Tag Archives: street photography

Looking At Her Phone in the Dark

Posted on by Bill Chance

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
—- Albert Einstein

There is something special about standing around in the middle of the night and talking with a bunch of your best friends. To stand around with them in front of a beautiful art museum is extra special.

So special, in fact, that it is something that you would have to text to a bunch of people… people that aren’t there.

“This is the whole point of technology. It creates an appetite for immortality on the one hand. It threatens universal extinction on the other. Technology is lust removed from nature. – Murray (WN 285)”
—- Don DeLillo, White Noise Critical: Text and Criticism

A group of friends in front of the Dallas Museum of Art, night, long exposure

A group of friends in front of the Dallas Museum of Art, night, long exposure

“This was before voice mail, recorded phone messages you can’t escape. Life was easier then. You just didn’t pick up the phone.”
― Joyce Carol Oates, Beasts

I used to work a little closer to where I lived. Sometimes, I would go home for lunch… but not very often. One day, while I was home, the phone rang. This was before caller ID – back in the days when people would actually answer their phones. It was, however, after the invention and installation of the answering machine….

…do you remember when these had little tapes in them? Once, I left for a long business trip and when I returned I had a large collection of very interesting phone messages left from a number of my friends and even a couple of cool ones from strangers. I liked these so much I replaced the tape with a fresh one and carried the old one around with me for a year or so. Sometimes I’d listen to it for fun. I know that sounds stupid – but I wish I had that tape now, thirty years later. I’d love to hear it again.

…at any rate, back to the story. I was home, the phone rang, I picked it up. It was a friend. She said, “Oh, I didn’t think anyone would be home. I called to leave a message.”

“I’m home making a sandwich. But it’s ok,” I said. “I’ll hang up and you can call back and leave a message.”

So I did. And she did.

When the phone rang my hand quivered over the receiver. I was torn on whether I should pick it up (as a joke, you know) or to let it ring and let her leave her message. I decided the joke was too stupid (strange, I know – I don’t usually pass up an opportunity for a stupid joke). As the machine picked up, I walked out the door, left for work, and let her leave her message in private.

I never listened to it.

We’re Walking Here

Posted on by Bill Chance

I’m walkin’
Yes indeed, I’m talkin’
By you and me, I’m hopin’
That you’ll come back to me, yeah, yeah

I’m lonely
Yes I can be, I’m waitin’
For your company, I’m hopin’
That you’ll come back to me

What you gonna do when the well runs dry?
You gonna run away and hide
I’m gonna run right by your side
For you pretty baby I’ll even die

—-Fats Domino – I’m Walking Lyrics

The anime convention is in town.

Near Main Street Garden Park, Dallas, Texas

Near Main Street Garden Park, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)

Dedicated urbanites “know” beyond shadow of doubt – because doubt never raises its disturbing head – that civilization is the real world: you only “escape” to wilderness. When you’re out and away and immersed, you “know” the obverse: the wilderness world is real, the human world a superimposed facade… The controversy is, of course, spurious. Neither view can stand alone. Both worlds are real. But the wilderness world is certainly older and will almost certainly last longer. Besides, the second view seems far healthier for a human to embrace.
—-Colin Fletcher, River, 1997

Frankly, I fail to see how going for a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains can be judged less real than spending six months working eight hours a day, five days a week, in order to earn enough money to be able to come back to a comfortable home in the evening and sit in front of a TV screen and watch the two-dimensional image of some guy talking about a book he has written on a six-month, thousand-mile walk through deserts and mountains.
—- Colin Fletcher, The Complete Walker III, 1989

An Object of Beauty

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes. working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we don’t need.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

I have never been a car guy. I am interested in three things in an automobile. One, that it start. Two, that it get to where I want it to go without falling apart. And Three, since I live in Texas, well, air conditioning is important.

Other than that…

On the other hand, this is, without a doubt, a thing of great beauty.

