Inspiration is everywhere.

A few years ago while visiting friends up in Phoenicia, NY we stopped in an amazing antique shop, where I came across this stack of 4″x5″ black and white negatives. They seem to have come from a firehouse’s collection or something. One packet was labeled “GAS EXPLOSIAN JAMAICA N.Y. 11/25/46” and the other indicated that it was firemen in London, England, though no date was given. You gotta love the British firemen’s roman helmets. I am always excited to find such cool visual remnants. There are so many amazing glimpses into the past tucked in people’s attics and basements.
I just placed the negatives on my lightbox, and shot them at different angles with my digital camera, then inverted them (and restored the proper coppery tint).

To the best of my knowledge, these are the last pictures I shot on 35mm film. When we were living in Los Angeles back in 2003, I grabbed my trusty Yashica T* loaded up with black and white film, and Julie and I set off to explore the haunting Salton Sea area, about 60 miles to the south-east of Palm Springs.
We had heard it was an interesting place to visit, but we weren’t prepared for the things we would see: An artificial mountain built of mud, paint and car tires as a monument to God’s love (Salvation Mountain), entire neighborhoods, buildings and vehicles devoured by pink alkaline slurry, sulfurous boiling mudpots, defunct hotels from the 1950’s heydays and a dead, smelly sea.
If you are ever in the area, be sure to make time for a visit.

This is a photo of a Ndebele traditional healer from the National Archives of Zimbabwe. When I was visiting there back in 1998 we visited the archives and were able to order reprints of old photos from their amazing catalog of images. We paid a small fee, filled out some paperwork and several months later this and a few other pictures surprised me when they showed up in my mailbox.