#same session where I made the ellis render

[mechanichuntsman]

some wip stuff because of this specific song ToT

[chevd-blog]

My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 7: 5 - 1)

Here they are, finally: my five absolute favorite albums ever!

5. De-Loused in the Comatorium – The Mars Volta (2003)

              I received De-Loused in the Comatorium as a present for my 20th birthday, shortly after getting my copy of Frances the Mute. From the day I received it, I listened to it on nearly a daily basis for the next two years. Understand, I never do that with one specific album. It was just so uncommonly good that I couldn’t stop myself from going back for more. And even though I no longer listen to it as frequently, it is still just as good as I remember it. This is the album that I most heavily associate with my time at Ringling College, and with working on projects for my computer animation classes. And believe me, I spent a lot of time on those projects—somewhere in the vicinity of 10 to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. So to say I quickly became intimately familiar with this album is a bit of an understatement.

              De-Loused is a conceptual ode to the band's fallen friend, artist Julio Venegas, who is rendered in the album's narrative as the protagonist, Cerpin Taxt. In short: Cerpin ingests rat poison and falls into a coma, during which he goes on an epic journey of self-discovery in his own mind, with the denizens of his mental landscape being all his own artistic creations. In the end, Cerpin wakes up in his hospital bed in the real world, but his desire to return to his own mental kingdom ultimately drives him to jump from a freeway overpass. Of course, all of this is tricky to discern from the actual lyrics: the Mars Volta's lyrics are notorious for being oblique and abstract, which listeners could easily mistake for being nonsensical if they aren't paying attention and reading between the lines. (Fortunately, sometime after receiving the album, I was able to procure a .pdf of the album's concept in short story format, released by Gold Standard Laboratories; while the writing style was similar, it went a long way toward making the album's lyrics more coherent. And explaining who or what "Moatilliatta" was.)

              But of course, while the enigmatic lyrics did hold their own sort of fascination with me, the thing that really hooked me was the musicality. The Mars Volta offered up an eclectic blend of punk, progressive and Latin rock, and De-Loused was the album that got the formula juuuust right—a smoothie of influences ranging from Santana to the Smiths to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The intro, "Son et Lumiere", serves as a metaphorical ambulance siren as Cerpin's story begins in situ, then segues into "Inertiatic ESP", with its frenetic waltzing pace, its vintage 70s electric piano riff, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's repeated wails of "Now I'm lost". As the story progresses to "Drunkship of Lanterns", guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez layers cavernous surf rock licks atop a chugging Latin rhythm, resulting in a track that simultaneously feels haunted and vivified. One of my personal favorites, "Eriatarka", is damn near tantamount to sonic nitrous oxide, with a lilting dreamy melody that never fails to put me into a state of bliss. The album's longest song, "Cicatriz ESP", comes next, starting with a steady rhythm that falls into a serene subterranean pool before exploding into a full-on Latin jazz jam; it was this song that first showed me the true magic behind a well-executed jam session. "This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed" is where the band's post-hardcore roots show through the clearest—a chaotic, fast-paced song that could just as easily have been one of At the Drive-In's more hard-edged offerings, save for its narrative connections to this album. (Also, quick aside: something about the way Cedric's voice sounds while singing "Anonymous, avenge my name" always gives me goosebumps.) And I could go on and on. Ultimately, despite me having some memories and associations tied to it, the main reason De-Loused ended up in my top 5 is simply because of its sheer musicality, which is really impressive. Subsequent Mars Volta albums always made me feel excited, but none of them ever topped this one.

Prime cuts: "Inertiatic ESP", "Drunkship of Lanterns", "Eriatarka", "Cicatriz ESP"

4. Fear of a Blank Planet – Porcupine Tree (2007)

              I have cited several albums on this list as being here chiefly because of associations between them and my move to Canada. If that has gotten redundant or boring, well—I apologize, but it was unavoidable. People have big, important, special moments in their lives, and for me, that was one of the biggest, most important, and special-est in mine. It should probably be pretty predictable, then, that my top five contains a few of these, and that they would be the most prominent examples for me. Fear of a Blank Planet falls into this category. This was the second Porcupine Tree album I obtained, after In Absentia. At the time, it was their most recent album, having come out less than nine months earlier. During my first semester at ECUAD, when I had not yet moved my car up from Florida, I have distinct memories of listening to this album in the mornings while walking by the waterfront along False Creek to my classes on Granville Island, with the beautiful downtown Vancouver skyline on the other side of the water. "Anesthetize", being around 17 minutes long, used to go quite a way toward getting me to my destination.