Invasion Car Show Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas (click to enlarge)

Invasion Car Show
Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas
(click to enlarge)

Quick! Hang a right…Cut over to G Street. I just saw a vision! I saw a goddess. Come on, you’ve got to catch up to her… This was the most perfect, dazzling creature I’ve ever seen… She spoke to me. She spoke to me right through the window. I think she said, ‘I love you.’ That means nothing to you people? You have no romance, no soul? She – someone wants me. Someone roaming the streets wants me! Will you turn the corner?
—-Curt Henderson, American Graffiti

This is the American dream forged in steel and covered in gloss. The curves, the mass, and the speed. Conceived in that back seat would be the only way to properly start out a real life. It’s painted the color of Angel’s blood and polished until the objects that appear in its coat are more real than life.

And that’s what it looks like standing still. Think of the throaty roar of the engine – the smell of the exhaust – the blare of the radio (I still don’t think digital music sounds right in a car – nothing since the quadraphonic eight track has).

I was looking at this car and a cop walked up, stood beside me, and said, “That is a beautiful car.”
“It sure is,” I replied.

I guess I should have made a note of its make and year, maybe the person or garage that restored it… but I didn’t. I usually do that sort of thing, but I guess I wanted that car to exist simply as it is, as a vision of metal, rubber, glass, and paint – not as an object with a history that was created from nothing by the mind and sweat of men.

Drivers Wanted
–Volkswagen

The power of Dreams
–Honda

Everything We Do is Driven By You
–Ford

Never Follow
–Audi

Porsche, There is No Substitute
–Porsche

Engineered to move the human spirit
–Mercedes-Benz

Born to perform
–Jaguar

Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet
–Chevrolet

Sheer driving pleasure.
–BMW

Don’t dream it. Drive it.
–Jaguar

The Penalty of Leadership
–Cadillac

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom
–Mazda

The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
–Lexus

Arrow to Nasher

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Sure, everything is ending,” Jules said, “but not yet.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

A familiar bit of street, smeared out in time, like a fuzzy memory. All the remembrances of that place are layered upon each other. Some are stronger than others – surprisingly, the strongest are often the oldest.

Because the oldest are the first. When everything is new and fresh.

I remember the first time I walked along – crossed at a light – Ross avenue. The big city was fresh in my young mind. I remember when I first turned off Ross to get to the Nasher Sculpture Center – it was many years later and I wasn’t that young any more (though I was a lot younger than I am now – but I didn’t know that then) but the Nasher was fresh and new. I’ve been back.

My Curves are Not Mad - Richard Serra, 2004

Lee inside My Curves are Not Mad – Richard Serra, 2004

Richard Serra - My Curves are Not Mad

Lee inside the same sculpture by Richard Serra – My Curves are Not Mad in 2011. Lee is not the only thing that has grown – look how much larger the trees are.

“Time it was
And what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you”
― Paul Simon

Lee sitting by Night, 2004

Lee sitting by Night, 2004

Night (La Nuit)

Night (La Nuit) – 2011 (they had moved the sculpture)

“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Eve, by Rodin, 2004

Eve, by Rodin, 2004

Eve, by Rodin

Eve, by Rodin

“Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we
imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction. Proposition, I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey. Is this possible? I just met her and yet, I feel like something important has happened to me.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Blur in the Intersection

Posted on by Bill Chance

“The long triangular grooves on the car had been formed within the death of an unknown creature, its vanished identity abstracted in terms of the geometry of this vehicle. How much more mysterious would be our own deaths, and those of the famous and powerful?”
― J.G. Ballard, Crash

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Pearl

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Pearl
(Click to Enlarge)

Sometimes the world is hidden in the nooks and crannies of the cable television spectrum – especially in the middle of the night.

There are these shows when some bunch of celebrity grease monkeys steal some poor victim’s car and then rebuild it – adding subwoofers that can shatter glass eardrums, lights visible from other planets, and an aquarium in the rear deck— things like that. Hopefully, they also shove in an engine that starts and brakes that stop.

At the climax – the reveal – the dupe is shown his new pimped-out chariot and he cries. He says, always, “Thank you. My life is changed.” The show ends with the impression that everything will be all right now.

