Sugimoto explains: “I’m a habitual self-interlocutor. Around the time I started photographing at the Natural History Museum, one evening I had a near-hallucinatory vision. The question-and-answer session that led up to this vision went something like this: Suppose you shoot a
whole movie in a single frame? And the answer: You get a shining screen. Immediately I sprang into action, experimenting toward realizing this vision. Dressed up as a tourist, I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture, and two hours later when the movie finished, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening, I developed the film, and the vision exploded behind my eyes.”

At the time Radio City Music Hall was the only image of his hanging at the Fraenkel. But his series on Theaters lasted from 1975-2001 and took a nice turn when he incorporated Drive-Ins.

Let’s just step back and think about this for a moment. Large format camera, probably an 8×10, that he exposes for the entirety of the movie; capturing all the millions of film images on his single frame. The essence of the movie is white light which is time itself exposed.

With Drive-Ins and classic movie houses all but extinct in America, these images truly capture the spirit of a fading era. It is as if the white screen is revealing all the movies and memories the theater has experienced. The Drive-In shots added extra depth to time-exposed as airplanes and star trails would permanently incorporate themselves to the image.

When I found myself in Scottsdale, Arizona with a free night, I remembered the last time I was here I went to the Drive-In. A quick check on the web revealed the Scottsdale 6 was still in existence! It featured not one, but 6 different screens to choose from and is open year round. I packed two tripods and cameras, one film and one digital, to see what I could capture. It was jam packed at the Scottsdale 6 on a Saturday night, at least 50 cars at each screen. We eased our way to the middle of the Shutter Island screen, second row. I set up both tripods low and directly in front of the car so as not to interfere with anyone else’s vision. A truck load of teenagers next to us must have thought I was recording a boot leg version! I set up my Mamiya 7 to expose for the entirety of the film but came to the conclusion that digital capture would really max out with a 30 minute exposure. Add 30 minutes of in-camera noise reduction which gave me two shots to make some magic happen.

You can see the airplanes come and go, or circle around on the right; star trails shoot straight up on the left. Why is there one person, yet three cars? Cars were turning on and off to recharge their batteries throughout the film and their headlights briefly lit up the foreground giving more depth to the image.

It was very exciting to capture this amount of time in one exposure. Often with long exposures and night photography, the camera will reveal much more than our eyes can see.
It is this unexpected certainty of knowing some of what will happen during the exposure- but how much of it can we control?

Let go, and let the visions explode behind your eyes.

If you are in Las Vegas and want a landscape that is far more impressive then the manscape called Las Vegas Boulevard, I highly recommend a trip out to the Valley of Fire.