              Later, as I came into my own as a fine artist, Fear of a Blank Planet became (along with Riverside's Anno Domini High Definition, as mentioned earlier) a major point of inspiration for my work. One of the most polished works to come out of my time at Emily Carr, and the one that may have been most predictive of my later trajectory as an artist, was a large two-panel painting which I called "Blank Planet", as an homage. The album was a perfect summation of my thematic focus on the prevalence of technology in the 21st Century. If the title seems familiar, it's because it was itself a bit of an appropriation from Public Enemy's 1990 recording Fear of a Black Planet; as Steven Wilson has explained, the album's main drive is addressing the major current issues of technology and alienation, in the same way that Public Enemy had addressed the issue of race relations. In Porcupine Tree's case, the songs specifically describe the experience of younger Millennials, who have come of age never knowing a world without the internet, Ritalin, and constant media bombardment.

              The truly astounding thing here is just how palpable the apathy is throughout the entire album, while at the same time being very emotionally affecting. It all begins with the fantastic 9-minute title track, told through the eyes of a detached bipolar adolescent whose claims include "XBox is a god to me", and "my mother is a bitch, my father gave up ever trying to talk to me". The next track, "My Ashes", is a slower, softer song that draws lyrically on the Bret Easton Ellis novel Lunar Park. But of course, it's the aforementioned "Anesthetize", which contains a stellar guest solo from none other than Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, which truly dominates the album, and demonstrates Porcupine Tree's continued foray into heavy metal. The guest appearances continue with "Way Out of Here", as King Crimson's Robert Fripp contributes ambient soundscapes while the album's tone grows noticeably darker. Finally, the album ends with the electronic droning of "Sleep Together", which I can only describe as resembling what it might sound like if Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails collaborated on a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". All in all, while In Absentia receives the lion's share of the recognition from Porcupine Tree's discography, it is Fear of a Blank Planet which is my pick for my absolute favorite of their albums.

Prime cuts: "Fear of a Blank Planet", "Anesthetize", "Way Out of Here", "Sleep Together"

3. Silent Alarm – Bloc Party (2005)

              So what memory of mine can top moving to Canada? Well, the answer is simple: those first few trips to British Columbia, where I got to meet my friend Laurie in person after over two years of communicating exclusively online. She was one of the biggest reasons I was able to survive my time at Ringling without breaking under the pressure. Through all of the project deadlines and disappointments and the otherwise lacking social life, I always had her, encouraging me to keep going. While the two of us ultimately settled into a very happy and very close platonic relationship, at the time, I have to admit, I was quite infatuated with her. Why wouldn't I be? There was an incident once, during a moment of weakness, where I was considering suicide, and she stopped me by calling my house in Florida at 4 AM. Nobody, save for my parents, had ever cared about me in such a way. And so, in December of 2006, when I finally got the opportunity to visit her and spend time with her, of course I was excited. We chatted in my hotel room, and she showed me her neighborhood, and drove me around Vancouver in her old Pontiac Sunfire. And I remember vividly what was playing on her stereo: her copy of Silent Alarm Remixed. That was my first exposure to Bloc Party.

              When I returned to Florida after that first trip, I bought the original version of the album, and it ended up in heavy rotation in my own car stereo for that final semester at Ringling. Admittedly, as I've already mentioned, my first trip to BC did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped—partially because of the culture shock, and partially because she didn't quite feel the same about me as I did about her. But we remained close friends, and I was willing to try again. When I returned for two weeks the following summer, after my time at Ringling had come to an end, the experience was incredible. No, beyond incredible—they were two of the most important and special weeks in my entire life. That was the trip that finally convinced me to actually commit to moving there. And I suppose Silent Alarm came to symbolize the whole thing for me; it was a new experience for me, one that had been completely unknown, and which represented a new sensibility that didn't really seem to fit my old life in Florida. I was 21, and as "Banquet" put it, I was "becoming adult".

