Sutro Baths part 2

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Joe Reifer Andy Frazer Andy Frazer Shawn Peterson
Shawn Peterson Sutro 7 - Gabriel Biderman - Ricoh GRD 28mm lens 3 min. f/4 ISO 64 Sutro 8 - Gabriel Biderman - Ricoh GRD 28mm lens 3 min. f/5.6 ISO 64 Sutro 3 - Gabriel Biderman - Mamiya 7 65mm lens Tri-X 400 8 min. f/11

Modern ruins, labyrinthine structures, wind blown cypress trees clinging to the cliff, and caves and paths that lead to Land’s End; this is the Sutro Baths that I’ve been fascinated with since I was first taken to Ocean Beach as a young child.
The Sutro ruins on the outskirts of San Francisco are where we’d often take the dog hiking along the paths above or exploring the abandoned remains below. This probably set in place my future fascination for Ruinism. The Sutro Baths are no secret and have been welcoming the public and the Pacific in one way or another for over 110 years.
Built with iron, wood, and glass in the grandiose manner of London’s Crystal Palace, the grand opening to the public was held on March 14, 1896. The Industrial Age was in full swing and this engineering masterpiece had taken only 6 years to build at the cost of $1 million. It was the dream of the eccentric Adolph Sutro, who had just finished a lackluster 2 year term as San Francisco’s 24th mayor. The extravagant public bathhouse was the world’s largest indoor swimming pool at that time and was inspired by the ancient baths of Rome. Visitors to the baths had 7 different swimming pools to choose from, one freshwater and six salt water bathes, ranging in temperature from 80 degrees to sea temperature. During high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the Pacific, recycling 2 million gallons of water in an hour. During low tides, a powerful turbine water pump, built inside a cave at sea level, could be switched on from a control room to fill the tanks at a rate of 6,000 gallons a minute. Over 20,000 swimsuits were for rent and the facility could hold over 10,000 people at a time. To see an Edison Manufacturing Co short film of the Giant Slide at the Sutro Baths from from 1897 click here.
If you preferred not to swim, the bathhouse also incorporated a museum displaying some of the finest Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt as well as Sutro’s varied personal collection of his travels. An 8,000 person Concert Hall and an ice-skating rink were also part of the Sutro Baths.

Five hundred dressing rooms … spacious elevators and broad staircases … pavilions, balustrades, promenades, alcoves and corridors adorned with tropical plants, fountains, flowers, pictures, … the collected treasure of foreign travels… a portico with four Ionic columns and pilasters which lead to a noble staircase, wide, gradual of ascent, bordered with broad-leaved palms, the flowering pomegranate, fragrant magnolias … [touching] the very rim of the reveling waves.

However, due to the high operating and maintenance costs, the Sutro Baths closed its doors in 1966. During its demolition, a suspicious fire broke out and left the Baths in the ruins that you can see today.
What has fascinated me most is how little the ruins have changed. They are maintained by the National Park Service and very little is off limits for urban exploration.
Our “exploration” led to the photos that were taken on November 24th. It was a full moon, and my father and I met fellow nocturnalists Joe Reifer, Andy Frazer, and Shawn Peterson as the few clouds were breaking through to reveal the ruins of Sutro. We spent over 4 hours shooting, flashlights popping, and exposures being calculated. Armed with tripods, our exposures were running 2-8 minutes, with plenty of opportunity to soak in the true atmosphere of the baths. I’ve spent a lot of time at Sutro, but on a clear night with old and new friends, we explored the timeless time of Sutro.
To check out more of Joe Reifer work click here.
Andy Frazer’s blog on the night can be found here.
More of Shawn Peterson’s nightwork can is here.

To see some great photos from old Sutro Baths or read more about its history check out these sights:

Sutro Baths
Cliffhouse Project
Sutro’s
Outsidelands
Wikipedia

Red Hook Nights

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Visitation St Beard St Warehouse sugar factory boat
beard lady liberty diamond trolley 2 gabe trolley
water taxi 2 Red Hook House sunnys

“We gotta do a night shoot!”

These were words I spoke to my good friend, awesome photographer, and fellow industry man Andre Costantini, over the last 6 months. You see, we’re neighbors here in Brooklyn, but we also travel so much that it’s sometimes easier coordinating on the road than it is seeing each other in Brooklyn!
However, in early October, we finally got our schedules straightened out and went out for a 4+ hour night photo shoot in the nearby neighborhood of Red Hook.

