High on Harley's and the Sandia Mountains

Arriving on the Sandia Mountain top we struck up a conversation on old Nikon's and Harleys. The air was thin but the conversation was full, for five minutes or so we spoke of film and times from our shared memories.

August Eighteenth and Nineteenth I traveled south as a voyeur having few long conversations, just observations. Almost every home be it a trailer or shack has animals, goats, chickens, sheep, horses. Nestled between the larger farms. There was little wasted space outside the cities between Olympia and Sacramento. There were many Amish people traveling and there was an aura of peace from them, warm smiles. A family got on in Salem, mom and a couple children came down to the cafe car in traditional dress except for the Nike's and I wondered if fashion sneaked into tradition starting at the feet? I wish I had struck up a conversation beyond greetings and smiles but I was in a watching mood my lose for sure. I as an observation found them to be the most content of all the faces I saw, no underlying stress from the world. Portland was a 1/2 hour stop with many photos [there is so much more to scan] a man and his pipe, an Amtrak employee all obliging me with conversation and portraits. Next stop Sacramento and the depth of the journey returns. Ten years ago and last August my visits to Sacramento provided me with insight into different life's, cultures and their mirror of my own life and America.

A note on scanning, I read on another blog recently that an image isn't a photograph till it is a print. I like that, what is the value of a pixel?

From a print life blossoms

Lacey Wa. Train Station operated by volunteers

A transplanted New Yorker heading back to Northern California. Lots of bearded serious faces on this trip. At lunch the other day with a couple of friends we were talking about the state of the nation and how it is portrayed by my portraits. The feeling was that of little motivation of fear and looking over your shoulder waiting for the next shoe to drop.

August 18 eleven am and it is back to more typical Washington weather. When we arrived in Seattle on the sixteenth it was in the low nineties bright sun. HOT HUMID
But as I headed south from Olympia/Lacey it was back to drizzle and upper sixties. Back on the rails headed south to the desert I wondered would the going south to LA crowd be as community oriented? What comes next? "Something always comes next." She would say with her voice or eyes as we created in my studio or where ever the muse and I visited. A bit of rambling today, a similar feeling to August eighteenth drifting between here and there. The route to LA was broken up by train changes and bus rides, i-podian girls in there own world and less stimulating conversation as the passengers came and went with less of these travelers on for the full run. People seemed more cautious, but every image you make is a self portrait. I was more cautious focused on all the changes of connections. This train had an arcade car so as we rambled through the mountains you could kill aliens. The ride through southern Washington and Oregon was beautiful fog in the mountains and piles of ice in the shadows from a recent hail storm. Night brought an encounter with a man having a psychotic episode across from me in the cafe car. Yelling about Amtrak polluting his mind and he was going to jump. I think he didn't even know I was sitting across the aisle. His stop became the next stop as with the same level of customer service he was calmly escorted to a seat by a group of Amtrak employees. Portland and Sacramento next faces from 1998 and 2008.
enjoy pjc

Tracks from Willi

The most important reason for my trip.

Kirsten and Barry's wedding!

August 17th I was the proud father of the bride. The beaming bride.

A younger version of the bride.
Who may not be speaking to me now. LOL

Travels on the railway to Financial security

A week since my last post an Orange Engine sits outside the Mendota Illinois Station a leader without followers?

August 15th dinner in the dinning car [very good food] with John, David friends from my car joining us is a Professor from a new college in Southern Cal. The college built on a former military base, a super fund site. A progressive school where you can get an education and a chemical lobotomy a great two for one sale. What a deal! The conversation is spirited, humorous, sarcasm rules and laughter reigns. I find it interesting how obvious the social and economic collapse seems, yet we all ignore it. Not just the four of us but most people I meet along the rails and beyond.
Now a month and a half later it's raining golden parachutes $700 billion served, " I see lots of funny men some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen." {"The Ballard of Pretty Boy Floyd" Woody Guthrie 1939 }

At the top of the food chain the Gods of Possesionville
Shower us below with CREDIT!
You must have! You must have!
Without it you're not a man. Not worthy.
You must have Credit, Debt, Distraction!
The Gods of Possesionville bring you WAR
[defend your right to waste]
FAMINE
[more large portions, throw it away]
DEAD CHILDREN
[I have a call on my cell phone]
NEW DRUGS,NEW DISEASES
[yes I'll pick up the lobster,go to the drive thru ATM]
Wash it all down with Lite Beer!
Smoke and Mirrors we see our freedom on
TV-DVD-CABLE-SATELLITE
And somewhere suffocating under a mountain
of paperwork, re-financed, debt consolidated,
over budget, new and improved, high tech, upgrades,
Is your soul, free creative thought, freedom of choice.
I know I am free I saw it on TV!