              What makes Silent Alarm all the more impressive, beyond just its great significance to me as the background music of the most seismic shift in my life, is its sheer vitality. For a debut album, it really was as tight as it could possibly be. The chemistry of Kele Okereke's thickly-accented Londoner vocals, Russell Lissack's guitar, Gordon Moakes's bass, and Matt Tong's frenetic drumming resulted in an album that felt unusually charged with electricity. Songs like "Banquet", "Helicopter", and "Like Eating Glass" took a page from the punk playbook without getting mired in the usual trappings of punk. I still can recall that Laurie's favorite was the final track, "Compliments", a sparse, gently humming song that ended the album on a very laidback vibe. When I made the remark about diminishing returns with Bloc Party (waaay back when I was talking about #90 on my list, the band's album Four), this is the point from which they were always subsequently diminishing. This is the high-water mark. And in all fairness to the band—it's kind of difficult not to fall into that pattern when your starting point is already so exceptional and vibrant.

Prime cuts: "Banquet", "Helicopter", "Like Eating Glass", "The Price of Gas"

2. Lateralus – Tool (2001)

              Lateralus was not my first Tool album. That distinction belongs to their first full-length album, Undertow. But Lateralus was the first one to really speak to me from an elevated plane, even before Ænima. Undertow brought the heaviness— I think of it almost as a lead weight in sonic form— but it honestly didn't sound a whole lot like the progressive mainstay that Tool eventually became, and which I came to love dearly. Early on, as I've already said, no band was quite as fundamental in my musical tastes becoming what they are as Tool was. And this is the album where they really came into their own. If Undertow was a lead weight, Lateralus was a clarifying light.

              On the strength of the single "Schism" and its delightfully perplexing music video featuring contortionists in blue-grey body paint, I bought Lateralus the day it was released: May 15, 2001. I was 15 years old. For some time, I nicknamed it the "rain album", because (I kid you not) for the first several months, whenever I would listen to it, by some strange coincidence, it always seemed to bring a storm shortly afterward. I loved everything about it. From the amazing Alex Grey anatomical transparencies in the liner notes, to the strange time signatures and the mystifying lyrics— it grabbed hold of my soul in a way that no other recording has, before or since. From the opening of "The Grudge" to the very last notes of "Triad", and even the bizarre Art Bell radio-show-prank-phone-call-from-Area-51 which constitutes "Faaip De Oiad", Lateralus is an intensely spiritual experience for me. This is my Bible, my Bhagavad Gita. And it has served me well over the years, through the creation of artwork, and studying for exams, and unpleasant dental procedures. (No, seriously, I highly recommend trying this album while pumped full of nitrous oxide. There's nothing like it.)

              "Schism" might be what brings you to the show here, but the two-track suite "Parabol/Parabola" is what keeps you listening, with its poignant message about living in the present and not taking the precious gift of life for granted. The album's closing trilogy of "Disposition/Reflection/Triad" offer another high point, with the second song being the main focus. "Reflection" is not only the longest track on the album, but one of its most divinely beautiful as well, with its Hindustani-influenced drumming and sarangi accented by an electronic drone. But of course, the main centerpiece of the album is the title track, "Lateralus", often cited as one of the greatest metal songs of the 21st Century so far. At nearly nine and a half minutes long, the song's true brilliance lies in its vocal delivery and time signature both being structured around the Fibonacci sequence; the lyrics about "spiraling out" are somehow all the more meaningful when woven into a tapestry whose very fabric is literally the arithmetic behind spirals. For someone like me, who absolutely cannot exist without thoughtful, cerebral music, this is the album that I hold as the gold standard for everything else.

Prime cuts: "Schism", "Parabol/Parabola", "Lateralus", "Reflection"

1. Grace for Drowning – Steven Wilson (2011)

              And then there was one. Of course the list ends right back where it began back at #100, with a Steven Wilson solo album. His second solo effort is probably not the most popular choice out of his body of work, but I don't care. In my view, it's criminally underrated. It's absolutely, hands down, my favorite album of all time. No additional thought required.