Less then an hour northeast of Vegas, past the quickly depleting Lake Meade, you’ll find Nevada’s oldest state park.  “Valley of Fire derives its name from red sandstone formations, formed from great shifting sand dunes during the age of dinosaurs, 150 million years ago.” Not only have the dinosaurs lived here but the Basket Maker people and the Anasazi Pueblo farmers have also passed through leaving their mark on Atlatl Rock.
The dramatic red rock surrealistscape makes you feel like you are landing on Mars.  No wonder it has been a popular location to shoot many movies, including Total Recall’s Mars.  So with an extra night in Vegas I loaded up the minivan with a group of friends and photographers and we headed out for a sunset/nightshoot.
The plan was to meet dear friend and wedding/fine art photographer David Ziser and his wife Ladawn somewhere in the park.  I’ve toured and worked with the Zisers for several years, but was really looking forward to actually shooting with them!  David just released his first book, Captured by the Light:   The Essential Guide to Creating Extraordinary Wedding Photography, which is quickly climbing the charts of Amazon’s top selling Photo books!
Well, 15 miles before we reached the park we quickly learnt that there is no cell phone reception in Mars.  Luckily the park if fairly small with the main Valley of Fire road connecting the East and West entrances of the park.  And surprisingly within 20 minutes we ran into each other chasing after the last licks of magic hour light.  Click on the wonderful group shot taken by Matt Hill to see who all the players are.
In order to photograph in the Valley of Fire at night you need to have a camp site.  So with the twilight hour now behind us, we headed out to the Arch Rock Campground that we had scouted earlier.  Zoobroker got right to work seasoning up the meat and firing up the grill.  Matt, Sylvester, and I set up our tripods and started popping red gel’d flashes as we went from chasing the light to chasing the stars.
Sebastian in the sky was a 6 minute exposure and then I pulled back to get more of a feeling of the whole campsite.  It was packed, we were lucky enough to get one of the last spots that was right in the front of the entrance.
We definitely felt that we were in the Valley of the Gods.
Thanks to Zoo that was the best camp meal I’ve ever had, pork loin and home-made cheese stakes!
Sorry, no pictures, it was quickly devoured by all of us in record time!
Most of the images you see here were shot at a lower ISO, but the “Elephant Eye” photo at the bottom was shot at 6400 ISO to capture what the night sky actually looked like.  Obviously we were far away from any city lights and the sliver of a moon had not risen yet which meant plenty of stars in the sky.  By keeping your exposures under 30 seconds you’ll get more of the celestial feel of the night which can be just as beautiful as those long star trails.
Sylvester, who I quickly learnt is prone to dancing with fire, was the next subject of our shoot.  The difference between the two photographs is what happens when you twirl light in a continuous pattern as opposed to a chaotic pattern.
Which one do you like more?
Remember any light that is in the frame of your photograph, whether coming from a flash, flashlight, or flame will be permanently exposed in your image.  Sylvester spun the light for approximately 30 seconds and then I popped a red gel’d SB900 on the rocks about 5-8 times at full power to enhance the red rock.  I needed to walk into the image during the exposure in order to get close enough for the flash to “read red” on the rock.
Why is it that you don’t see me in the image?  I was blocking the light, not getting hit by it directly, and I was never in the same place for more than a few seconds during these 8 minute exposures.
I did slip up once in the image Inside the Beehive #2, but luckily it perfectly matches up with some of Sylvester’s sparks.
In the last shot of the night I wanted to go long and get a more atmospheric shot of the Beehive.  I set up for a 15 minute exposure and popped the red gel’d flash at 1/2 power 4 times about 8 feet away and at an angle to add depth to the rock.  This ended up being my favorite shot of the night, though I really liked all the ones you see selected here.
Matt Hill also got some killer shots that you can see in his 3-part blog titled Valley of Fire.

Next up…Night exposures at the Drive-In Theater

Would you consider photographing a junkyard? What if it was during a weekend workshop by the light of the full moon? Does it sound dirty, fun, or both? What if I told you that master lightpainter, Troy Paiva, teamed up with ghost-making Joe Riefer to lead the expedition to the classic car filled Pearsonville Junkyard? Does that peak your interest? Both of these guys are on the forefront of capturing long exposures at night in surreal and abandoned urban areas. They both have huge followings – Troy with his vibrant light paintings of desolate planes, trains, and automobiles has practically all of Flickr following his every post. His recent book Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration is an inspirational look at forgotten America. Joe Riefer’s blog on Night Photography is probably the best out there and if you don’t have it in your feedreader, mark it now. Joe is the Ying to Troy’s Yang, his subtle CTO light painting finesses (opens) the shadows and his digital post processing information is one of the best in that deals with the night light.

So when they invited me to join them on a 7 hour drive to the Mojave desert to take their Pearsonville Night Photography/Light Painting Workshop, I cleared my schedule. This was their second workshop they’ve offered at this truly unique place, the last one took place during October 08′s full moon. The class is limited to 11 students and a bargain at $500 for two nights! We had total access into the Pearsonville Junkyard – a virtual wasteland of decaying classic cars and trucks mainly from 50′s -70′s’.

Pearsonville, population 24, has definitely seen better days. Troy and Joe have been shooting this place for years, and have built an excellent relationship with the owners, which is literally the “key” element to shooting a semi-abandoned place like this.

