Brian Barber, “Bandit”
Black and white photography is most often anything but. Degrees of tone exist in a broad spectrum within what we reductively deem either/or. I’ve argued before that its use as an aesthetic device is antiquarian, retrogressive- that the medium has grown past the limitation, yet there remains an appeal in seeing images pared to their essence, without the ersatz mediation of hdr and hyper-saturation.
Happy Halloween, PDDers. Press play on the video above and select your favorite soundtrack below.
And don’t forget, we’re looking for your Halloween banners. Send them to [email protected]
After Mary Lou Williams’‘ rainbow photo was shared last Monday on the PDD Facebook page, three other perspectives emerged. From left to right below are photos by Paul Gudmundson, Laurie Newland and Tyler Day. (Click to view larger.)
Why are there so many photos of rainbows, and what’s on the other side? Well, according to reports from Kermit the Frog, rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide.
Paul McIntyre, untitled
The idea of “coming home” propels nearly all our endeavors, knowing we are tethered to other people, to familiar, comforting things. For anyone lacking a stable, sane place, or those exiled by circumstance, the capacity to venture is stunted while the desire to find moorings never leaves us. Emily Norton’s “Family Motto” (below) states well this simple, not easily-attained aspiration.
Ira Salmela , untitled
Sorry, no pithy digressions regarding the philosophical significance of “the road,” because this week I’m on it. Next week’s theme will be “coming home.”
Ken Greshowak sent PDD this photo shot near Brighton Beach on Sept. 27.
MPR News did a series of stories on John Vachon earlier this year, which was noted at the time on PDD along with a Duluth Milk Company photo. Today we present the rest of the Duluth Milk Company photos and a link to the lot of 61 Duluth images Vachon shot in August of 1941, from the collection of 170,000 photographs from 1935 to 1945 created by the United States Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information.
Should be an easy one, I’m guessing.
“Chester Park is popular both in summer and winter,” according to old postcard propaganda. “In it is located one of America’s highest ski jumps and also Chester Creek, one of several flowing thru the city in which trout may be caught. Duluth is the only city in the United States where trout fishing is possible within city limits.”
Well, we know the famous ski jumps came down in 2014, but there seems to be another fact in there worth examining. Was Duluth at one time really the only city with trout fishing? Prove it or debunk it, dear reader.
In the meantime, here are more snappy postcards …
Tamara Jones, “Full moon over the Lake”
There is no way to comprehensively describe Duluth with an inane little photo feature, but I do think this week’s image’s alternations between grandeur and ruin say something about this place; what we value, what we’ve let moulder. Duluth is a place where our failures aren’t hidden. Its broken roads and crumbling industries, all set on that capricious gem of a lake impress the psychic landscape, and inform our present strivings.
Ashley L. Behrens, “The Joys of Color”
Even though we might not feel a part of it, or intentionally cast ourselves to the margins, we live- without choice- within communities. What we do to broaden, to expand that meaning defines us; how many and of what sort we’ll include. Let’s celebrate here the pulling together, the belonging, and the recognition that no one, as was said, is an island.
This little gem is postmarked Sept. 18, 1905. Hopefully Ermina B. Smith of Menominee, Mich., believed it. It’s still true 110 years later.
Jason Linus, untitled
Where’d we be without the square pegs, the odd ducks, and the outliers? Blaine, probably. Feels like I’ve landed somewhere that not only appreciates, but cultivates individuality. Not eccentricity for its own sake or ostentatious outrageousness; still, there is a climate of mutual support here, and a community that values unconventional ways of approaching life, accommodating people and schemes that yield weird, unanticipated, often gratifying things.
