Nostalgia

With my back still killing me because of a pinched sciatic nerve, I haven't been able to do much but sit on my butt for the last two weeks.  So that means that I didn't get out of the house and shoot any pictures for this week's blog.   Rather than not publish a blog this week I went into my archives to see what I could find in the wayback machine.  All of these photographs were shot in the city of Philadelphia in the early 70s when I was a student at Antonelli's School of Photography.  I was using 35mm roll film and 4x5 sheet film that was hand loaded into the camera.  I developed the shots in a dark room.

Self-Portrait - using a 4x5 landscape camera

A south Philly family enjoying Easter Sunday in Rittenhouse Square.

Center City Hippies all decked out in their Easter Sunday finery.

Portrait of a young boy watching television in South Philly.

"Sit...Stay...Good Puppy"

A warehouse that once sat along Front Street in the waterfront district of Philadelphia, PA.

Political ad for Paul Giordano, a member of the family that owns and operates Giordano's Fruit and Vegetable stand at the corner of 9th and Washington in the market district.  Paul actually asked me to shoot some pictures of his ads that were hung around the city.  This is my favorite of those shots.

Pep Boys employees shot for the company publications when they were celebrating their 50th anniversary in 1971.   This shop was at 15th and Passyunk.

My friend, Billy Bastiani, poses at an old steel building along the railroad tracks near Center City Philadelphia.  He was a student at the Philadelphia Institute of Art, and later went on to sing with the bands Ultra Sheen and the Spiders.

I watched this guy for about 5 minutes before shooting the picture.  I finally realized he was never going to look at me because he was sleeping.

One of about a dozen pictures shot of a fire that I think was on Race Street.  I didn't have far to go to shoot this fire since it was right across the street from where I worked at Quaker Photo in Center City Philadelphia.

I couldn't resist taking a photograph of this guy in downtown Philadelphia because I started out using a Polaroid Land Camera just like he was using.

I caught these guys kinda by surprise when I stopped in to pick up the meat order for the Italian restaurant that I worked at on the weekends.   This butcher shop was on the corner of 15th and McKean.

Oil tank located at the old Arco Petroleum Plant in Southwest Philadelphia.

Center City alley cat gives me the wary eye as he sees me crawling across the brick trying to get a closeup of the tag around his neck, which is actually a dog tag.

This boat, docked along the Delaware River, was used to take river pilots out to the large container ships that once sailed into the port of Philadelphia.

Former Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo glad hands Mummers in the area of Broad and Snyder Streets on New Year's Day.

South Philadelphia teenagers getting ready to head out to the South Philadelphia High School senior prom.

Alan Arkin standing in Rittenhouse Square during the filming of The Last of the Red Hot Lovers in 1972.  I was in the park shooting architectural photographs when I noticed the actor standing on the street.  I shot the picture, ran back to the school, developed it, printed it, went back up town and got it autographed.

Philadelphia Naval Hospital
In 1967 I was a patient here on the 4th floor recovering from burns as a result of a friendly-fire napalm strike on my combat unit in a village near the Liberty Bridge in Vietnam.

Spring on the Ridge

The first four pictures on this week's blog are things that I have sitting on my desk.  Every once in awhile I get in the mood to do closeups.   The morning sun shines thru the window in this area and gives some good light for these shots.

My daughter surprised me with a gift of this cactus when we visited her last year. She had purchased it at a store in Denver, CO.

The blue color on this close-up of the cactus is created by the morning light shining through a stained glass clown that hangs in the window.

Although this started out as a vertical picture of the turtle hanging onto the side of a planter, I thought it looked better on the horizontal plane.

A duck sitting in a water feature that occupies the edge of my desk.

House finch trying to maintain its balance in what was hopefully our last snow of the season.

Grey squirrel checking me out as I try to snap another photograph of it.

We have a resident Sharp-shinned Hawk that visits our bird feeders from time to time.  The next three photographs show it in three different places, on three different days in a row.

 

 

 

Sunday was a very atypical March day. We took advantage of the weather and headed over to Glendale Lake at Prince Gallitzin State Park for some bird and nature watching.

Canada Geese made a nice reflection in the calm waters as they took off from the lake.

A view of the opposite shore from the east side of the lake.

This is a shot from the area of the lake where Slate Lick runs into Glendale Lake.

Early last fall the state closed down all the boat mooring in the park so that they could lower the level of the lake and do some upgrades to the various marinas along the 26 mile shoreline.  Over the winter the lake has refilled itself and the boaters are once again able to use the half dozen or so boat launch points.

After dropping my wife off at the doctor's office I decided that rather than sitting in the parking lot and waiting for her I'd drive up the road and see what kind of photographs I could get at the Norfolk Southern manufacturing plant in Altoona, PA.

This little yard engine is pushing a diesel engine onto the round table in order to get it onto the track that will take it inside the facility.

As you can see there are numerous engines being worked on at any time.

Engine 999, an experimental, battery-powered, yard switcher.  What I've found out so far is that there are still some bugs to be worked out and the unit is not yet fully operation.

CEFX Unit 6010 waiting its turn for refurbishing.

From the position of the turntable you can get a view of the various tracks that lead into the Juniata Works of Norfolk Southern.

Two helper engines sit idle along the Mainline waiting for their next assignment assisting another line of cars up the mountain and around the Horseshoe Curve.

Another one bites the dust as this wall is about to come down in order to make room for a new building along this section of Plank Road in Blair County, PA.

Sandbagging

This week's blog brings back some memories from 2011 and a few shots taken in the last week or so.

The first group of photographs are from our trip to Colorado in September 2011.

With all the hubbub about the rising gas prices today, this photo shows the gas prices around Labor Day of 2011 and there is about a 30 cent difference to what it is today.

Hotel sign somewhere in middle America, possibly Kansas, as we tried to decide where to spend the night on our trip to Denver, CO last year.

I got this shot of a paraglider flying over Golden, CO.

Veterans Memorial Bridge, Steubenville, OH

Headlights reflecting off safety barrels on Route 219 near Myersdale, PA.

These are some shots taken at Prince Gallitzin State Park sometime in October 2011. 

Taken in the fall of 2011, this shot shows that the water on Glendale Lake was lowered to make repairs and install new boat docks around the lake.

Even though the lake was drawn down it didn't stop local boaters from gaining access to the lake.

An Osprey soars above Glendale Lake looking for a good meal.

With very little human traffic in certain parts of the park, this male pheasant struts about enjoying a beautiful October day.

After giving this picture a second look I should have realized when I first took it that this was going to be a mild winter.

I would have really liked to have seen these two fishermen dragging this boat across the mud just to get it into the water.

The last group of photographs were taken of various spots over the last week or so.

Male Red-bellied Woodpecker leaving the suet feeder with an ample supply of the tasty treat.

One of my favorite places along Route 219 on the way to Johnstown, PA is this little pond.  I like stopping here to take pictures from time to time because it's an every changing environment.

Nuthatch caught jumping between a sunflower feeder and the suet feeder.

Normally we have small flocks of turkeys moving through the area outside our window but on this morning there was just this lone tom looking for a meal.

I've titled this photograph "Eye of the Storm".  In reality it is water being swirled about on the windshield of my car while it was getting washed at an automatic car wash.

The last picture for the week was also shot in the car wash during the rinsing cycle.  The red dot is actually a red stoplight on the wall of the car wash.