An Evening on the Streets

This post is subtitled The Many Joys of Street Photography

Alleyway Buskers: Power and Light by an Old Pickup Truck

I've riffed before about my love of photography, cameras and vintage lenses. But once again, I will step upon my Blogger soapbox to proclaim my love of street photography. I shoot almost anything that moves and a few things that don't, but street is just a sublime experience.

Bright Lights and Halos

When wandering with my camera, it's like I am a raw nerve. I walk, I watch and I react. Much of the normal noise in my head just goes away as I do and be. It is the proverbial 'Zone' of hyper-focus. My wife can attest to the fact that I will often forget to eat or drink on my forays. I've gotten better about that.

Tales of a Lonely DJ

As with all things in life, some evenings are better than others. All of these images came from one extraordinarily fun and interesting First Friday art walks in the Kansas City Crossroads District. This was the last evening before the leaves turn and we contemplate the long, dark months of winter ahead. It was pleasantly hot, but the vibe was super mellow despite the huge crowds and the buskers and other street characters were out in force.

Ah, less talk, more photos.

 Music, music, music...

Old Time Music with Gallery

And here is the scene inside the gallery. The art is being observed.

 

Which ones are stuffed?

This is the scene across from the Leedy-Voulkos gallery; the current center of the Crossroads.

The Fae of the Wildwood specialize in mirth and merriment.

Really, she is the most mirthful of the bunch. I can't blame her for glaring a the camera.

Just Another Faerie

Actresses in Character

Random Factoid: The majority of these photos were taken with a Sony NEX-6 fitted with a '60s era, Thorium doped Pentax 50mm f1.4 lens. Yeah, this sucker is radioactive! With the addition of a Lens Turbo, it acts like a 54mm f1.2 lens. Very handy when there is little to no light. I enjoy the challenge of working with a manual focus lens.

The street outside the old Arts Incubator building gets turned into a massive party. Some schmuck in a car didn't quite figure that out and became stuck between a dance party and a board crew taking back the streets.

And here is the Leader of the Pack! Yes, that is a Big Wheel. Best not to ask.

On a perfect summer evening, I can even be entertained by human statue mimes. Really, they were awesome!

They were more creative than the average buskers. An excellent entertainment value!

Street photography is exhilarating and somewhat exhausting. The thrill of discovery keeps me moving, and moving and moving until the crowds start dying out and the last Lonely DJ loops some really lovely tunage. The next day, I get to remember how many hours I walked in search of the visual buzz. I hope I never actually get too old to enjoy evenings on the streets.

But enough of my musings - bring on the random slices of life... starting with machines gone wild!

And moments of total randomness...

With moments of normalcy - who doesn't love cold treats on a hot summer night?

I can never get enough of reflections. Layers are the best.

 And so the evening ends. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

 Musings on the archaic concept of Copyright: While the concept seems lost in this digital age, the content on this blog, unless stated otherwise, is Copyright Dwayne F. of Vintage Technology Obsessions. Please participate in our sharing culture. There is a handy Google +1 bar at the top of the page. My personal images and random musings also live on G+ at Me, on Google+

Romance of the Skies - TWA Circa 1944

What was your last commercial aviation experience like? Was it in an Airtran plane that looked like it came out of a desert storage yard? That's what replaced the Midwest Express Kansas City to Washington National run. You know, the one that used to have hot chocolate chip cookies.

The one good thing I can say about air travel is that it has been democratized. Many people can afford a quick trip from Point A to Point B. Sure, the planes are cramped cattle cars; this is especially true for tall and large travelers. Can you believe that air travel used to be romantic?

Once upon a time, taking an airplane was an exotic experience and the DC-3 was the best thing in in the air. I came across a wonderful bit of ephemera that helps drive this home: a 1944 TWA promotional calendar.

Back in the glory days of unlimited, virgin pulpwood, promotional calendars were serious business for TWA. This is over two feet high.

1944 would have been a strange time for recreational and business aviation. World War II was still in full swing and the geopolitical map was being drawn and redrawn at a terrible and deadly pace. In the context of the war, TWA's World Air Map is interesting, indeed.

The workhorse for TWA in 1944 was the relatively new Douglas DC-3. With a quiet and pressurized cabin and flight attendants that catered to passenger's whims, it represented the best in travel experiences.

