a more complete story about the subject at hand. Inevitably, this picturing MO ends up leading to, at the processing stage of things, the unintentional creation of diptychs and triptychs.

So, stayed tuned, there a quite a few more Saturday, November 14th triptychs to come. And, within a week or so, I'll be putting on offer a Saturday, November 14th POD book with an accompanying 15 print folio.