It is fun, you will enjoy it.

As a kid, Montreal felt like the future.

I was fascianted by the remnants of Expo 67 and Parc Olympique. The ruins of the expo reminded me of failed version of the Jetson’s universe and the Tour Olympique was a melted Eiffel Tower.

Everything was made from concrete and we stayed in a hotel that had fake streams and ducks. The metro had tires and played cool sounds when it started. I can remember the delight of going from our hotel to a baseball game without ever going outside.

My friend Shannon’s brother needed a lift back from Montreal to Vermont. As I love almost every aspect of Quebec, I was more than willing to drive him in exchange for two nights in Montreal. This picture was taken in the Biodome looking up towards the ceiling.

If you haven’t gone, you should go. I have always dreamed of shooting a fur campaign in the biodome because it is one of those indoor/outdoor spaces that are very Montreal.

I have a very stressful job that I keep quitting but can’t seem to get away from and this summer had been particularly crappy. I was convinced that if I didn’t go to Isles of Shoals I’d never go and this summer would go down as being the worst of my life. The only problem was that I was dumb enough to attempt it on labor day weekend.

The hotel was full, the boat was mostly full and it was difficult to make everything come together. I was upset that I wouldn’t be able to spend a night on the island but happy that I could at least spend an hour or two.

The boat. I chose this tour operator because they had the biggest boat. The other smaller boats looked like vomitoriums.

So now I’m waiting to get on the boat and I’m surrounded by large, cotton clothed middle class americans. They are pushing and shoving, trying to get the best seat they possibly can. However, none of them can tell the difference between the front and the back of the boat, so they end up hustling each other into the wrong end of the boat.

I decided I would do the smart thing and sit in the front of the boat away from horrible people and little children. However, the little children found me and during the roughest part of the passage decided to vomit all over the deck. Yes!

So here we are.

There was a lot of pushing and shoving while a boat load of robust people wearing cheap perfume rushed to get off the boat. I ran into the main building to use the bathroom and they all decided to play a game of sardines in the gift shop. The hotel has a really cool old school feel to it and probably isn’t for everyone. With only 1.5 hours on the island I had no intention of staying inside.

My Voigtlander Bessa is a rangefinder which is a type of camera that was popular in the 1970s. I like it because you focus the image by looking through the rangefinder and making two images line up. After using digital cameras for years, the voigtlander feels fresh and new. My specific Voigtlander is special for two reasons. The first is that it can be focused with both yes open and the second is that it came with a special limited edition Heliar 50f2 lens.

I find the act of holding and focusing Bessa very satisfying.

What Is It Like Using This Camera?
My Voigtlander the R3M is the manual version of the R3A which means that it can operate without a battery. What it means to a potential voigtlander owner is that the R3M takes longer to compose and shoot than the R3A. Not a deal breaker for me but depending on what type of camera you want, the R3M may not be for you.

The Heliar 50f2

My voigtlander R3M kit came with the special 50f2. I want to tell you that did all sorts of special camera lens tests and stuff before I purchased the camera and knew that the lens would be perfect. That is wrong and if that is what you are looking for in a camera, you should read a different blog.
Every Picture Looks Like Life Magazine
I took my Voigtlander to a local national historic site that has beautiful gardens. I used some generic fuji film and just had some fun. I’m not used to shooting with a 50 but had fun and I was excited about seeing the results. I processed the film at a minilab and then scanned the images in myself.

The former Walpole NH zoo at Schloss Kougenberg.

The goal was simple, Miss Dumplington and I would go to Barre, eat at LACE and then she would show infamous places in town. There was a crazy car show in town and that sort of changed things. We did however have a nice breakfast at LACE.

Mr. Barre himself.

To all the Italian-American’s who did what Italian-American’s do. I guess that is my way of saying something nice.

Avoiding a town “scavenger hunt,” behind a church in Barre.

A rape or murder occurred around here, I think. Maybe both? I do love those doors.

Lady Shannie Mae, Duchess of Dumplington gazes at the Barre flood control dam.

I’m drawn to large geometric shapes formed from concrete. I love them and when they intersect with water I’m in heaven.

Miss Dumplington sees her name.

Mad props to my Lomo, the guy who likes Lomos at LACE and the locksmith who unlocked my car!

Things To Know

We ran into Milfée from CAPsplore while trying to locate my keys.
The smoothie I had at cafe bueno gave me the worst cold headache of my life.
Barre has a real camera store that smells like a real camera store too.
I still love/hate the Lucky brand film I purchased off ebay. Right now I love it, in five minutes who knows.

How could anyone stay sober on a veranda like this?

Here she is. The Brooke Astor of the white mountains. More blue, more blue. CAPsplore wasn’t really about the conference but about me being drunk and visiting an old friend.

Phase 1: The Car Barn
At some point in the 80s when the hotel was sold a couple of times and my father did the numbers on one of the deals. He told me that somewhere hidden on the grounds of the hotel was barn full of the hotel’s fleet of antique vehicles. Goal #1 was to find the barn.