Founded by the Dutch in 1636, Red Hook still remains one of the most unique and isolated neighborhoods that Brooklyn has to offer. The Waterfront days of the Longshoreman, when Red Hook boasted 21,000 people, were starting to decline when Robert Moses finished building the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and the Battery Tunnel in the early 1950’s – effectively cutting off Red Hook from the rest of Brooklyn. Along with the loss of the dock jobs to New Jersey soon after, Brooklynites began to disappear from the Hook. Red Hook now harbors 11,000 residents, most of whom are activists and artists drawn to the old world charm and astounding waterfront views. Because of its isolation, Red Hook has remained relatively unchanged. It is home to the largest concentration of Civil War warehouses in New York and offers the closest full frontal views of Lady Liberty herself as she faces Red Hook and looks towards the statue of Minerva at Greenwood Cemetery.
Al Capone got his start as a small time criminal in Red Hook, along with his wound that led to his nickname “Scarface”. Red Hook also has been a literary inspiration to: “On the Waterfront” by Budd Shulberg, “A View from the Bridge” by Arthur Miller, “Last Exit to Brooklyn” by Hubert Selby Jr, and “The Horror at Red Hook” by H.P. Lovecraft.

Looking for photographic inspiration, Andre and I started out around 8pm with tripods and cameras in hand. Andre was shooting with the Nikon D200 and a variety of Tamron lenses and I had my trusty Mamiya 7 with the 65mm lens loaded with black and white TriX 400 film. Knowing that it was going to be a busy night we decided to energize up with some excellent burgers at the scrumpdiddlyumptious restaurant/diner named Hope and Anchor. With burgers and Brooklyn beers in our bellies, we set forth!
The first shot of the night was Andre’s “Visitation St” sign with what seemed to be a rebar cane hanging from it! The cobblestone streets led us to the recently refurbished and “gallerized” Beard St Warehouses, which can be seen in the second photo. Behind the Warehouses lie the remains of the Sugar Refinery as well as a small dock where some of the locals anchor their boats, as seen in photo number 3.
The second row of photos leads off with the old trolley tracks that lay between the Beard Warehouses. In the distance you can see the pillars where the water taxi drops off tourists as well as Lady Liberty dressed in white light. The tracks actually lead to two abandoned trolleys cars that were once owned by Bob Diamond. A modern day Don Quixote, Bob discovered one of the world’s oldest subway stations under Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn in 1980. Built in 1844 by the Long Island Railroad, it was quickly abandoned, sealed, and forgotten by 1861. Bob had hoped to reopen the station and connect it with a trolley service to Red Hook as there’s no subway line that comes close to the neighborhood. It was never funded and Bob’s trolleys lie in a beautiful state of ruinism behind the Fairway Market that moved into the Van Brunt warehouse. This beautifully revitalized pre Civil War coffee warehouse now holds a vast amount of fresh food and veggies as well as killer lofts above. The middle two shots are Andre’s take on the trolley as well as documenting me demonstrating my night shooting techniques!
The first image on the last row is a Michael Kenna inspired shot of the Water Taxi docks in Red Hook. 26 Reed St is the next photo. This original Red Hook house is Ralph Balzano’s car shop and Men’s club for the locals. Speaking of locals, Ralph’s brother Sunny owns the bar in the last photo. Sunny’s great-great-grandfather opened this bar in 1890 and I can only assume that is Sunny’s car parked in front!
It was a great shoot that ended around 2:30am with a little nightcap at The Bait and Tackle Bar.

For further reading on Red Hook History check out:
http://www.redhookwaterfront.com/_hi.main/index.html
For further info on Bob Diamond’s abandoned subway discovery:
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/TROLLEYS/redhook/redhook.html
http://www.forgotten-ny.com/SUBWAYS/tunnel/tunnel.html
And to learn more Night Photography shooting techniques follow my man Joe Reifer’s inspiring nightshots and super informative blog at:
http://www.joereifer.com/words/?cat=9
To see more of Andre’s work click here.

Eddie Adams XX Workshop

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Eddie Adams Workshop 2007For the past 4 years I have spent my Columbus day weekend celebrating the Eddie Adams Workshop in Jeffersonville, NY. Each year 100 of the top young photojournalists from around the world are chosen, via portfolio submission, to come to the Catskills and learn from the best in the industry. It is truly a gathering of the photographic spirit, where students shoot intensively for 2-3 straight days honing their skills with some of the industry heavies and producing a body of work that is shown on the closing night reception. If you are not shooting, then you are usually watching an inspirational slide show presented by a famous photographer, whom you can actually talk to and have your work critiqued by! This year marked the 20th Anniversary of the Eddie Adams Workshops, and as you walk through Eddie’s barn- turned multimedia workplace- you’ll notice the photos of each graduating class and feel a part of an amazing history.