The lucky 11 met with Joe and Troy on Saturday at 1pm. They showed us their Pearsonville pictures and went over several night lighting techniques before we made the 20 minute commute to stock up on the food and enter the graveyard of cars.

The 40′ tall Uni-Royal lady surrealy beckoned us to the gate, we had a little over an hour before sunset to scope out the 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile junkyard looking for possible night shot set ups. Joe and Troy warned us not to get lost in just a few cars or a small area as there was an amazing shot every step you took. And with exposures averaging 6-8 minutes, you really didn’t want to spend more than two set ups for each car. I walked half the back lot of the car graveyard during the sinking sunlight, getting quick digital grab shots to see what angles worked. I’m not really a car guy but 3 steps in and I was captivated by these dying engineering beauties. I worked quickly in the sinking sunlight getting grab shots of these hulking metal beasts I’d only heard rumors of, familiar wide 70′s chryslers to the famous rare Edsels.

My gear list consisted of 3 camera rigs:

1. Fuji S5 with a Nikon 17-55 2.8 to shoot the daylight test shots
2. Nikon D3 with a 14-24 lens ~ Thanks to Mark Kettenhofen at Nikon for letting me borrow this perfect rig. A single battery lasted me the entire 7 hours of shooting each night!
3. Mamiya 7 and the 43mm wide angle lens of course I’m gonna shoot film, especially when you have time for the 45+ minute exposures!

• Two Gitzo tripods – the 3541 and the traveler locked into my new holster.
• Hot Shoe Bubble level – really invaluable for making sure your horizon was straight.
• Vivitar 285 flash with the new and highly recommended color gel set by honl.
• 3 flashlights – the powerful Surefire defender with diffuser, a tricolor low watt LED light Gerber 22-80016 Recon Light, White / Red / Blue / Green LED - Black Body, and finally one of the students, Dave Abrams, kindly brought a bunch low level flashlights for the class he got off ebay for $2 each!   I covered mine with a cto gel and this became my main light close up work.  Thanks Dave!
• I would also recommend the Honl 8″ snoot to control the light for more specific light painting.

Wide or Super-wide are really the way to go. The two modes of thought when capturing the cars were what accentuating angle (usually wide) do you interpret the vehicle with as well as sharp detail shots. Of course on the first night I got lost in a small area of old and modern trucks in the back, but finally met up with Joe at the racetrack. Yes, they used to race cars here as well back in the day! In the middle of the track was a firetruck from the 20′s that I spent a lot time trying to figure out. In between exposures Joe asked me to become one of his classic ghosts. The image, ironically called, Towing from Beyond came out great and you can see it here.

The second day we brought our top 5 shots from the night, got feedback from Joe and Troy and then went over several digital post processing tips on how to get the most out of your image. Joe has been posting several of these techniques on his website, check out A Warm Car on a Cool Night.

After mainly working alone the first night, I made it a point to spend a couple hours with Troy and Joe each night and improve my light painting techniques. You can see Troy’s collaboration with me on the red chained trailer, candycane 18 wheeler, and of course the famous D’oh! shot! Joe taught me the cool and ever useful steering wheel shadow technique and how to get the most of my gelled color temperature controlled flashlights by gently remove shadows and adding highlights to certian areas of the vehicles.

For and extra $100 Joe and Troy offered a bonus 3rd day of night shooting that 3/4 of the class participated in. You could see flashes popping and colors flashing in the distance as we worked well into the final night of Pearsonville. As we drove away late that last night, I knew I had only scratched at the surface of the secrets of Pearsonville, and that I would hopefully, be making this trip again before it disappears.

Check out a few more of my shots as well as the rest of the amazing work from the rest of the students on the Pearsonville flickr page. Troy is still creating Pearsonville gems on his 5+ visit, check out his new shots here. And finally Joe’s blogs on shooting and post-processing techniques can be found here and here and here! Oh just check out his whole blog!

Rumor has it that Joe and Troy will be offering this again in October, so stay tuned if you are interested in capturing the rides of your night-time!

