Philadelphia

Juniata Sunset

Juniata Park is one of Philly’s more bipolar neighborhoods… It always self identified as being part of the North East, but its feet are firmly in the ‘K‘. My Grandmother moved up here  ‘..from Lycoming St….’ right after WW2. They bought a brand new rowhouse on M St. (she always said the paint was still wet when they moved in) in a development being built on an apple orchard. She could look out her kitchen window at the apple trees, until they built everything up westward to G St. On the Eastside are the Carl Mackley Apartments, built by the hosiery workers union in the 1930’s and named after a striker who was murdered by scabs.

The demographics have changed over the years but it remains a strong home owning working class enclave. Over the years the realtors have stretched the boundaries of ‘Juniata’ all the way out to 5th and Hunting Park Ave, but the core neighborhood is nestled between ‘The Mackley’ on Castor Ave, westward out to G St where light industrial development starts, and from Frankford Creek south to Erie Ave.

We were down at the local supermarket so my son could practice his driving and the sky started to do this, one reason why you should always carry a camera…  I made him pull over while I took a few shots. The first cityscape is looking west on Wyoming Ave,  the 2nd looks south over the Tacony Creek wasteland towards the rock crusher (The supermarket and most of the surrounding commercial properties were built on what was once a small Reading Railroad branch line and freight yard that served the Frankford Grocery Terminal and associated industries).

The empties aren’t mine….

Nikon D300 w/28-105 AfD lens

Inside The Philly MAGA March

Make America Great Again?

March 25th 2017 Philly MAGA March.

Philly area Trumpers show their stuff in Center City. I’m usually on the other side of the line but went inside to look and listen. About halfway through the event most of the mainstream Trump supporters left and hard right took control. When was the last time you saw organized white supremacists marching down Market St?

Here’s a few frames.

Shot on Ilford HP5 – Nikon FE2 (35 f/2, 50 f/1.4 & 105 f/2.5) – Developed and scanned at home.

Fun With A Russian

IMG_0913WTF is a Zorki?

After World War 2 the Soviets took material, tooling, dies, and in some cases entire factories and the skilled workers to run them, from occupied Germany back to the USSR as war reparations. All of Germany’s patents were also released into the public domain by the allied governments. The Soviets (and others) began manufacturing Leica and Contax clones for internal and export markets – this was also the basis of Japans post war camera industry- and so we get this  Zorki  35mm Rangefinder, a Soviet derivative of the Leica 3.

This one has commemorative markings celebrating the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution so I’m assuming a manufacture date of about 1967. It’s a bit clunky, the film registration is slightly off, there’s no batteries or exposure meter, but it fits in my coat pocket and is actually a lovely small camera to carry around.  Here’s a few frames from some test rolls. The color negatives were developed and scanned by a local lab, the b&w shots were hand developed and scanned at home.

Zorki 4 35mm rangefinder w/50mm f/3.5 lens  – Fomopan100, Kodak Tri X, and Portra 160