So, when it came time for this year’s group shot of the students, faculty, sponsors, and ever present black team, I asked if I could sneak a quick 8 second panoramic pinhole exposure.

Of course everyone was game!

Though the workshop is all digital, for the first time in a while I noticed a plethora of students with alternative film cameras: Poloroid Land Cameras, Holgas, Leicas, and even a Voigtlander or two! Nikon, who is a major sponsor of EAW brought in some of the first D3 professional digital cameras for the students and faculty to use and the initial reactions were very, very positive. I think one photographer spent the whole weekend trying in vain to find digital noise in any of the D3’s images.

Now, if you can find yourself in this picture, please contact me and I will gladly mail you out a print! Until then, stay in focus!

Highest Photo of the Week Yet

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lady libertyI had an opportunity to take Mr Photoshop, and good friend, Scott Kelby on a chartered helicopter last week. We went up and down Manhattan looping around the Empire State and Chrysler buildings as well as Yankee Stadium (no game) and finally Lady Liberty herself. I have never been in a helicopter before and it was a pretty amazing experience, however, I was concerned that the seat belt was really no better than what you would find in an economy rental car. There were 4 photographers, 3 of them with Nikon 70-200 2.8 lenses, trying to make the most of shooting through dirty distorted windows…as well as not knock each other out with our lenses! It was a pretty funny thing to witness and my favorite shot I took was actually taken on Scott’s camera ~ see his blog

For those of you not familiar with Scott, he is the #1 writer and trainer on Photoshop out there. He started the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), a 70,000-member base of photoshop users and premier learning center for all things Photoshop. To learn more about them or to join check out their website at: photoshopuser

Next time Scott, we are leaving the door to the helicopter open!

Spring has arrived!

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Royals Park PinholeApril means two things to me:
The beginning of baseball and pinhole season!
Most of you are pretty familiar with baseball and know that I’m a die hard Red Sox fan. But how many of you know that the last Sunday of April is WorldWide Pinhole Day? WWPD is an international event created to promote and celebrate the art of pinhole photography. People are encouraged to take some time off from the increasingly technological world we live in and participate in the simple act of making a pinhole photograph. Their efforts will be published on the WWPD website.
I’ve decided to go a step beyond this and take a pinhole image every day this month. As it turns out, I will be spending WWPD in Pittsburgh,PA at the Symposium of Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Process. This looks to be an incredible gathering of some of the top talent in the alternative process world.

Featured speakers include:

Jo Babcock, who just might be the king of low tech cameras. Jo takes the most mundane objects and gives them life as a camera and then uses these cameras to look inward and capture what is missing in their life. His pinhole camera van now resides in the Smithsonian.

Craig Barber teaches at the Center for Photography at Woodstock and travels all over the world with his pinhole camera, focusing on the cultural landscape. Craig is also an amazing platinum printer.

Barbara Ess, an associate professor of photography at Bard College, whose otherworldly pinhole book I am Not This Body: The Pinhole Photographs of Barbara Ess, was selected as one of the ten top photography books of the year by the Village Voice.

Alan Greene is an expert in mid-19th Century Cameras & Negatives. His book Primitive Photography: A Guide to Making Cameras, Lenses, and Calotypes takes you step by step through the process of building your own cameras as well as teaching the photographic techniques of over a 150 years ago.

Mike Robinson works as a modern master of the daguerreotype. A long-neglected and demanding photographic art, the daguerreotype produces a direct positive image on silvered copper plate.

Patricia Katchur is the director of the Center for Alternative and Historic Processes right here in NYC. The school is dedicated to the process of do-it-yourself photography.

Terry King, from London, has been leading workshops for over 25 years on hands-on processes like gum printing, bromoil, cyanotype, and the rex process.

The Symposium of Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Process is the brainchild of pinhole photographer Tom Persinger. Tom also founded and directs f295, an international organization with over 1000 members, interested in furthering the dialogue of the art of lensless photography.

[As an aside, in one of those 6 degrees of separation moments, it turns out that Tom was friends with my wife, Nancy, during their college years at Kent State!]

Along with the lectures and round table discussions various workshops will also be held on these alternative processes:
Pinhole, Camera and Lens Making, Cyanotype Rex, Daguerreotypes, Gum Rex, and Wet Plate Collodian.
Registration is still open for attending the Symposium and for only $120 it is an amazing opportunity to be part of a very unique and historic photographic event!

So this April fire up the grill, cook up some hotdogs and watch some of the good old American Pastime. While you’re at it, put aside the digital cameras, take a deep breath and step back in time to really explore what photography is all about.

See you in Pittsburgh!