York Chip Yard

2009 is turning out to be a creatively successful year so far and March is packed with some great group shows as well as my first solo exhibit in NYC!

First up, the 11 th Annual International Krappy Kamera Show, which features one of my previously unseen images, opens on Tuesday March 3rd at the Soho Gallery.  This is always a fun exhibit featuring images made from creative artists and their toy cameras.  The Opening is from 6-8pm, with voting on the People’s Choice Award ending at 7:30pm, so get their early, drink some wine, enjoy the images, and vote!

Jill Waterman and Daryl-Ann Saunders curated and brought together some of the best modern nocturnal photographers for two exhibits featuring the fine art of Night Photography that will open on Thursday March 5th at the Farmani and Safe-T-Gallery.  These Galleries are right across from each other in DUMBO Brooklyn, and the opening will be from 6-8pm.  Several of these photographers will also be speaking at B&H’s Event Space on Monday March 9th.

On Friday March 6th a couple more openings:

First, my dear friend and fellow blogger and photoartist, Angelia Lane, will have several of her paintings featured at ArtSlant’s Group Show, World of Imagination.  The opening is from 6-8pm and will run to the end of the month at the APW Gallery’s new location at 48-18 Van Dam Street, Long Island City, NYC.

If you are heading upstate that week, one of my photos will be in a Group show titled Festival of the Visual Arts, at the Morton Library in Rhinecliff.   The Amtrak train drops you off within 3 blocks of the Library and the show is curated by the newly engaged Sandy Bartlett.

Now mark your calendars and plan your trip to NYC accordingly; I’ll be having my first solo show titled “The New York Years” at John Allan’s in Tribeca on Friday March 20th from 8:30-10:30pm!  This exhibit will be touring the four NYC John Allan’s locations throughout the year but you’ll definitely want to come celebrate with me on March 20th!

And finally, on the last day of the month come and test drive the newest Lensbabies at B&H’s Event Space.  David Brommer, Jennifer Diamond, and I will be giving a slideshow presentation on how to get the most out of these creative lenses and then take you on a photo safari as we Lensbabify Times Square!

So shake the winter blahs off and I hope to see you out there this March!

The f295 kickoff last weekend was a huge success!  Thanks to the over 150 people who came out to Saturday night’s 21st Century Photography opening!  The work and vibe must have been reminiscent of Stieglitz‘s old Camera Club openings!  Thanks  also to all that helped put the show together:  the artists who shared their work, The Camera Club of NY who gave their 500 square feet, David, Jennifer, and Amy on the B&H organizational end ~ as well as serving up a record amount of kosher wine!  And finally, Tom Persinger, who brought us all together and had one heck of a time trying to make letters stick on walls.

Wondering what camera to document the gallery opening with, I finally settled on using my trusty Panasonic LX-3, which is an advanced digital point and shoot.  The pioneering Panasonic has a little throwback feature, it has a pinhole scene mode!  See, I told you that pinholes were enjoying a renaissance!  For some reason the pinhole mode is limited to 3MP images while applying a vignette and desaturating the image.   I know it would have been better if the lens could have come off to reveal a real pinhole over the digital sensor but hey, I wasn’t going to get everyone to stand still for 5 hours for the group shot! All the images on the left were taken in this “pinhole mode” while the right hand side shows the packed house for Sunday’s presentation at the B&H Event Space.  For the second straight year over 80 people showed up to listen and learn about new ways to use older technology.

We all struggle with keeping our art and life fresh and new.  For photographers the terms wedding, portrait, landscape, pinhole, or even alt process can all pigeonhole and limit our vision.  Tom Persinger asks us to look beyond these stereotypes and empower the 21st Century Photography:

The 21st Century Photographer remains open to the exploration and use of a variety of processes, techniques, and technologies so long as the chosen method(s) most concisely articulate their creative vision. A net result of this paradigm shift is not only complete artistic freedom but also a palpable sense of empowerment. Historically photography has marched down the long path of process obsolescence – one in which new techniques replace old in a continual cycle of progress. In a 21st Century approach, however, control is wrestled from profit driven agencies -corporations, advertisers, and the marketplace all promoting a consumptive photographic model- and given to the artist/photographer. By virtue of taking the responsibility of control, photographers allow themselves to use a pastiche of tools and materials to make pictures. It is this freedom -which is new for many- that empowers and fuels the 21st Century Photographer.

