Alternative Trailer
Travel Trailer © neo serafimidis 2011
I have been walking by this trailer twice a day for a few months now. Every single time I walk by I say to myself, “photograph that thing before its gone.” It is parked out in the back 40 at El Cerrito Plaza. I can’t quite tell if someone is living in it or not. I’m a little surprised that it is still there, because the Plaza security is, or used to be, quite vigilant about people parking in the Plaza when not actually shopping there, for example, while catching the BART to work for the day. Maybe the bad economy solved that problem and so no one’s watching anymore. Or maybe the owner is paying to park it there. Still I wish I had shot it when I first saw it, because at that time, it was all alone out there. Lately, there have been a few other motor homes and trailers parked around it, too. And often this little guy is sandwiched between a couple larger ones. So, when I saw it open on one side, I decided I better go for it. As it was, I had to get in close at 16mm because there was a blue Fiero or something parked nearby in front, and a big motorhome right behind it. Getting close and crouching down, I managed to get it to look lonely again. I’ll keep an eye on it, and hope for better light, maybe in the morning hours, one of these day. This is my second try at post-processing. Here is my first attempt at a fake lomo film kind of look.
Lion Gate
Gate to Caesar's Palace
I won’t pretend to have any grasp of the history of architecture. Nor will I assert that I know much of anything about principles of, contemporary trends in, or prominent figures of architecture. But, as is often asserted by the ignorant, I know what I like. And now I will admit that I was surprised to find that I enjoyed strolling the strip and experiencing some of the excessive, overblown buildings that bring so many people to this desert city year after year.
I’m not so much talking of hotels like Treasure Island, with its campy pirate ships, or the Mirage and its volcano. Nor do I mean the Disney-like settings of New York or Paris. Rather, I’m thinking of the tributes to classical achievements like Caesar’s Palace, or the interiors of the Venetian. There are some great scenes to experience. While over-the-top in their own way, they yet manage to recall something of architecture’s ability to inspire awe while bearing testament to the human spirit. Great buildings are a necessary expression in any culture’s attempt to establish some degree of permanence and project itself into the future.
The irony here is that the continual tearing down and rebuilding in the competition to be the latest and most outrageous, luxurious, or spectacular, undermines the sense of human triumph over mere mortality that grand architecture was traditionally able to inspire. The vanity and greed of these buildings’ origin and the decadence in and around them obscures this aspect in the narrative about Vegas and hides it from us.
Nonetheless, the fact that they still impress is testament to the fact that grand works feed the human spirit. That makes me just a little hopeful.
Lost in Las Vegas
Caesars Palace
I’m having a bit of a reflective time here on this, my first real visit to Sin City. My presence here explains why this post is a day late. And why tomorrow’s post will likely be late. And the day after that, too. In any case, my former tendency to be dismissive in absentia of everything Vegas as a symptom of a sick culture is undergoing substantial scrutiny and reevaluation. Since I’m here now, and my typing is impaired, I won’t go into the details. Instead, I leave you with some images from which to draw your own conclusions. And I promise to get my thoughts down in a future post.
Angels
Where in the Hell Did I Get These Matches?
Where in the Hell Did I Get These Matches???
I’ll tell you. At Diamond Billiards & Arcade. But don’t try finding it. It doesn’t exist anymore. My earliest memories of this place are from my tween years. I had yet to smoke my first cigarette, and I still rode around on my Schwinn paper delivery bike, or “Bee Bike” as we called them–those of us who threw the Fresno Bee.
There were three pool tables and a couple dozen pinball machines. I remember there were even some machines that were off limits to us kids. They were over against the east wall, and there was simple plywood barrier blocking their view from the street. They were, shhhh (whispers) gambling machines. As I remember, where other pinball machines were framed in metal, these were framed in wood. They were mysterious. And they paid. I think I played one once, but I don’t remember what it was like. Then one day, them gambin’ machines was gone.
Anyway, I went away for a year or two. And Diamond Billiards went away. When I came back, the place had become Geno’s Pinball Palace. And that was the start of a whole new thing. Hanging out. Cigarettes. Gateway drugs. Stoner girls. Teenage angst. Pimping beer. Foosball. Ridiculous amounts of pinball. This isn’t the time or the place to go into the particulars. Let’s just say that still, whenever I think back on this time of teenage psychosis, I feel a twinge of shame and think I’m lucky to be alive. But fear not, my virtual friend, for in the fullness of time the stories will be told, the confessions made, and we’ll all shake our heads and laugh.
Minna 3
Last month we went to see the Cartier-Bresson exhibit at SF MOMA. It was a wonderful exhibit, and very inspiring. Yet upon leaving the building, I found myself up to my old ways as I tried to photograph an empty, unremarkable alleyway. It guess it was the converging lines that caught my feeble attention. But getting the shot took me several tries on account of the people that kept walking by. And why shouldn’t they? They had somewhere to go, somewhere to be, things to think about; they had no reason to pay any mind to yet another tourist with an oversized camera. Well, persistent misanthrope that I am, I finally got my desired shot in all its starkness. But now in the weeks that have gone by, the more I look at them all, the more I like the intrusions. Perhaps some of that sympathetic Cartier-Bresson started to sink in after all.
