Songs to go with vernacular photography

[Mary Bull]

Are you thinking of Robert Adams? He could compose whole symphonies out of ticky-tacky.

Malvina Reynolds, made popular by Pete Seeger iirc

Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of tickytacky Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same.

There’s a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one.

And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university, Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same.

And there’s doctors and there’s lawyers, and business executives.

And they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry, And they all have pretty children and the children go to school.

And the children go to summer camp and then to the university, Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family.

In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

edit: Pete Seeger sings "Little Boxes"

- DL

Added by Asher from parent thread!





1) Little Boxes (see Don Lashier's posts in the Vernacular Architecture thread, in the Photography as Art forum.)
In *Ear to the Ground*, an album by Malvena Reynolds, who wrote the song
and in
*Pete Seeger's Greatest Hits*, where Pete Seeger covers Malvena's song.

Relevant to "ticky-tacky" and the "little boxes" of Daly City, under discussion in the thread "Vernacular Architecture." See links to the Partridge photos that Don gives in one of his posts to that thread. Here's one of them:
http://www.photoliaison.com/Images/...ng, Daly City, California, late 1960s_jpg.htm

2) *This Land Was Made for You and Me: The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie* by Elizabeth Partridge

The author is another of the artists under discussion in "Vernacular Photography."
And then there's Imogen Cunningham.

NB: I'm about to max out my credit card buying Vernacular books and cds. But this is such an exciting field to learn about--and the photography end of it is all new to me.

 

[Mary Bull]

Talk about serendipity and propinquity!
In re why "Little Boxes" keeps running in one's head, check out "This Is Your Brain on Music" in today's Salon:
http://salon.com/books/review/2006/09/05/levitin/index_np.html?source=newsletter

 

[Will_Perlis]

There's an old SF short story about someone coming up with the ultimate tune, one that completely took over their brain and left them catatonic. I remember it as being from "The Sinister Researches of C.P. Ransom" from the early '50s.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0007E39IO?v=glance

They have it as "G.P." but I think that's wrong.

 

[Don Lashier]

Talk about serendipity and propinquity!
In re why "Little Boxes" keeps running in one's head, check out "This Is Your Brain on Music" in today's Salon:
http://salon.com/books/review/2006/09/05/levitin/index_np.html?source=newsletter

That helps explain it! "Little Boxes", mimicing the message of the lyrics, has a very simplistic and repetitive melody which apparantly enhances its propensity to become an earworm.

- DL

 

[Mary Bull]

The link only took me to Amazon.com but I searched in Books with a c&p of the title you put here, and I came up with 1 hardcover used, available, and 6 mass-market paperbacks used, available.

Still trying to decide which to order.

I'm thinking of starting yet another Layback Cafe thread, titled "So What Are You Reading?"

I wanted to tell all the titles related to Vernacular Photography which I now have on-order.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying a recently published book on linguistics. It's by Geoffrey Nunberg, who is a professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Title: *Going Nucular*.

Do you think anyone besides me would like to have a thread in which to discuss current reading?

 

[Don Lashier]

Do you think anyone besides me would like to have a thread in which to discuss current reading?

Maybe photo books

Being a train fan since childhood when a favorite family excursion was to go to the train station and watch the steam engines and put pennies on the track, I recently picked up a copy of "The Last Steam Railroad in America", photographs by O. Winston Link. Link specialized in train photography (more specifically steam trains) and was a master of it sometimes doing elaborate nighttime setups with multiple flashes etc. This is incredible work that will never be duplicated because the subject matter is history aside from a few isolated relics.

On the same Amazon order I also picked up "Richard Avedon - Darkness and Light", DVD not book, but I guess this is the modern book form, at least for visual stuff.

Also "American Experience: Ansel Adams", a fascinating documentary on the life and work of AA.

- DL

 

[Mary Bull]

Don Lashier said:

Maybe photo books

Well, that might actually be a better name for the proposed thread. "Photo books and photo DVDs"?

And also Don said:

Being a train fan since childhood ...

I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I was to read this account of you as a train fan, Don.

My in-town nephew, and his oldest son, are huge train buffs. I'm along for the ride in many of their activities, and I enjoy being along with them a lot.

I'm off to see about getting the three titles you mention for myself. I'll let you know when I finally get the credit card maxed out.

 

[Ray West]

Hi Don,

Maybe of interest, I posted them straight from the nikon 5700 last year - these snaps made me get the canon 20d, the nikon being far too slow, even for steam loco's. I am not letting Mary see these, since I know she is not interested...http://www.yertiz.com/rail/

Best wishes, Ray

 

[Will_Perlis]

O.W.L.'s work is simply amazing and his life was pretty strange near the end too. In any event, I'm mildly concerned that getting into discussions of books will create a timesuck I can't resist. Discussiong gear is bad enough.