              So what's so damn special about Grace for Drowning, that I rank it above even Lateralus? Well, the simple quantity of music is a good place to start. Grace for Drowning is a two-disk set; the first disk contains the majority of the album's tracks, while the second disk is dominated by the monstrous 23-minute behemoth titled "Raider II", as well as a few smaller compositions like "Index" and "Track One". Around the time of the release of Grace for Drowning, Wilson had caused a bit of a stir by mentioning his boredom with continuing to pursue Porcupine Tree's previous heavy metal style, and his unabashed admission that he was listening to much more freeform jazz than hard rock. For some listeners of Porcupine Tree, this was discouraging, particularly because it seemed to telegraph that Steven Wilson really might be serious about being done with his old band. However, in listening to Grace for Drowning, I simply cannot mourn for Porcupine Tree, because Wilson's solo music is every bit as masterfully composed, with quite a bit more freedom to really experiment with new styles without the pressure of preconceived expectations. The end result was not something that pandered to fans, but instead a tremendously courageous and seductive blend of jazz jams and prog rock, with flute and sax sections provided by longtime PT collaborator Theo Travis. It was a true piece of artwork, made all the more miraculous by its emergence amidst a 2010s pop music landscape that is incredibly hostile to such heady endeavors. (*cough* Dubstep. *cough*)

              But then, beneath the veneer of long jam sessions and rock guitars, at his heart, Wilson is a master craftsman of pop as well. "Deform to Form a Star" demonstrates this well, as do "No Part of Me" and "Postcard", a sentimental melody that reeks so much of self-deprecating despondency that it might as well be my personal anthem. Meanwhile, Wilson's penchant for creating eerie and subtly unsettling music shines through on "Remainder the Black Dog" and the instrumental "Sectarian", where dramatic choral arrangements and Travis's diabolical saxophone produce some of the album's most stunning moments of tension. "Index" keeps the tension intact on the second disk, with its lyrical content detailing a fastidious collector whose obsession with adding to his collection ventures dangerously close to creepy and stalker-ish.

              And then, "Raider II" comes on, and all of the unspoken menace that has been slowly building and bubbling under the surface erupts into full effect. How could it not, in an epic song inspired by Dennis Rader, the notorious Kansan serial killer more commonly known as the BTK Strangler? The intro begins with a simple piano passage on the low end, with a clarinet joining in to add some treble; in between, there are long pauses for several seconds at a time, where it could be said that Wilson is playing the anxious silence itself like an instrument. The vocals begin quietly at around a minute and a half into the song, with the intro going quiet one last time before exploding with full fury just before the three-minute mark. The next four minutes cycle through the verses, a few unexpected death growls, and a beautiful flute solo from Travis. Then there's another short lyrical passage, before the unhinged guitar solo, which segues into a smooth saxophone solo. At eleven minutes in, the guitars return with a vengeance, and then recede again into the reverb, leaving a disquieting stillness in their wake. Out of the silence the song catches its second wind and emerges again with a jangly guitar melody, over which Wilson evokes disturbing metaphors for the serial killer's mentality: "A cat among the crows, I'm raider / The butcher and his prose". Finally, the song winds down with a chaotic ensemble, its ever-increasing tempo finally culminating in a single sustained blast of disorder, with two minutes of slow bass and guitar to pad the ending. And after such a harrowing rollercoaster ride, the album ends gently on the palate cleanser, "Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye".

              In summary, Grace for Drowning is my favorite album, probably because of the wide emotional range it exemplifies. There are parts of the album that are peaceful and delicate, parts that are achingly sad and wistful, parts that are laidback and mellow, and of course, parts that are incredibly dark and sinister. There is ample expressive complexity and splendor here, for those who can appreciate it. And there is heaviness here, too, in a way that doesn't rely on the metal clichés of Wilson's past. Overall, a phenomenal album, and one that likely won't soon see a challenger for its title as my favorite of all time.

Prime cuts: "No Part of Me", "Postcard", "Remainder the Black Dog", "Raider II"… fuck it, the entire album.

[ryanellisphoto]

#151 — Saturday, February 23rd, 2019 — Ryan Ellis Photography - Detroit Street Photography Session #151 — Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 (ca. 1971) - Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (ca. 1971) - Tokina SZ-X 60-300mm f/4-5.6 (ca. 19??) - Hart Plaza tattered flags - Street portraits

Arrived @ 6:15 AM 

Departed @ 9:45 AM 

476  photos (and also 3 videos) taken over an unfinished and fleeting-feeling 3½ hours with a lightweight 27 “keepers” among the numerous snaps from the day, rendering a translucently-thin 6% “success” rate at a stubbornly-rigorous 136 shots per hour (I aim to achieve at least a 10% “success” rate at a minimum pace of 100 shots per hour).