Photography is a toolbox with many means to express your vision.  Some people choose one, others need multiple instruments to complete the vision.  This weekend I saw art that was in jars, painted on, waxed, dyed, and printed on anything from the latest digital technology to handmade emulsions on a variety of surfaces from tin, glass, and paper.  The photograph that I submitted in the show was originally a 6×9 slide.  I was deciding between two basic ways to present my print:
1.  Drop it off at a lab and have them make a negative copy of my positive slide and then a C-print
2.   Scan the slide and print at home on inkjet.
Now, my good friend and constant conscience, David Brommer, stood aghast when I told him that I  I was leaning towards the lab option;  mainly for convenience as I am still not 100% confident in my inkjet printing.  I’m still most at home in the B&W darkroom.  But he reminded me that I had to control the final outcome of my image.

And really, it is all about the process ~ from start to finish.

Now did I enjoy spending close to an hour digitally removing dust from my image?
No.
Is the excitement the same as flipping over the black and white image in the developer under the red light?
Nope.
But, seeing a project from start to finish is still pretty damn fulfilling.

the sea

For those of you in NYC this weekend, make sure you come to the 21st Century Photography Opening Party on Saturday, January 17th, from 7-9pm at the NY Camera Club located at 336 West 37th Street, Suite 206.
The show kick starts a weekend of inspirational activities by the f295 group with a seminar at B&H the next day.  See my previous blog for the list of amazing artists!

In other good news, one of my Holga images made it into the Krappy Kamera contest that will open at the Soho Gallery in NYC on Tuesday March 3rd!  Now in it’s 11th year, the Krappy Kamera contest received over 1500 lo-fi images and mine was one of 50 selected!  The opening party at the Soho gallery is always a blast, so mark your calenders for that fun event!

Looking for a cool night photography workshop?  Interested in abandoned car graveyards?  Night Photographer extraordinaires,  Troy Paiva and Joe Reifer, are hosting their popular Pearsonville Junkyard Workshop on the full moon weekend of March 7th and 8th.  Now it is in California, but I highly recommend it if you are at all interested in Night Photography and especially Light Painting techniques.  Availability is limited to 10 people so sign up quick!

Finally, I’ve been wanting to blog about this one for a while.  Project Tandem is the story of two young people bicycling across the United States in search for the folks who help make the world go round.  Photographing and capturing audio along their journey, Alan and Morgan are already bringing us the incredibly inspirational stories of the day to day people they meet who make a difference.  Follow their blog and check out the tandem trailer and hopefully share in their story as they will probably be visiting a town near you!

champagne

balloons

I hope that everyone’s end of the year festivities were spectacular and wishing you a creative and prosperous 2009!  My year is starting off with a bang!  I’ll be giving my newly revised seminar on The Fine Art of the Long Exposure at B&H’s Event Space this Monday, January 5th.  It will be an inspiring double feature with B&H Maven David Brommer starting off the day with his seminar on Creative Composition at 11am.
I’m also excited to announce that one of my pinhole images will be featured in the f295  group show featuring some of the finest alternative process/techniques photographers of the 21st Century.  The show’s opens at the Camera Club of NY on Saturday, January 17th, from 7-9pm.  So if you are in town, come on down to see some great art.  The show will begin a weekend of amazing education on Historical Photographic techniques and Alternative processes.  On Sunday January 18th, the B&H Events Space will host the 2nd annual f295 seminar on 21st Century Photography.  Featured speakers will be Jo Babcock, Craig Barber, Michelle Bates, Dan Estabrook, Alida Fish, Joy Goldkind, Robert Hirsch, France Scully Osterman, and Tom Persinger.