Minna #1
Minna #2
Minna #3
Albany Commercial Streetscape #5
Albany Streetscape Project
I managed to get some shooting in yesterday and today, and so made good progress on my project to photograph all of Albany’s commercial streetscape. In fact, I managed to finish off the north side of Solano Ave between San Pablo and Peralta. I even went into Berkeley a bit there. Where is that border anyway?
This leaves the south side of Solano as the big chunk left to do. But it’s a hard one, since the building fronts are virtually always in shadow, except for the sunrise and sunset during a few weeks around the summer solstice. Of course, I can just leave them dark. Or I could shoot for exposing the storefronts and not worry about blowing out the sky and surrounding objects. I’m not about to try HDR on this one section, so let’s not go there.
I suppose I should consider Solano on west side of San Pablo as well, but that feels more residential down there. Perhaps just the first block would suffice to call the project truly complete.
Birthday Dinner
I didn’t manage to get my daily post up last night as I was out for birthday dinner with the family. We then came back home for dessert and enjoyment of presents, which included a bottle of Ridgemont Reserve 1792 bourbon. Get it?
Dinner for six was at Sea Salt in Berkeley. This has been one of our favorite places over the years, and I was certainly looking forward to this return. The menu looked good on this evening, and so we had a bit of trouble figuring out how to approach it. Some in our party wanted to do large plates which are more or less individual entree plates, while I was leaning toward small plates we could all share so we could taste different things. The waiter had to come back a couple times before he could get an order out of us. But then again, he did nothing to help — made no recommendations of dishes or an approach to the menu, and offered no descriptions of anything.
Eventually, we did manage to order a caesar salad and a beet salad to share around, and they were both excellent. The beet salad in particular, had a certain complexity that was interesting, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what ingredient was responsible. Perhaps it was the Capricious, or the pistachios, or the pickled shallots. Whatever it was, it rocked.
Then everyone ordered large plates. Sarah and Ray had the char, and reported it was very good. Rocky had the cioppino, and reported it was good but not great. Marge had the pan-seared Hawaiian barramundi and enjoyed it immensely. I was stuck on the idea of small plates, and even though I was now the only one, I stayed stuck.
So, I ordered the grilled local squid you see above. It was served with Italian butter beans and arugula, and topped with an almond-basil pesto. Interestingly, when the food arrived, the consensus was that my small plate was nearly as big as the other large plates, and it looked fabulous. And it was good. But it wasn’t transcendent. My chief complaint was that the squid was not really hot — in fact the edge pieces were downright cold — and that it while it had some grill marks, it really didn’t have the oomph of a decent charring that one expects from “grilled”. I know squid can be tricky, but this really would have benefitted from more grill character.
The major problem of the evening, however, was feeding the child. For Theo, we ordered the Masami beef and bacon slider. It looked good and was the perfect size for Theo. Unfortunately, after slathering a bit of the catsup from my side of fries on there, Theo complained that it was too spicy. Sarah tasted it and had a coughing fit. While the catsup turned out to be a bit spicy (I had not really noticed it, honestly), it also turned out that there was something quite spicy on the burger already. When we called the waiter over he said, “Oh is the black pepper aioli too spicy?” He offered to get another one out to us right away sans aioli. Unfortunately, he forgot to actually order that. So, by the time all the rest of us had finished our meal, we were still waiting on Theo’s burger to come out. Obviously, at that point, there was no point. I told the waiter as he was going by to cancel the order, if there in fact was one. I’m not sure what to make of this. Should we have been more inquisitive? Should the menu mention that there is black pepper aioli on the burger? Should the waiter have mentioned it when he saw we were ordering it for a small child? Where ever the fault lies, we had a hungry child at 9 pm. So, he had turkey slices and carrots sticks back at the house while we started on our dessert: rocky’s apple upside-down cake. Yummm!
And we cracked the Ridgemont Reserve 1792 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. So all was not lost.
Theo and Effie
Theo and Effie / © neo serafimidis
I am about 10 DVD’s behind in backing up my photo hard drive. I have been thinking about getting around to it every now and again, but the death of my laptop hard drive shocked me into action. Once I started going back through the folders to do a light cleanup before burning to disk, I found all sorts of photos I had totally forgotten about. This was an interesting one. My mother and son in late 2009. Boy was that a tough year, but there were some sweet moments here and there.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Refuge
Meditation Window Display / © neo serafimidis
As we walked around the Mission last month with friends, we came upon this situation at Artists’ Television Access. Pairs of people taking turns meditating in the window. I was lucky enough to see the shift change, so I know they’re real. It just goes to show you, real refuge is in the mind of the refugee.
Vintage BART Sunset
BART Sunset / © neo serafimidis
I shot this yesterday and marked it for deletion. Today, I decided to play with it a bit before deleting. I came to like it after the color got messed up. It reminds me of tungsten slide film somehow.
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