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PATH TAKEN: 

Greektown - I planned to shoot with my vintage Tokina 28mm f/2.8 (ca. 19??) (which I used in my most recent Jam Session [support me on Patreon for access to that video before it is publicly-published {as well as many videos and other posts that are Patreon-supporter-exclusives}]), but it caused an issue with my camera body’s shutter mechanism, so I switched it out for my Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 (ca. 1971), which I never used the whole day anyways! Instead, I embraced the challenge of the Tokina SZ-X 60-300mm f/4-5.6 (ca. 19??) and the alternating ease and aggravation of the Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (ca. 1971) (the f/1.2 maximum aperture, which I nearly always leave wide open, is a pain and pleasure to use). The Tokina 60-300mm lens forced me to adjust my mind to working with a zoom, which was difficult for me. I kept using it only at the 300mm telephoto limit, but I found time and again that panning out “wider” gave me stronger compositions. 

Campus Martius Park  

The Esplanade on Woodward Avenue - There seems to be the beginnings of the transfer, decorations-wise, on the esplanade from Winter wares to Spring things, as the Christmas light and evergreen-bedecked tunnel was removed (with pine needles all over the ground as its final vestige). 

Spirit of Detroit Plaza - This plaza is a new public space in the city. Dan Gilbert evidently bought (or maybe “adopted”) this space, shutting down through-traffic on the final stretch of Woodward that would have spilled into Jefferson Avenue. Photographically (and this may be a sorry excuse), I am still having trouble figuring out how to show its good angles through my camera. Every time I walk through this plaza, I am underwhelmed by how cookie-cutter it looks. I want to take pictures that are alive and vibrant and impactful. I also want my shots to look unique and particular, and those two final aspirations are where I find the most difficulty, visually, with this space. Some say that there are no bad students—only bad teachers. Maybe my eye for beauty needs to expand enough to let me learn how to see that spot in a better way. 

Hart Plaza - Alas, I found that the ripped and shredded American flags that encircle this plaza were further along in their ruinous regression into separate sections compared to last week. So bad was the damage at times, the stripes on one of the flags were split, and the rectangle with the fifty stars in the field of blue were even disunited from the red and white on one of the flags (pictured in today’s “top ten” shots). Crestfallen over this worsening state (made all the more worse when I noticed the Canadian flag across the Detroit River was immaculate still), I posted two stories to my Instagram page showing some examples of the abused national standard and tagging, first, the mayor of Detroit (mayor Mike Duggan [our 75th mayor]), and then, a local news station (Fox 2 Detroit). I did not want to assume a merely complaining tone, so I asked what I or others might be able to do to help properly retire and replace these American flags. To assume a realist’s headspace, I expect nothing to happen. 

Campus Martius Park - I was wearing lots of layers, as it was “bone-chilling” cold outside, and I noticed a young woman sitting at the park on a bench in jeans and a quality winter coat (and no hat!). I asked her if she was freezing, and she said she was fine. With her permission, I took a few shots of her, trying to see how I could play with the reflection of her sunglasses. In our back and forth, as I snapped shots, I asked why she was sitting still instead of getting some warmth from increased bloodflow by maintaining some sort of motion, and she wittily replied that she had been waiting there all that time until I would come and photograph her! Hahaha. I had no clever response, and I was tickled by her diligent mind. I only thought of a clever comeback long after when I had finally reached the entrance to Greektown on foot. Folks like her happily make me have to stay sharp.

Greektown - My phone was nearly dead from my Instagram efforts at Hart Plaza, and the cold was creeping past my many layers of clothes, so I retreated to my car to enjoy my heated seats as my phone regained a more respectable battery percentage (25% as opposed to 5%). I would have left my phone charging in my vehicle, but I have no wristwatch at present, and I needed to leave precisely at 9:40 to give myself margin-enough to make it to Highland Park to visit with my photographic-better, Mr. E.P., as he was set to do some photography work there at 10:00 AM (at what used to be a stamping factory [presumably once used for Ford Motor Company back in the day, though I could not find that out]). I left Greektown at 9:20 AM, setting a timer on my phone for ten-minutes. I figured that I would walk and take pictures until the timer went off, at which point, I would turn around and walk and take pictures until I got back to Greektown right on time to leave for my next appointment in Highland Park. 