You know when you meet someone and right away it seems like you have been friends for years??
Are you sure we haven’t met before? You’re waiting for the deja vu to happen as you’ve chosen the same paths but were maybe a few steps to the left or to the right.
I knew I liked Matt Hill the first time we met a year ago, but when we finally sat down for some damn good bbq at Dinosaur before a night shoot, it all fell into place. In between bites of scrumpdiddlyumptious brisket and chicken that we washed down with dark beer, we bonded. Matt and I are both Photo Industry dudes who share a strong passion for being creative, especially at night. Matt had already blown both Nancy and I away with his Cut Paper Art, which starts out as a blank piece of white paper that he slices into amazing voyages of creativity. It is truly a complete process of discovery for him and yet very accessible for us. You can check him out “in action” here. His website showcases his weekly cut paper art journeys as well as his “On Creativity” podcasts in which he interviews other artists regarding their creative process. For some of us, it comes naturally, others struggle for inspiration. However, listening to Matt’s podcasts On Creativity have made me think and focus more on my photography; the patterns, the inspirations, and the desire that fuels me.
So after feeding our stomachs with bbq and souls with good conversation, we took our tripods and cameras out for a nightshoot. We started out at Ulysses S. Grant’s tomb at Riverside Park on the Upper West Side and then worked our way down to the familiar 69th St Transfer Bridge. Everything was fairly accessible on this May full moon and we had to stop ourselves from shooting by 1am. Matt got some pretty amazing B&W images using his Mamiya 7 camera with the beautiful 43mm lens. I really like the B&W image featured here, the movement of the clouds on top and the calm reflections of the water on the bottom of the image bring a moving calmness to the image.
I was using a Baby Graflex 2×3 camera for the first time at night and had film backs loaded up with color and black and white. My Baby G camera is a miniature version, using medium format film, of the famous Graflex Press cameras that Weegee and all the newsies used back in the 30′s-60′s.
These beautifully utilitarian cameras use 4×5 film and have very basic swing and tilt movements. The baby Graflex uses 6×7 and 6×9 medium format backs and mine is custom fit with an amazingly fast and sharp Rodenstock 90mm 2.8 lens. I hadn’t used it for a while and I was worried about focusing the camera in the dark of the night. In order to selectively focus with this camera you look through the graflok back, which is a 6×9 piece of glass surrounded by a pop up hood. I brought a loupe along to aid in viewing but I didn’t really need it. All I needed to do was use a bright flashlight to light up the area I wanted to focus on and then switch out the glass back for a b&w or color film back and voila! Image created! I was also using my ricoh grd which produced my winning picture of the night featured here, and a Voigtlander Bessa R with a 60 year old leica lens. Matt and I were also testing out our latest gear acquisitions, our Induro carbon fiber c214 tripods with the dm01 ballheads. Though not as silky smooth as a Gitzo, I do highly recommend the Induro line, which offers great value for the price. I especially like the DM01 ballhead, which is rated to hold 17lbs and is very simple and smooth to use.
To see more of Matt’s photos from the nightshoot click here
And more of mine can be seen here
See you in the night!

The year is 1856.
You are huddled with hundreds of sick people on a ferry along the East river.
The distant foghorn blasts 3 times and as you push yourself closer to the edge of the boat, the mist begins to lift and reveal land and a castle…
People are there to greet you, people and crates.
Actually those aren’t crates, they are coffins, they are definitely occupied and there are hundreds of them.

This was the scene at the Renwick Smallpox Hospital, which was located at the southern tip of Blackwell Island, halfway between Manhattan and Queens.

Designed by the architectural genius, James Renwick Jr., the hospital was built for the modest sum of $35,000 from 1854-6. Of course, it’s easy to keep your overhead low when you have free labor from the island’s prison population and a quarry of gray gneiss at your doorstep.

James Renwick Jr. entered Columbia at the ripe age of 12, and was a major player in the Gothic revival period. His first commission was New York’s Grace Episcopal Church and he continued his amazing career by designing St Patrick’s Cathedral, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian Institutional Building among others.