 

[Mary Bull]

I am not letting Mary see these, since I know she is not interested...http://www.yertiz.com/rail/

nyaa, nyaa, ny-, nyaa-nyaa!
Sneaked in there and saw them anyhoo! Mightily gorgeous.
May I share this link with my nephew? He's working in Vancouver this week, but would surely love to get a train break!

 

[Ray West]

Mary,
btw. I guess you are aware of 'project gutenberg' - they are now doing sheet music, which may suit your songs...

Best wishes,

Ray

ps - I think they may have found out some of their books are still in copyright - they used to have much of George Orwell's works, but not now, for example.

 

[Mary Bull]

Woe.
Don't want to take away from the "meat" of the OPF hamburger!
No hamburger any good with too much bun! <only Mary's humble opinion>

 

[Ray West]

Well, they are there for anyone, but not pp'd at all, plenty of lens distortion/crooked skylines, etc., not even vertical in some cases. Of course, this stuff is tiny compared to your side of the pond, except, afaik, Clapham is the busiest rail junction in the world. In the Uk, there are many railway preservation societies, and plenty of 'proper sites' with better photo's of course.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Mary Bull]

Ray said:

Mary,
btw. I guess you are aware of 'project gutenberg' - they are now doing sheet music, which may suit your songs...

ps - I think they may have found out some of their books are still in copyright - they used to have much of George Orwell's works, but not now, for example.

Yes. Knew about project Gutenberg. Sheet music, huh? Didn't know that.

Glad they're paying attention to copyright. The "laborer is worthy of his hire."

 

[Mary Bull]

I still want to share them with my nephew. He takes a ton of photos--his business requires him to travel all over the world--but I'm not aware that he ever photoshops or even Paint Shop 7's (his favorite, which he combines with PowerPro for his seminar presentations) his photos to manipulate them.

To him subject matter is everything, picture quality a dim last. He sends me pictures made with his cell phone rather frequently, as a matter iof fact.
Than which one cannot imagine blurrier quality or more neglected composition. <she said, lovingly but snidely talking about this lovely nephew behind his back>

 

[Ray West]

They were always concerned about copyright. I think I may have gotten the author's name mixed with others. After all, Orwell is pretty recent.

 

[Mary Bull]

Indeed. Yes. Relatively recent.

I think the Gutenberg project is wonderful.

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Maybe photo books

Being a train fan since childhood when a favorite family excursion was to go to the train station and watch the steam engines and put pennies on the track, I recently picked up a copy of "The Last Steam Railroad in America", photographs by O. Winston Link. Link specialized in train photography (more specifically steam trains) and was a master of it sometimes doing elaborate nighttime setups with multiple flashes etc. This is incredible work that will never be duplicated because the subject matter is history aside from a few isolated relics.

- DL

Have you looked at Darius Kinsey's "Locomotive Portraits," which was recently re-released? I have it on order, taking it on faith that the pictures will be as good as in the larger retrospective that Dave Bohn (from Berkeley, natch) put out 30 years ago. I also remember putting pennies on the tracks (in western MA, where you could just walk up to the tracks in the woods), and there was a B&O line that used steam running near my house when I was very small. It went under a bridge at one point. You could stand on the bridge as a train passed under and get enveloped in the cloud of smoke, grit and steam. Somehow none of this translates to my kids when I take them on a steam train excursion somewhere. All they see is that you stand in a long line to get tickets, sit in a crowded carriage, go somewhere, get out while they switch ends for the engine, and then go back. But sometimes it catches:

Speaking of Clapham, as Ray West does above, I gather that this is the home of the real Hogwarts Express, which takes Harry Potter and friends to school each year, although the line along which the movie shoots these scenes is in the Highlands, running from Fort William to Mallaig, and has its own very nice steam train:

Apparently the Jacobite Express was too new for the movie, and the cars don't have compartments.

scott

 

[Don Lashier]

O.W.L.'s work is simply amazing

What really sets Link's work apart is that they are not merely (very good) portraits of trains but meticulously executed scenes. Often the steam engine is not even the primary subject but rather just a secondary element of a scene portraying American (USian?) life at the time. For instance, in his most famous image "Hot Shot Eastbound at the Iaeger Drive In" the train is in the background, the foreground being a drive-in theater (back to vernacular here). This shot required 43 flash bulbs. Similarly in "Hawksbill Creek Swimming Hole". Here's more examples (scroll down) and a shot of his flash equipment including a flash gun that holds 18 flashbulbs. All this was accomplished under the most difficult of circumstances - nighttime, fast moving subjects, great DOF. Not only are the photos technically perfect but they show close attention to composition and they tell a story. Truly a master - no wonder original prints bring upwards of $25,000 today.

btw posters are available much more cheaply, as well as books of course.

- DL

 

[John_Nevill]

Scott, I must confess to not being a fan of steam trains, even though I live 2 miles from one of the oldest maintenance yards in the UK, but the your first picture is very compelling, I love the dichotomy.

 

[Mary Bull]

Oh, don't tempt me!

 

[Don Lashier]

... your first picture is very compelling, I love the dichotomy.

