[Leica] Almost photography in Cleveland (long, but not by my standards ;)

[Martin Howard <howard.390@osu.edu>]

I have a thing for cityscapes.  Particularly in black and white.  And
especially if they are taken on older lenses.  I think it stems from a
combination of fascination with architecture and design, and with the
photographic tradition which gave rise to Feininger's "Chicago", Brassai's
pictures of Paris, and similar works.  In any case, for whatever reason, I
have a thing for cityscapes.

Now, Columbus in Ohio isn't the world's most photogenic city.  It was a
comparatively small, chiefly agricultural centre (from what I've been able
to glean of its history) until only a few decades ago, at which point it
started to exploded in size.  If you like modern red brick buildings thrown
together in haste without much thought to style or design, Columbus is your
kind of city.  Personally, I'm much more interested by old industrial
buildings.  While function was typically the main (only?) design
consideration, they can be approached from an aesthetic point of view.
Combine that eye with low, raking sunlight early in the morning or late in
the afternoon, and there is the potential for great photographs.

Unlike Columbus, Cleveland does have its fair share of interesting
industrial buildings.  It's about two hours drive north of Columbus, which
by American standards, is only a little less than most people would expect
to drive for breakfast and these days, with Eric the Red, I just look for an
excuse to exercise the ignition key.  Besides, I detest having to plan for
things, much rather doing them on the spur of the moment.  Said and done, I
decide that I'm going to go to Cleveland and shoot some rolls of film.

I take more pictures the less stuff I carry, yet I manage to cram a Leica
M2, with 25mm, 35mm, and 50mm lenses into a bag, a Moskva-5 6x9cm folder, an
Agfa Clack 6x9cm fixed focus point-and-shoot, along with about 15 rolls of
film, a table-top tripod, and a light meter into a small satchel, which
practically guarantees that not a single frame of film will be exposed.
Initially, I was going to go up on the Saturday, but stuff happened as stuff
does, and so I decided to set off early on Sunday morning instead.

Early Sunday morning was probably glorious.  I say probably, because by the
time I woke at 11 am, early Sunday morning had passed and gone.  Must be a
faulty alarm clock, or something.  Anyway, I figured I'd have the afternoon
sun, shooting old buildings across the Cuyahoga River.  Bag into the car,
stop for a coffee, hit I-71 northbound.

Or rather, try to.  On the map, roads around Columbus look like something
pretty well-organized, enabling you to quickly get to where you're going
from where you are, but in reality what on the map is a six-lane 65 mph
speedy route is a two-lane, crowded 35 mph crawl through construction zones
lined with orange cones and concrete dividers.  The whole experience is like
a game of Tron.  With orange cones on either side of every lane, from a
distance it just looks like a complete mess of orange.  In addition to
which, of course, you're doing a leasurly 35 mph right up until 3/4 mile
before your turn-off, at which point traffic suddenly starts doing 70 mph
and you have to figure out which gap in the cones is your turn-off and which
is just the result of some inebriated OSU undergrad trying to see how many
he can knock down driving home from a frat party.

Eventually, I make it out of Columbus and towards Cleveland.  In the late
70s, the car manufacturer's were apparently concerned that if you made the
seat back to seat angle adjustable on the driver's side, then there was a
risk of the whole assembly failing and flopping the seat back down into a
horizontal position while you drive.  So, as a result, 45 minutes into the
drive to Cleveland, I feel my lower back and right leg go completely numb
because the angle is almost 90 degrees.  With no cruise control, I have to
keep my foot on the accelerator and so the whole thing becomes an exercise
in acrobatics after about an hour.

I get to Cleveland at about 3 pm.  The first things that strikes me is that
there is a blimp hovering over the city, which reminds me of the ones I used
to see over the Fenway in Boston on game nights.  The second thing that
strikes me is that there is a police officer and a Cleveland Browns
merchandize booth on every street corner and I then recall the title of
Oliver Stone's latest film: "Any Given Sunday".  Sure enough, it's a home
game.  Sure enough, there isn't a single parking space in town available,
and even if there were, they'd all be up from $6 a day to $15 for the
afternoon.  So I cruise around Public Square for a while, considering my
options, locate the nearest parking lot for future reference and then point
Eric's missing hood ornament towards I-71 south.

As I suspected: with that much gear, not a single frame of film exposed.  Oh
well, there's always next weekend...


M.

- -- 
Martin Howard                     | iCon          iDole       iRate
Visiting Scholar, CSEL, OSU       | iDeal         iDull       iMage
email: howard.390@osu.edu         | iSue          iOn         iGnorance
www: http://mvhoward.i.am/        +---------------------------------------