Maybe it’s built that way
…maybe it’s just pentagrams?
…maybe it’s just pentagrams?
Stanley Kubrick was all about the single-point perspective.
This sort of framing really pulls you into his story… kind of like hearing a decommissioned (and likely insane) HAL9000 self-actualizing computer sing for you:
HAL: I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H.A.L. plant in Urbana, Illinois on the 12th of January 1992. My instructor was Mr. Langley, and he taught me to sing a song. If you’d like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Dave Bowman: Yes, I’d like to hear it, HAL. Sing it for me.
HAL: It’s called “Daisy.”
[sings while slowing down]
HAL: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.
This is not a photo of a marathon.
Really just a matter of timing, this shot was taken shortly after the drawbridge had been let back down.
The good weather meant there were lots of people in downtown Portland, and the raised bridge had stopped them from crossing it for about twenty minutes. This is just that crowd of people finally flooding across.
This building, oh… this crazy old building.
It’s been (so very slowly) deconstructed, and so isn’t viewable at all any more. But for years after it was abandoned, the entire compound just slowly fell apart out in the woods.
For years it was visited by a few thrillseekers, transients, a number of really young children (I know, right?) and a few older folk that remember the compound’s original stories: as the Callahan Center, a branch of Dammasch State Hospital (1883-2012).
If I remember correctly, Dammasch hospital was built to be be available as an emergency nuclear decontamination facility/hospital if there ever was a localized nuclear attack. There were these tunnels that stretched from Dammasch hospital’s basement to the Living Enrichment Center. Supposedly, these tunnels even led to an underground “food cache”.
I’ve seen the entrance to this tunnel system, but it had been filled in/collapsed. Hey I’m a photographer, not a miner.
I think the original plan for the LEC’s remains was to just let nature do most of the deconstruction, as it sat adrift in the woods for almost a decade… but let’s face it, that Brutalist design doesn’t really come down on it’s own.
On quiet days it really had some beautiful, if not totally abandoned and somewhat creepy, moments. RIP, LEC.
Years and years of abandoned casings eventually become their own landscape.
Throwback to 2008: Mikah Sykes playing guitar during an impromptu live acoustic set at “Heaven” also known as the Skidmore Bluffs, in North Portland.
The sky was overcast but still glowing a little, so I took some creative license on the color. I don’t normally bend colors to such extremes, but sometimes (I’m looking at you, shots of people silhouetted by the sunset) …it just feels good to get crafty, no?
Want to learn how to avoid boring sunsets in your own photos? You’re not alone.
Some of my favorite days are spent lost, roaming with a camera. It’s a great way to see the (often over-looked) details.
These long, straight stretches of road are pretty rare in Oregon’s higher elevations. Highways like this give great long-distance perspective in the otherwise steep hills and dense forests.
Middle of Highway 138 in Eastern Oregon near Crater Lake.