The Broadway (and Shoes) 

The Belt

The Hudson Site

The David Whitney Building - My ten minute alarm went off at this point in my journey. I had not taken any neat shots on this last leg of my 151st Detroit street photography session, so I stubbornly pushed forward in spite of my ten-minute time crunch.

The Rosa Parks Transit Center - I ran into a gentleman I talked with at great length this past summer (of 2018). The man and I first met at the Spirit of Detroit Plaza. He was sitting at a table all bedecked in dress clothes from a more civilized era in the history of Detroit. He was waiting for a blind date that was evidently extremely late by the time I left (or perhaps she never showed up after all). I photographed this man at the transit center (SMART bus super station). While he did allow my photographing him again, he continually insisted that I should be quick with my work, since he had a bus to catch. I tried to be quick, but I heavily underexposed him in the first few shots before moderately overexposing him in the final shots. I always say, “when all else fails, make the image monochromatic.” That is how I covered the greatly-underexposed (and shoddily-corrected in post-processing) picture. 

Lafayette Street 

Campus Martius Park 

Monroe Street 

Greektown - I made it back to my car by 9:45 AM, and I drove like Jehu to my final stop of the day and arrived at 10:01 AM. Not bad timing (all things considered)! 

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WHAT WENT ON ON THIS DAY OUT IN DETROIT?

I arrived before dawn began and left before mid-morning ended. I hoped to make something good out of such a short time to shoot up and around the beauty of and on the streets of Detroit (a city I do not love but am hoping to thoroughly appreciate more and more as the weeks [and years] carry on). The most memorable moment of the day out shooting street photography was when I took time-lapses of the tattered American flags in Hart Plaza and tagged the seventy-fifth mayor of Detroit and also some of the mavens of the fourth estate (in an effort to encourage the proper care of our national standard [the American flag]).

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[ryanellisphoto]

#148 — Saturday, February 2nd, 2019 — Ryan Ellis Photography - Detroit Street Photography Session #148 — Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 (ca. 1971) - Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (ca. 1977) - Joel Bosco 

Arrived @ 10:30 AM 

Departed @ 4:30 PM 

796 photos (and 13 videos) taken in 6 hours with just 63 “keepers” among them, rendering an 8% “success” rate at a pace of 132.67 shots per hour (I aspire to have at least a 10% “success” rate, taking at least 100 photos per hour as I am going out and around).

PATH TAKEN:

Greektown

The Broadway (and Shoes) (I met [again] and photographed the owner, Pepper Martin)

The Belt (I hesitated to photograph as freely as I usually do in order to preserve what I thought were the only two batteries I had on me… I wanted to put a positive twist on my blunder in my head [extoling the creativity that might spring at last by the pressure of a limitation], but my realism overrode my optimism this once, and I let myself mourn my apparent absent-mindedness)

David Klein Gallery (So very graciously, I was allowed to see the showing prior to the gallery’s opening time for the day. This is already my favorite gallery in the city. To use a lovely old-English word, I was astonied by that level of kindness; it stuck with me all day)

The Detroit Shoppe (I photographed and chatted with the man tending the store)

Campus Martius Park (I met with my hip hop pal, “Shadow Klan.” I told him I had portraits of him as well as a mix CD made by a recent friend I met at the Detroit Synth Project. This man can do a good bit musically, and in this context was doing early hip-hop-sounding beats. I hope to collaborate with the good man.)

Monroe Street headed towards GT (I photographed the two birds [one in flight] here… I asked a man passing by why there was a small knot of sparrows all collected on top of one SUV parked by the road with bike racks on it as opposed to the similar SUV right behind it that had nothing whatsoever on top of its otherwise quite-identical roof. He said that it was because there was snow that was turning to ice atop the one that was absent atop the other. I agreed and praised the man’s intelligence and perception. Also, the sun, I thought, was shining on the one car and not the other.)

Greektown (I gathered my portraits of “Shadow Klan” as well as my Detroit Synth Project-veteran pal’s hip-hop mix CD, and I laughed immensely [and for the rest of the day] about the fact I was going to turn the tables on my friend by essentially giving the giver what the giver usually gave ………… Also, I scoured my vehicle and found TWO more batteries [and this time full instead of half-full batteries for my Nikon D800! I thought I had put them on one bag, but they were in another. I shouted and sang in out and out joy for a while in my freezing cold car]! That turned my day right around from gloomy to glowing [regarding my outlook on how many shots I would be able to take] …………………… It was so cold in the car that drinking the Powerade I left in there as I went out and walked gave me immediate and intense brainfreeze!) 

