NOW at the Waterbury Library

Photographs from the continuing series, "Brass Valley Made in America," are on exhibition at the Silas Bronson Library in Waterbury, from June 3 to July 31.

An Invitation
WHEN: June 19th at 6:30 PM
WHERE: Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury (http://www.bronsonlibrary.org/)
WHAT: Emery Roth will show slides, talk about his experiences, and read poems and stories from the draft of his book on Brass Valley. For three years Mr. Roth has been following the old railroad tracks and photographing among ruins and in the last working brass mill in the Naugatuck Valley. Thanks to the existence of a unique extruder, one brass mill continues operation. It is the last descendent of American Brass with functioning mill buildings in Ansonia and Waterbury. Mr. Roth's photographs capture the men and equipment at work, the large casting furnaces, the extruder, pickling tanks, draw benches, annealers still functioning in a facility that has been making brass tube since before WW I.


Sunday, June 29, 2008

Bass Harbor Boogie-Woogie


PHOTOGRAPHER'S DIARY: No cry of, "Eureka!," as a modern day Archimedes slides the green boat from its Platonic universe and zooms me into the present, but the spirit of Leger still rules over the boogie man's reflection in the water below.


PHOTOGRAPHER'S DIARY: ...and I like the way he stirs my paint.


PHOTOGRAPHER'S DIARY: As boogie-woogies go, Bass Harbor's is clearly fog-bound. It's probably at its most active when a seagull finds a bit of food that needs cracking and "throws" it repeatedly against rock.

The shutter speed should have been doubled to freeze the seagull, but the pose is so good, the reflection off the port side wing so strong, that I much prefer it to a stilled gull in a less revealing pose. Besides, I was delighted to catch the gull right where I needed him.

I think I need to do a trip just for gulls. Many times gulls glided frustratingly through images when I wasn't ready for them. The alternative is get set and be prepared to wait 30 minutes by which time the light may have changed. Yes, there's always Photoshop.

As always, vertical images come out too small for computer screens. However, if you can zoom in on the pilings, I think even the reduced resolution jpg image of this post reveals clearly a menagerie of sea life temporarily marooned until the tide comes in. Had I known this texture would be revealed so sharply, I would have tried for closer images.

At ISO 400, f10, and 1/125 sec. this probably should have been also shot at ISO 800, 1/250th sec. Yeah, right! Shoot it twice! ...and I can bet the community on the piling would not have been as sharp.
2 comments

#2 Bass Harbor Blues


PHOTOGRAPHER'S DIARY: Taken four minutes earlier, the Platonic melody anchors this shot, and low tide elongates the lobster dock into a blues riff. Behind the fog, the port of Bernard, across Bass Harbor, is barely visible.

ISO 400, f10, 1/80th, 34mm
0 comments

#1 Bass Harbor Melody


PHOTOGRAPHER'S DIARY: Sometimes it seems almost like a set-up, pure color and form in the process of abandoning their material selves and finding some sort of Platonic identity. Almost a miracle to find it midst the chaos of Bass Harbor.

Special thanks to Sandy & Esther at the Inn at Southwest Harbor for a year ago pointing me this way.
2 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)