The Renwick Smallpox Hospital was the first in the nation to accept patients with this plague or other contagious diseases like scarlet fever, measles, and typhus. It was built to hold a few dozen patients, but from the beginning it was severely overcrowded. Records indicate that it treated 3000-4000 patients in the 1850′s and over 6,000 during the 1860′s. If you were rich and sick, $1 a day would get you onto the top two floors. If you were poor, you were relegated to the first two floors, where several patients would be assigned to one bed in truly appalling conditions. $5 extra a week got you marginally better food, but the percentage of people to walk out Renwick’s doors cured was barely over 60%.

The Renwick Hospital became known as Deadhouse and The Pest House because of the thousands of coffins it ushered out its doors. Even though there was a cure for smallpox in the early 1800′s, it was expensive and 1 out of 100 would die from the vaccine itself. George Washington survived the smallpox disease, and Lincoln battled a mild case 2 days after giving the Gettysburg address.

Over time, and with the decline of this disease, the hospital was expanded and turned into a very respectful nurse’s training facility. However, Renwick’s Hospital was feeling the weight of its years and was seriously antiquated by the 1950′s and starting to crumble in the 60′s. In those years there were very few preservationist groups and few landmarked buildings, but by the 1970′s the Renwick Smallpox Hospital was officially declared a Landmark.

An anonymous donor in 1993 had floodlights installed to cast an eerie evening glow onto the facade of the Hospital. Spectacular views of “Manhattan’s Castle” can be seen at night driving along East side river or flying into LaGuardia Airport.

Since moving here in 2001, I have been fascinated with this building and have tried to shoot it. However, walls and barbed wire fences have been most prohibitive. In late January 2008, a good friend and fellow pinholer, Tom Persinger suggested a Smallpox Hospital Photo Shoot. His father lives on the the former Blackwell Island, now called Roosevelt Island, and said the southern tip was quite accessible. The State is currently in the process of a $12.9 million ‘Phase One’ project to stabilize the Renwick ruins and build a public park and have already landscaped pathways at the southern end of the Island. This project is trying to be sped up due to the collapse of Renwick’s north wall on December 26 of 2007.

So Tom and I ventured out on a cold afternoon with the talented Holga and Zone plate phenom, Erin Malone. There’s a chain-link fence surrounding the Smallpox Hospital and I, of course, quickly found a not so legal way around it. Not much was left inside the Hospital but piles of bricks and plenty of trees. The facade, the framework, was really all that remained. I was having some technical difficulties shooting that day and vowed to come back…at night.

I went on a scouting mission on February 6th, 2008 to see if it was even accessible at night. The sun was setting by the time I arrived at 5:30pm. The main gate to the southern tip of the island was over 10′ tall and had barbed wire, but it was open. With tripod and my new Canon G9 in hand I quickly rushed down the 60+ yards to the Hospital. I didn’t want to break in at night, I just chose to shoot through the fence and test the exposures. The floodlights were bathing the Hospital in what seemed like white light but my camera was reading as eerie shades of blue and green.

An hour later I was still shooting when the cop car drove up beside me, “We closing up bossman” said the driver.
What? Bossman? I wasn’t being arrested?
Technically, I wasn’t trespassing.
I asked the cop what time they shut down the park to which he replied, “Around sunset, or when it starts to get dangerous.”
“Dangerous?!” I replied, “Well, thanks for the warning.” and started to walk back towards the gate.
Unfortunately the gate was now closed and locked.
Uhmmm… I definitely was assessing the situation and it didn’t look good. But then the cop car came back around from doing his loop and thankfully unlocked the gate.

The next week I returned with my fellow Nocturnalist, Andre Costantini, who was featured previously here with our Red Hook Night shoot.
As luck would have it, February 12th, 2008, was one of the few days in which it snowed in the city. Did that deter Andre and me? Hell no! We arrived at 5pm, set up, and witnessed an amazing sunset through the snow clouded night. It was truly spectacular, and the images featured here are the best of both or our work from that evening.
(Click on each of the photographs above to see the artist and larger image size and details.)