Campus Martius Park (No “Shadow Klan” [my rapper pal] in sight)

The Esplanade on Woodward Avenue (from here I spied a SMART bus [just a plain, old city “omnibus,” as old Brtisihers might call it] across the street from me. I photographed the driver [with his ascent] through the window before taking a couple of portraits of him at the door from farther and nearer. He was a nice gent, and I showed him the shots and CD I had in my left hand in a grocery bag. He seemed charmed by the mission I was on to give these to my pal.)

Spirit of Detroit Plaza (Here I met Joel Bosco [travel {etc.} photographer -- his IG is joelbosco] I joked that the Spirit of Detroit had strong arms to be holding the people and gilt bronze sphere in his two arms without budging for so long. I added that we should shoot sometime together in the future, and I gave him my business card and headed further out to anywhere, Detroit)

Hart Plaza (I decided, whether or not good pictures would occur along the way, I would take my chance to wave hello to the nation geographically above and below me [Canada]. Before I got my chance, as I was walking that way, I turned and looked down a stairway that led to a below-ground commons loop, with both open and enclosed gathering areas, in the plaza. I usually avoid that area, because it is rife with homeless folks year-round and has too many spots that have too few wider views along its course to see if an attacker might be in waiting. It was what turned out to be a post service shopping cart that caught my eye and beckoned me warily down the snowy stairs. I can be daft, and I was here. I did not notice there were several young men snowboarding perpendicular to the path down the stairs I was on. There was a perpendicular set of stairs that also went from the ground level down to an underground level. I asked permission to use my camera, and when the athletes agreed, I took full advantage of the Carhart bib and coat I was wearing [with Red Wing boots] and layed across the ground to get my first shots of the extreme sports fanatics. I am a tad ashamed to include three shots from this part of my day, since I took so many other good shots; I just liked the way these felt better) ——— (I ran into Mr. Joel Bosco [the aforementioned photographer] again. I restated my desire to sometime shoot with him in the city, and he asked an interesting question, querying me what it meant to go shoot with someone. I paused and pondered and looked at him and asked what he was doing at the moment. He took on an open posture and gestured quizzically. I then said I was headed anyplace myself and asked if we might do the same path together at once, and he agreed.)

Campus Martius Park

The Hudson Site

Urban Bean Co. 

David Klein Gallery (I had such a grin on my face [and it was a dumb one] as I walked again through the gallery. I could not shake it off my face. It was shaping to be a good day, and I was overwhelmed by the goodness of the folks I knew and had just met in the city. I decided to direct more of my energy to enjoying the flutter of endorphins rather than trying to finesse their exact source)

Library Street Collective 

The Belt

Greektown 

Diamond’s Hot Dog Stand (You will never guess what Joel and I bought at the stand. He got a dog and a Pepsi; I got a dog  and  a Mountain Dew [I mostly never drink pop, so this was a rare treat]. His had jalapeños while mine did not. Diamond bought a food truck! She is expanding her business. I am happy for her and wish her all the best in the world.)

Eastern Market

Hot Bax (His IG is greektownhotbax -- He is Deon, my street drummer / bucket drummer friend. I have seen and photographed the man as long as I have been doing street photography in Detroit. I told him that my second week in Detroit [in January 2016… look up my D.S.P.S. #002] doing street shooing, I photographed his longtime collaborator drumming not far from where he was drumming. Deon seems to be doing well.)

The Belt

The Guardian Building (Mr. Joel Bosco and I parted ways after seeing just inside and part of the way around the outside of this building)

Campus Martius Park (I saw a beam of light hitting these three young men in Detroit Red Wings [our city’s professional, big league {at times world’s best} hockey team]. They were crowded around a pair of public electric scooters. I asked and was permitted to photograph them, and that I did. The one man with the overalls had a Detroit Super Mario look about him. I told him as much, and he chuckled over the resemblance)

Greektown

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WHAT WENT ON ON THIS DAY IN DETROIT?

I just told you. Hahaha. 

TL;DR — I shot alone (in the sense that I had no plans to meet with anyone that day) for the first time in months, but Providence paired me with a new friend, and together we traversed downtown and Greektown and eastern market, cameras in hand, having conversations on foot.

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