Source:  http://www.1940airterminal.org/history/galleries/historical/FlightCrews/

Oh, and the interesting locales you could fly to! Back in the day, these were still exotic and foreign places. There was no Twitter delivering instant news of what was happening on the ground or massive data cloud of photos and blogs about every statue and back alley. Heck, I remember back in the '80s a trip to Chicago was pretty special. Now it is a skip and a jump on a Southwest plane - that is provided they don't combine two flights to optimize profits. You didn't really need to make it to your destination in time for a meeting, did you? Mooo!!!!

And China? That was the place with the big wall and temples featured in the dead tree version of the National Geographic. By the way, reading an issue from the 1940s is a real treat. If kept from light and moisture, old National Geographic magazines are remarkably well preserved and full of graphic goodness.

Malaysia? You might as well have been flying to Shagri-La!

Of course, TWA could whisk you across the United States in style.

With so many routes to choose from...

And lest you forget there is a war going on, they will remind you of the other way DC-3s are used to move people.

Here is a little bit of a history lesson on cross-country travel in the prewar era:

"TWA was the third airline to put the new DST in service. They accepted the first eight in April, 1937. On June 1, 1937, they put their "Super Sky liner Sleeper" DSTs outfitted with eight berths up front and nine divan chairs in the rear, in service between New York and Los Angeles. TWA called this flight the "Sun Racer," although it never quite won the race. It chased the sun across the country, leaving New York at 8:30 a.m., and arriving in Los Angeles at 11:30 p.m. the same day."  Source:http://www.dc3history.org/dc3.htm

I saved the best part for last.  Geopolitics is a delicate subject with many alliances shifting over time.  My favorite pages from this calendar represent countries we were once friendly with.  Iran, of course, is our sworn enemy today, but it was a tourist destination in 1944.

And then there is our on again, off again friend/frenemy and rival/mortal enemy, the Soviet Union.  It would seem to be a stressful place to visit in the midst of WWII.  But it is a large country and the fighting was most likely far away.  Just a few years later, the Cold War began in earnest.

I have been coveting a framed page advertising travel to the Soviet Union from a 1948 TWA calendar for over a year.  It appears this antique mall seller is resistant to discounts.  I was overjoyed to find an entire calendar elsewhere for next to nothing.  I hate to break it up, but I very much want these last pages framed and up on my office walls.

Decisions, decisions...

Thanks for joining me on this little voyage. Rest assured, this blog has not been abandoned. This article is proof that I can create multiple drafts and let them marinate for months on end before I decide to grab one and complete it. 

More random copyright things: All of the words and images, other than those sourced elsewhere, are mine. Use with attribution, but not for commercial purposes, you must. Please share the Blogger love. Use the handy Google+ sharing feature at the top of the frame. You can find me and a whole bunch of really awesome photo communities over in that ghost town of a Facebook competitor.

Where did the Summer go?

My kids go back to school on Wednesday and this blog is crying for attention.

What exactly does that sound like?

Yesterday, we were in a weed pulling frenzy next to the privacy fence. The neglected Golden Retriever next door gave up barking after I tossed a couple of sticks over for it to fetch. Then - here comes the pathetic part - it sidled up to the fence and looked through a crack with one sad eye and whimpered piteously while wagging its tail. The poor thing was just happy to get any attention at all. And we are not dog people.

The blog sounds exactly like that.

On the bright side, Google has still been getting my love with posts to G+ photo communities. It's fun, but I miss the long form and the Typosphere. You know - the long form I have not had time for because I have been on G+... and Twitter... and LEEDUser... and that pesky thing called work.

In the spirit of keeping this poor blog alive and breathing, I'm sharing a few snapshots from our July and August thus far. We traveled. I kept a daily journal on a fabulous Olivetti Lettera 22. I took a ton of photos from Fourth of July in Colorado to a County Fair in Kansas. We watched a ton of the reborn Doctor Who as we started to catch up with our daughter's awesomely geeky friends.

So, here we go with a whirlwind photo tour of the last six weeks, give or take. It's like an old-timie projector slide show, but not nearly as cool and analog.

So there you have it. We spent over a week in south central Colorado in the town of Crestone. We ate amazing food and got to visit the farm where it was grown while seeing their Yak herd. We hiked, and soaked in hot springs and miraculously bickered minimally considering we were living together constantly for over ten days. We saw amazing art at First Fridays and at the Nelson-Atkins galleries with a bonus appearance by a Devo cover band. I got to see a demolition derby and spend time street shooting on the carnival midway.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty great six weeks!  As always, thanks for looking!

P.S. I have started a hashtag on Google+ by the name of #whatisthetyposphere  You know what to do.