I like that part. I am a sucker for redemption. I like to bask in the feeling that it is even possible that everything will be all right (although I know that it is not true).

Think about it. They are talking about a car. A hunk of metal and rubber – a capsule of steel and glass – a rolling coffin propelled by the burning ghosts of ancient jungles.

But maybe they are right. A car is freedom. A car is the ability to change your location at will. A car is sex… and a nice car is good sex.

When I was young, I went to a lake with a friend of mine and we were swimming in the green water, constantly being slightly bitten by tiny fish, and listening to some women talking to each other while they sunned on a worn wooden dock. One asked another if it was OK if she went out and had her hair cut the same way as the other. Then one asked another about her boyfriend.

“I don’t know,” she answered, “I don’t really like the guy, he doesn’t treat me that well, but he has that really nice sports car.”

“After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.”
― J.G. Ballard, Crash

Street Sign

Posted on by Bill Chance
Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

Phoenix pushed back on his chair and leaned up against the rough brick wall. He grinned and watched the woman work her way through the bar, staring at every customer, one by one. She was obviously looking for someone. He was the only person in the place by himself – and he wanted to see what happened when she reached his spot. She glanced his way a few times, and it didn’t take long for her to clear the nearest table and look down at him. He willed his face into its most relaxed, nonchalant expression – something he took pride in and had worked on for years.

“Excuse me, but I’ve arranged a meeting here with someone I’ve never seen in person… are you Brett?”

“Why, yes… yes I am. Glad to meet you.” Phoenix had not even had time to think about the lie… it simply came out. And now… nothing to do except go with it. He put on his biggest, broadest smile and reached out his hand toward the woman.

Instead of taking it, she scooted back about half a step and reached into that cavernous bag she carried.

Phoenix had enough time to think, “Oh, that’s why she has such a large purse,” but not much more as the woman’s hand flashed out with a gigantic chrome plated revolver. She raised it and Phoenix’s brain noticed how it gleamed in the uneven light of the bar. He couldn’t do anything else, though. Propped in the chair like that, he was trapped, it would take at least two or three seconds to tip forward and leap one way or the other… but he had less than one.

The gun roared as the woman kept pulling the trigger and slug after slug pumped out and into Phoenix’s chest at point-blank range.

—- from The Smeebage Affair, by Armando Vitalis

Blood Red Streaks

Posted on by Bill Chance

’twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
Come in, she said,
I’ll give you shelter from the storm.
—–Bob Dylan, Shelter From the Storm

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Olive (click to enlarge)

Crankcase oil drippings leave grease spots on the tarmac. The Texas summer profligate heat splits the pavement like an overripe tomato. But it’s night now and the humidity hums and settles over the earth. The browning grass still has a little green to give up.

Time smears the taillights into blood read streaks – claret smears – ephemeral neon tubes projected onto the light detector. Effects you can’t see with your eyes appear in the little screen.

And in the other lane, headlights leave a blazing aurora. Brilliant luminous lines.

These are always there – but you don’t ever notice them – hidden by time, too busy keeping things from running into each other.

“Space and time are the framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its experience of reality.”
― Immanuel Kant

The Cut

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Your red dress,’ she said, and laughed.

But I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now.”
― Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

Dallas Skyline at dusk

Dallas Skyline at dusk (click to enlarge)

The time, the light right around sunrise and sunset is called the Golden Hour or the Magic Hour. In the central downtown of a big city, surrounded by the crystal canyons of mirrored glass with the actual sky only visible in an irregular sliver overhead (though reflected between the ranks of colossal ziggurat prisms) the light takes on a surreal artificial quality. For an instant at dawn and dusk the dirt of the evil city disappears, the armies of worker drones melt into the cool pavement, the honking traffic mutes.

I walk along a familiar street, the echoes of decades spent working and commuting ringing back – yet everything is suddenly fresh. The city engineering and architectonics takes the place of geology, but changes faster – compared to eternal living stone, the steel, concrete, and glass is quicksilver. I can feel the silent movement.