Mystery building 1. I can’t remember if it ever had a use, but I can’t imagine cars could fit in it.

The Bretton Arms.
Miss Dumplington, Miss Perez (the milf, Milfée) and I headed towards the stables to see if maybe the car barn was in the vicinity. We arrived at just the right time because the horses were being led from the barn to their adorable condo adjacent pasture. The Fairways are adorable and their greatest value to the world is that they don’t spoil the view.

Look, elite Mt. Washington Resort horses.

Our next stop was to visit the decaying brown building on the edge of the parking lot. It was actually in a lot better shape than I was expecting and Miss Dumplington & Miss Perez (the milf) discovered that it contained a printing press. It more than likely produced the hotel’s newspaper.

Onward.

For many years, the front of the Mount Washington Hotel was beautiful while the rear of the hotel was disgusting and unpainted. Five star on one side and flea bag motel on the other. I should take this time to point out that when I was a child, the hotel while unquestionably grand and beautiful was pretty much a dump. Parts of the lobby had ugly carpeting and function rooms smelled like urine.

Bringing up the rear.

The goal of this constitutional was to reach Abandonment 0 or the first abandoned building I ever thought to explore. I believe the building was a restaurant of some sort but it is hard to tell.

Bridge to nowhere.

The swingset of doom and death.

Finally, abandonedment 0.

And the nearby bathtubs.

As a kid Manchester, NH was always a place that we drove by or drove to in order to get on a plane. It was never a destination in itself. I grew up believing Manchester was just a boring suburb of Boston.

I decided to start my dérive in the north end near the Currier Museum of Art because of the free parking.

To be honest, I don’t really understand Manchester. It doesn’t fit with what I know about urban environments. It isn’t a slum and it isn’t Boston, Paris or Montreal.

Large homes, parks and beautiful things from the 60s.

I don’t really like this sculpture. It stands in front of the Currier Museum of Art as a way of saying “look we have art.” I know they have art.

Industrial wealth.

The park is nice but the geometry of the Catholic Charities and Manchester Diocese building holds my attention.

Wikipedia says

“In situationist texts, a Dérive is an attempt at analysis of the totality of everyday life, through the passive movement through space. It is translated as drift.”

The old ugly meets the new ugly of the sub-prime economy.

If you believe in middle class values you too can achieve wonderful things. The legions of cotton wearing aristocrats will welcome you with open arms.

You should never follow “desire paths,” they only lead you to where everyone else is going.

Parsing notions of classical aesthetics can be dangerous to your health. Beware of the plan crash above and the library bellow.

It was hot to run into Courtney during my derive.

My first roll of Ferrania in my brand new Yashica. Five years ago I wouldn’t have touched Ferrania, I would have been to much of a snob to use a film that is known for being “bad.” Now that film is retro and cool, Ferrania is hot and everyone wants it.

The Dartmouth football stadium is a rather interesting building to photography because it dates back to the period when Dartmouth hired architects with IQs over 72. I’ve devoted a lot of time to photographing the underside of the main entrance because when you stand directly below it and look up, it is stunning.

This is from my first roll of film taken in my LOMO and probably my first roll of color film in 10 in years. It also my best attempt so far at capturing the beauty of the space.

All of my trips to Ikea are dramatic but this one was fun in the dramatic way.

I have often said that I hate it when a post-processing technique over shadows composition in a photograph. I discovered redscale through the lomogoraphy website and I have fallen in love with it. I had a few problems at first flipping my rolls of film to redscale them but I’m very happy with the results from my first roll.

I always take a moment to enjoy the Mascoma river as it flows under the bridge near the Whitman/Kleen buildings.

I enjoy walking to the Butson’s/Lebanon Village Grocery because while most people probably don’t enjoy it I appreciate it for its stark modernist charm. More importantly, it is a good example of relatively high density urban planning.

I always make a point of walking up the stairs even if they are covered in snow or ice.

On far too many days I walk up and down these stairs to go to my local pizza place. Ramunto’s offers many fine varieties of pizza but I enjoy the BBQ Chicken and white pizza.

When I say America I mean the United States.

The flags hang in the food court of a shopping center that used to be a mill that made things. I don’t know what those things were, but they were made by USers earning more than the people who work in the shopping center.

A while ago I read an article about New Hampshire written by a brit. The brit mentioned that he had never seen so many mattress stores in his life. I like to think that Syd’s a place I have never been, is a step above the rest.

I decided after years of Lomo lust that I would finally go out and buy a Lomo LCA. I found one for a good price on ebay and a week or so later it landed in my lap. I bought my first roll of film in years and then went to town.

My first stop was Bradford, VT. Bradford has a cool retro look that I thought would make my pictures look like the way Lomos look on tv.

I like my lomo because unlike my digital camera I spend more time thinking about the composition of my photos rather than just shooting until I get something nice.

I’m now completely fallen in love with film again.
thanks lomo.