It truly was a great shoot under the aura of this ancient castle. Of course the same cop, Ray, came to get us at 7pm, “We are closing up bossman.” he said again from the police car. Because I knew the drill and it was cold outside, I asked Ray if he could give us a lift to the train station which was a 5 minutes drive away. “Come on in, did you get some good shots tonight?” Ray asked as Andre and I jumped into the cop car and headed home.

(Historic information regarding this blog was taken from several of Jami Bernard’s articles from Roosevelt Island’s Independent newspaper, Main St WIRE and from the Roosevelt Island Historic Society.)

Modern ruins, labyrinthine structures, wind blown cypress trees clinging to the cliff, and caves and paths that lead to Land’s End; this is the Sutro Baths that I’ve been fascinated with since I was first taken to Ocean Beach as a young child.
The Sutro ruins on the outskirts of San Francisco are where we’d often take the dog hiking along the paths above or exploring the abandoned remains below. This probably set in place my future fascination for Ruinism. The Sutro Baths are no secret and have been welcoming the public and the Pacific in one way or another for over 110 years.
Built with iron, wood, and glass in the grandiose manner of London’s Crystal Palace, the grand opening to the public was held on March 14, 1896. The Industrial Age was in full swing and this engineering masterpiece had taken only 6 years to build at the cost of $1 million. It was the dream of the eccentric Adolph Sutro, who had just finished a lackluster 2 year term as San Francisco’s 24th mayor. The extravagant public bathhouse was the world’s largest indoor swimming pool at that time and was inspired by the ancient baths of Rome. Visitors to the baths had 7 different swimming pools to choose from, one freshwater and six salt water bathes, ranging in temperature from 80 degrees to sea temperature. During high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the Pacific, recycling 2 million gallons of water in an hour. During low tides, a powerful turbine water pump, built inside a cave at sea level, could be switched on from a control room to fill the tanks at a rate of 6,000 gallons a minute. Over 20,000 swimsuits were for rent and the facility could hold over 10,000 people at a time. To see an Edison Manufacturing Co short film of the Giant Slide at the Sutro Baths from from 1897 click here.
If you preferred not to swim, the bathhouse also incorporated a museum displaying some of the finest Egyptian artifacts outside of Egypt as well as Sutro’s varied personal collection of his travels. An 8,000 person Concert Hall and an ice-skating rink were also part of the Sutro Baths.

Five hundred dressing rooms … spacious elevators and broad staircases … pavilions, balustrades, promenades, alcoves and corridors adorned with tropical plants, fountains, flowers, pictures, … the collected treasure of foreign travels… a portico with four Ionic columns and pilasters which lead to a noble staircase, wide, gradual of ascent, bordered with broad-leaved palms, the flowering pomegranate, fragrant magnolias … [touching] the very rim of the reveling waves.

However, due to the high operating and maintenance costs, the Sutro Baths closed its doors in 1966. During its demolition, a suspicious fire broke out and left the Baths in the ruins that you can see today.
What has fascinated me most is how little the ruins have changed. They are maintained by the National Park Service and very little is off limits for urban exploration.
Our “exploration” led to the photos that were taken on November 24th. It was a full moon, and my father and I met fellow nocturnalists Joe Reifer, Andy Frazer, and Shawn Peterson as the few clouds were breaking through to reveal the ruins of Sutro. We spent over 4 hours shooting, flashlights popping, and exposures being calculated. Armed with tripods, our exposures were running 2-8 minutes, with plenty of opportunity to soak in the true atmosphere of the baths. I’ve spent a lot of time at Sutro, but on a clear night with old and new friends, we explored the timeless time of Sutro.
To check out more of Joe Reifer work click here.
Andy Frazer’s blog on the night can be found here.
More of Shawn Peterson’s nightwork can is here.

To see some great photos from old Sutro Baths or read more about its history check out these sights:

Sutro Baths
Cliffhouse Project
Sutro’s
Outsidelands
Wikipedia