And there, reproduced in some mysterious modern process, is a woman in a red dress, twenty stories high, a runway model in a hat. She is an illusion in a tablet – an illusion inside a delusion wrapped in a deception – blown up into a cyclopean beauty.

She is selling something.

But I’m sorry – I’m not buying.

Under the Sculpture

Posted on by Bill Chance

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

In front of the Dallas Museum of Art, night, long exposure

In front of the Dallas Museum of Art, night, long exposure (click to enlarge)

The sculpture is Ave, by Mark di Suvero – the same sculptor that did the Proverb piece not too far away.

“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

They say you are not to touch the works of art. But I always used to see kids using the sloping steel structure – the one painted bright red in the middle of the preternatural green grass sward in front of the museum – as a slide. I don’t see that any more – security must be better.

But still I think of a slide when I see it – I think of the time we used a wax paper cup to lubricate an old, rusty piece of playground equipment down at the end of the block when I was ten years old. It became so smooth and frictionless…

The feeling of rocketing down that perilous slippery slope was intoxicating and frightening. The exhilaration was accelerated by the knowledge that we had figured it out and done it ourselves. We felt we were the only children in the world to understand the secret effects of rubbing wax paper cups on smooth steel.

A father came to fetch his kids and we boasted of how fast it was. Fathers were competitive then and he said it couldn’t be that fast because were were only little kids and we didn’t know what we were talking about.

It told him to try it. With a wry, dismissive grin he hauled his creaking, awkward bulk up the ladder much too small for him (I remember him as being oh so old, though now, of course, he would have been maybe thirty years younger than I am now) and sat bumbling down, unsure suddenly of the whole endeavor, giant feet reaching down the smooth steel – I remember a sudden, last look of doubt, almost panic flickering like a shadow across his expression… but fathers were stubborn then and there could be no turning back, no chickening out in front of his children and all their friends.

So he pushed off.

And you know what happened. I remember he shot off the end of that slide like a watermelon seed squeezed between your thumb and index finger on a hot summer afternoon.

That weekend his oldest kid told me he had to go to the hospital because he broke his coccyx.

Ghosts of Pedestrians

Posted on by Bill Chance

On Thursday, I spotted an event that was going on down at Klyde Warren Park at eight in the evening. There was a free concert by Paul Thorn. I checked out his youtube page and thought it might be interesting. It wasn’t really my type of music – but he seemed to be a talented and interesting songwriter.

After work, I was way too tired – but I didn’t want to waste another evening flopping around the house, so I pulled myself together and went down to the train station.

Unfortunately, the music was not to my liking – live, with his full band it was way too country-rock for me. I had hoped it would be more in the vein of acoustic songwriter country folk-rock – but this was full on boot-scooting country pop-rock – probably my least favorite genre of music.

I stuck for awhile, then set off walking. After stopping by the reading area and looking through an art book of odd and disturbing (I liked them) paintings by Balthus (the streetlights are almost bright enough for reading) I cruised by the food trucks (right now, we are especially broke, so I ate leftovers before going downtown) and then turned to walk back to the train station.

I had my camera and, on a whim, did some shots of traffic and people by resting my camera on a concrete pillar or whatnot – and adjusting the f-stop for long exposures.

The results were a happy surprise. I came up with a half-dozen that I liked (I’ll put them up here over time – sorry to subject y’all to my experiments). More importantly, It is a technique that shows some promise. Now, I need to work on some spots and do the shots with a tripod and remote release – to get a bit more flexibility in the shot and sharpness in the background. Maybe I can add some models, some added light, or possibly some stacked shots.

So, despite the music not being to my taste, the evening wasn’t wasted.

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Pearl

Time Exposure, Night, Downtown Dallas, Ross and Pearl

While I had my camera sitting on a low concrete wall in front of the Chase Tower in Downtown Dallas, a saw a family of three crossing at the light, coming toward me. I pointed the camera toward the street and triggered the shutter into a long exposure as they passed.