9/29/04 revision/upgraded 10/1/08 Peter J. Crowley

Photographic Art Not Bailed Out

Boarding in Albuquerque on The Southwest Chief

This way to board. Reflecting on Albuquerque, stepping away from faces for this edition. This is from my Layered Life series. Some of the non portrait images can be found on this months Prints for People specials.

August Fifteenth and Sixteenth rolling towards Washington I meet Dane a poet on her way to read in Seattle with Jack McCarthy. The coincidence's and community develop Dane's good friend is a Quaker who I will meet at my daughters wedding, for the entire westward trip we have no internet except for a couple minutes just after I meet Dane. She shoots an email to her friend to see if she is going to Kirsten's wedding? Two days later I get the answer as her friends father speaks at the wedding of how small the world is and how I met his daughters friend on the train. Dane introduces me to Jack's poetry and my first I-Pod experience. I find it fitting that my first time is listening to poetry. Upon finding his website to link here I realize that I most likely photographed him at the 1997 National Poetry Slam Championship, "Voices from the Edge" held in Middletown Ct. Both of these poets are worth a listen for "Poetry like Bread" is for everyone [from the poem “Like You” by Roque Dalton,] published by Curbstone Press. So I've rambled here and I've rambled there introducing more of the characters from either side of the tracks, past and present.
enjoy pjc

Prints for the People

One more from Flagstaff for now

After dinner Rees and I went for coffee where we met Wolf and Liberty for coffee and tea. We sat outside and I made this photograph in the wanning evening light. Talk of the state of the world the mix of youth and us older guys disappeared as we found common ground. Most of the people I spoke with whether they were old, young, right or left were uncomfortable with the countries direction. Many unsure of the direction or even who really was at the helm of the ship of state. Personal financial distractions, cultural differences and the constant bombardment of information/disinformation led to an underlying feeling of uneasiness.

August fourteen in Chicago I met Rick in the food court. Both of us going to Olympia to Sunday weddings, could we, are we soon to be relatives? No but coincidence continued to form the Amtrak community for the trip west. Cowboys, poets, exotic dancers, professors, scientists, college students, a petty officer from a tall ship all part of this cast. All sharing experience from Canada to Zimbabwe, all riding across this great nation concerned with what comes next.

Between Here and There

I ponder youth naivety, age experience
a youthful sparkle in the eyes
Between here and there
A cynical haze clouds vision
Between here and there.
[excerpt of longer yet unfinished piece]

On the rails the mix worked very well. August 15th a day of poets and a story teller from North Dakota who regales us with of his and his parents, grandparents history of life in the northern plains. His details and colorful remembrances of the last century handed down oral history amaze me. The good and bad times, a high school football coach, teacher, farmer, traveler, veteran, I was too enthralled by his tales to photograph or tape his exploits, across the aisle from him was an older women who confirmed and added to the local history lesson. A station stop to stretch our legs and he was gone leaving us with the feeling of his easy laugh and of times gone by between here and there. His North Dakota slogan and his laugh rings in my memory "Forty below keeps the riff raff out."
The Cascades and Washington, loss of my I-pod virginity to come. enjoy pjc

Seattle and beyond

Flagstaff smiles on me!

At dinner this young women came in for a smoothie on her way to work. Cute hat fun smile I left the table to reflect her in the window of Mountain Oasis International Restaurant
Where the food was superb!

August 13th continues out of Albany after two and a half hours filled with conversation with a couple of college students, literature, arts and politics. Food and drink in Albany's new station ten years prior the station was little more than a waiting room with candy and soda machines now a couple of stories of waiting space, shops, cafes, news stands, taxi stands. The bar and restaurant where I watched the playoffs and had a good meal now is a couple blocks away. Chugging out of Albany night falls fast. Across the aisle a retired nurse now a knitting artist looks at my work and suggests museums and parks to see in Chicago. The Amtrak community begins to form.

Rochester

Shapes and shadows in the night
Outlined, glowing by street lights
Some neon some bright
Just shiny shapes,shadows in the night
Train yards, factories quiet for now
No second, third shifts
Lights the inside
Dark shadows of industry
Just shapes in the night

Toledo at dawn August fourteenth coffee with Don who's leaving the cold gated humanity of New England heading for Oregon. Me in my half window seat a partial view of the heartland. One eye opened one eye closed, on through Indiana a Surrey with a fringe on top. Beige is the color of America from Indiana to Montana [an orange barn] outside the urban areas everything is beige, sand, eggshell, off white whatever it is Middle America in B+W not quite middle gray a bit whiter. A little color in Gary, casinos, neon, billboards embedded between coal, coke and steel mills, some empty none working at full capacity. Still even the air seems beige. Next stop Chicago. enjoy pjc

Photographic Art Sunset on the industrial age