I like the Port Alberni one very much also. Despite being a rail fan since childhood, I've never taken any serious train pictures although I did shoot some video (movie) when I was about 12, racing a hugh SP cab-forward across the prairies, Burma-Shave signs flashing by (some of these were perhaps the world's first "public service announcements").

I even hopped a freight train once while in college. Some older student who had experience in this thought it would be a fun way to see the Berkeley/UCLA civil war game. We ended up in jail, thence on the front page of the San Jose paper ("Baleful Bruins Ride Rail, Bide Time in Jail"), and then the national news - made it hard to keep this secret from Mom .

- DL

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Question for train buffs

My copy of Darius and Tabitha Kinsey's "Locomotive Portraits" just came in. I highly recommend it. Baldwin locomotives like the one I showed earlier in this thread, made south of Philadelphia where I grew up, are prominent in the later years of logging in the Northwest. The railroaders operating that one told me that the Baldwin was known to be leaky, needing lots of water, and my picture supports that view. What I was surprised to learn about in the Kinsey book was geared locomotives, with vertical pistons driving geared axles instead of the horizontal pushrods that I associate with steam locomotives. These were not fast, but could climb steep grades. Names were Shay (the inventer) Lima, Heisler, Climax... It was said that the Climax could follow two lines scratched in the dirt.

Does anyone know if these geared engines are still to be seen in restored and running condition? Here's a picture of a Shay/Lima http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=67 but it appears to be resting on lines in the dirt.

scott

 

[Mary Bull]

Error at locomotive link

Scott, the URL you supplied brought me an error message for the page, using Opera 9 as my browser:

he URL http://The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error. contains characters that are not valid in the location they are found.
The reason for their presence may be a mistyped URL, but the URL may also be an attempt to trick you into visiting a website which you might mistakenly think is a site you trust.

A c&p of the link brings:

The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error.
Please contact the website administrator.
The following information is meant for the website developer for debugging purposes.

Error Occurred While Processing Request
File not found: /vloc..cfm

I'd try again with Firefox or IE, except that vulnerabilities in Firefox have been in the news lately, and Microsoft's latest patch for IE in Windows XP, SP2, is not totally reassuring. I have IE set in Security Preferences on High. But I don't plan to use it except for accessing Microsoft's website.

I *do* Java and Java Scripts in Opera 9.

Perhaps I'll just order the book. < intrigued smile >

Mary

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

I've seen this problem before. The editor took my URL and truncated it, leaving the ...'s that you see in the middle. Those are not part of a valid URL. Just go to www.steamlocomotive.info and see if there is a link that leads to Shay/Lima or Heisler or Climax locomotives.

scott

edit: No, it's not quite that. The link works for me in Firefox. But if you don't want to use Firefox, follow my advice above.

 

[Mary Bull]

The info link brought up the page. I found them all, using the site's "Search" function.

I see what you mean about the interesting vertical pistons and their linkages.

I think there are similar ones in a California museum. Have a memory of seeing them on the railroading episode in Huell Howser's TV program, "California's Gold."

I'll have a look with google, to see if I can nail down that memory.

Mary.

 

[Mary Bull]

@Scott Kirkpatrick:
Haven't found what I'm looking for--a clear shot of vertical pistons driving geared axles
in a steam locomotive in the U.S., but this link seems nearer to getting me there:

http://parkengines.railfan.net/

Mary

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Here's another one that will work. http://wasteam.railfan.net/ scroll down the page, past all the boring diesels until you see a Shay engine. Those have three big pistons on the right side of the locomotive, ahead of the cab and at the rear of the boiler.

Agnew Lumber Company #1 is an example, and apparently a very early one. The engine below it is also a Shay, but it is facing the wrong way, so you can't see the gear drive.

Now look for the Climax engines. They have the cylinder at a 45 degree angle, driving a central powershaft. Try http://climaxlocomotives.com . And finally www.gearedsteam.com covers all the types.

scott

 

[Mary Bull]

Here's another one that will work. http://wasteam.railfan.net/ scroll down the page, past all the boring diesels until you see a Shay engine. Those have three big pistons on the right side of the locomotive, ahead of the cab and at the rear of the boiler.

Extremely interesting.

Agnew Lumber Company #1 is an example, and apparently a very early one. The engine below it is also a Shay, but it is facing the wrong way, so you can't see the gear drive.

No. But both very good pictures.

Now look for the Climax engines. They have the cylinder at a 45 degree angle, driving a central powershaft. Try http://climaxlocomotives.com . And finally www.gearedsteam.com covers all the types.

I like the "gearedsteam" page best--an easy comparison to all types, plus a lot of text info when you click on the pictures. Definitely going back to read there, later.

Locomotives are one category of subject that does well photographed in black-and-white.

Mary

 

[Don Lashier]

Does anyone know if these geared engines are still to be seen in restored and running condition? Here's a picture of a Shay/Lima

There are a number, some mentioned here.. I've ridden on the Shantytown one, should have some photos somewhere.

- DL