52 Weeks Photography Project
January 2024
A special thank you to Rodrigo S C for all his work establishing and curating the 52 week project. It keeps me shooting and writing with the hope I can improve both.
No-1 Old Is New Again
The “Old country” has very old buildings, some of them quite ancient. The foundations of the ancient are the foundations of the new. Stone seems eternal.
Today it’s mainly brick and cement construction, but being built on rock foundations makes it sturdy for up-keep and new improvements. Places last much longer.
Our neighbour two apartments down the walk is renovating. Jerry, has a hand-held jack hammer with a chisel attached. On his hands and knees he chips out the ceramic tiles at an alarming rate and with a coughing dust cloud reveals the old poured concrete floor. “The old tiles were fine”, Jerry proclaimed, “But the Mrs tinks it’s too dark in ere.”
He showed me the job he did in the back room and I have to admit the lighter shade does brighten things up. I’m going along with the wife.
For two years I walked by this building above. The walls were crumbling, the interior condemned, and the windows were damaged by rocks.
I was shocked to witness its resurrection. Today it has been remodeled as two, modern glass fronted apartments overlooking the Atlantic. Old architecture holds culture.
No -2 The Circle Game
The carousel of time eh? This is a different kind of carousel …the Kodak Carousel Slide Projector.
A carousel slide projector is a slide projector that uses a rotary tray to store slides, used to project slide photographs and to create slideshows. It was first patented on May 11, 1965, by David E. Hansen of Fairport, New York. Hansen was an industrial designer at the Eastman Kodak Company.[1] A patent for the rotary tray was granted in 1966 after a 1962 application by the Eastman Kodak Company.[2] Thanks Wiki.
My Slide Projector Story.
In 1989 I accepted a teacher exchange to Australia. A teacher from Australia came to teach in Canada and I went there.
With Bea, and our six year old daughter, we arrived down under ready for the year of adventure.
I taught as the “relief teacher” in a large school in Dubbo NSW.
Part of my responsibilities included teaching a hearing impaired class. I have no training in this area but my hesitation was cured when the Principal declared “You’ll be fine mate”.
The school had excellent audio visual equipment, and a dedicated projection room. The course was set.
After getting to know the students and the teacher assistants, I proposed that we construct a slide presentation for the school. I loaded up my camera and two of the school’s cameras with Kodak Slide film and off we went. (200 ASA on full auto)
The students were shown how to use the cameras and told to photograph the houses of the school’s neighbourhood.
When the slides returned from developing, we projected them onto 36x24 paper and the kids copied the images with paint. That was a fun few days for sure.
When they were completed I made a slide of each of their paintings.
The next step was to assemble the slides of their original shots, with the slides of their paintings. We set them up in order, in two carousel projectors.
I set the projectors beside each other and made a cardboard slide so that we could slowly go smoothly from one projector to the next, blending the images.
Next we found music with a good beat, turned the speakers to the wood floor so the kids could feel the beats, and began the rehearsals for the big day.
Excitement was building, nerves were shattering, but after the first performance the students pulled it off in spectacular fashion. We played eight shows over two days.
The Principal? “I’ve never seen anything like that in all my years”. He asked to keep the presentation to show other schools.
No -3 Soft Like Cotton Candy
I really recommend laying down and looking up to watch the clouds.
People have a habit of missing nature as they move through it. Heading somewhere and the mind is partly thinking about the arrival. Thoughts about the future “cloud the mind.”
Naming the clouds is a distraction and confuses your momentary focus. Naming anything in nature deflects the senses, and the imagination. We are all programmed to name as we go. “Lions don’t go, dandelions, keep going along the path.”
With my grandkids, if they must, we make up names for the things we see. The purpose is to let the senses be apart of the experience. Five beautiful senses open to this exploration.
And maybe more senses than five but then, I am on shaky ground about that.
I was laying on the boat deck one afternoon and a furry fluffy puffy shape floated about my head, I tried to feel its hazy murky misty fogginess.
What would Liv and Lou have to say about that.
No -4 Film Noir
It was a dark and windy night. Scrub bush, with a floor of dead leaves soaked in rain. Car lights from a nearby road, irregularly lit the scene. Tripod and camera at least partially covered, the photographer not so much.
Sometimes the worst conditions, and your thoughts persuading you to retreat , produces the best images. However, not that night. And the wolf is made up.
No -5 Lie To Me Where in lies the lie.
A few years back the band and I were playing a gig in a “sold out” Legion, north of Toronto, and who should appear? Bob Dylan, and with his benevolence and grace, adorned us with his presence. That for sure sparked up the evening.
I don’t smoke weed with Dylan no more.
I smoked it to try it, and then hit the floor
I was stoned to my boots and drunk to the core
So I don’t smoke weed with Bobby no more.
