urban ku # 34/35 - history in the making?

Betty Beaver's Truck Stop & Diner • click on photo to embiggen itIf you have made the effort of late to visit my ku portfolio, you should have noticed that my gaze has turned from so-called "pure" landscape (no sign of humankind) to that which is much more biased towards elements of humankind, albeit EOH within the natural landscape of the Adirondacks.

At first, the decision to do so was twofold - 1st) photography-wise, I consciously wanted to "balance" my landscapes of the Adirondack's natural world with ones which reflected the human presence. After all, 100,000+ people live here in the Adirondack Park, the largest wilderness in the eastern US. 2nd) subconsciously, I was just drawn to EOH. Upon reflection, I think that the reason for this is rather simple - now that I/we have lived here for a good while, the Park has morphed from a place I/we visit into the place we live, aka, home.

It has also occurred to me (filed under, there's-nothing-new-under-the-sun) that I am also toiling in the time-honored tradition of some of the early pillars of Adirondack photography such as Seneca Ray Stoddard, Henry M. Beach and host of other so-called postcard photographers (although Stoddard was much more than a postcard photographer).

From the earliest days of photography until the 1950s, it seems that every Adirondack village of any size had its very own "postcard" photographer. Actually that's a bit of a misnomer, in as much as the photographers did photography of all kinds. The sheer volume of photographs that these guys (I know of no women) created is staggering. Much of it is still around in either institutional or private collections. I would not be surprised if the Adirondack region was the single most postcarded place in the world.

In any event, it has started to dawn on me that I might be creating a body of Adirondack photography which may, in time, be on par with those early photographers. It's an exciting thought. One that I will now keep in mind as I continue to "balance" my collection of Adirondack photography, although at this point in the process, a fair question to ask is, where are the people?

PS - Speaking of home and people, I couldn't be more happy and pleased than I am sharing the Adirondacks with people like Betty Beaver (yes, those are 3 dimensional assets). She runs a respectable place. If you're in the neighborhood, you should stop in for a visit - just off exit 32, on I87. FYI, Betty Beaver's partner, Vincent Gramuglia, has stated that "[t]here is nothing provocative about Betty Beaver. It’s not as bad as Hooters, and remember that the registered (New York) state animal is the beaver and if they all looked like Betty, the woods would be full of hunters." Aahhh, America, the beautiful.