Here’s what’s left after the fire.
Category: architecture
Architecture
Burning Down The Block
I am posting my blog very late today, because I got home late from the fire. The flamenco studio on the end of our block caught on fire yesterday afternoon and it turned into a major fire that threatened the rest of the block. Patrician Design was the most immediately threatened business, and fortunately the firewall between PD and the flamenco studio held. Our offices above Gold Street Cafe got a lot of smoke, but late, after they had the fire out and the power was restored, I opened up the office for some firemen and women who brought a big fan in and blew out as much of the smoke as the could from those offices. While they were blowing smoke out of the offices upstairs, I went downstairs and got all the servers fired back up. After that, the fire marshal gave me permission to secure the office, set the alarms and go home. The photos show the progression of the fire and the last photos are of Patti of Patrician Design celebrating that her boutique didn’t burn down. The fire caused a lot of excitement and anxiety for what started out to be a rather lazy afternoon.
Men at Work
There is a stereotype of road workers standing around leaning on their shovels. While this photo reinforces the stereotype, I believe these guys are waiting for a fresh load of asphalt. I worked construction when I was young, and no matter what the stereotypes are, construction workers have hard jobs, and often have to work outside in bad weather this time of year. I remember digging footings and having to use a pickaxe to break up the frozen soil in single digit temperatures back in my days as a construction worker. I was young and stupid back then.
But today’s photo reminded me of when we were living in Spain, and we came home one summer. Tristan had a rat that died and we were having a funeral for it. I had dug the hole and was leaning on the shovel, with Laurie and my parents gathered around the hole while Tristan read from a book of prayers from the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church. While we were in the middle of the funeral for a rat, one of my guitar students drove up in his pickup truck with his windows down and music blasting, parked, got out and asked what was going on. I told him we were burying a rat, so he stood around the hole with us while we finished the last rites, then I gave Tristan the shovel, and went off to give my student his guitar lesson. After we started the lesson my student paused and said “I’m sorry I barged in on the funeral like that. When I saw everyone standing around a freshly dug hole, and you leaning on a shovel, it looked like a normal work project for New Mexicans!”
Birds over Downtown
Those specs that look like I could have a very dirty sensor are actually birds flying over downtown Albuquerque with the sunset lighting up the Manzanos in the background.
The Sticks
When you live out in the sticks.
The Morning After
The snowed covered, western face of the Sandias looked rugged and chiseled in the early morning light after the storm. A lone basket in a spent field looked kind of sad abandoned and snow covered.
NM Winter Wonderland
Snow, snowmen, and wintery landscapes at sunset.
Paris Authentic
Does anyone remember Marcel Duchamp’s found art? The urinal he simply signed “R. Mutt 1917” was discussed it my art, art history, photo and photo history classes when I was a geography/photography student some 30 years ago. We finally got to see it in person at the Pompidou Center in Paris in June. Even though this piece was quite popular among the art professors and art students at the university, I didn’t have to hold my camera above crowds of admiring people to get a photo of Duchamp’s porcelain masterpiece, as Laurie pointed out. I could actually touch it as there were no barriers around it, alarms to set off or even a guard in the room.
So Much for the Opera
I had to do major sneaking to get this photograph of the cutaway model of the opera in Paris. It was in a museum that strictly forbid photos, and there were guards everywhere to remind people not to take photos. First I had to wait for a break in the hordes of tourists marveling at the model, then I had to wait for the guard to get up and walk out of earshot of my shutter before I could sneak a pic. It took several tries over three different visits to the museum before I got a successful stealth photo of the model. One reason I wanted a photo of this model is because the box seats on the end of the first row of box seats was the box we sat in when we went to an opera at the end of May. The apartment we rented in Paris was a block from the Opera. The second photo was taken from the middle of the street by the apartment and the third photo is looking the other way toward the Louvre at the bottom of the street.
Christo Style Construction
When I saw the old Audio Express building that is being remodeled into some kind of restaurant all wrapped up in plastic, I thought of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who are well known for wrapping islands, trees, rivers and creating other large wrapped environmental installations. We heard Christo speak many years ago when we were art students. I don’t remember much of what his talk was on, but I’ve always been impressed with his work. The construction workers created a nice piece of art, wrapping the building out of necessity to keep the fresh plaster from freezing. They didn’t understand what I saw in the plastic wrapped building that was worth photographing.
On the other side of the parking lot, the strings of red chiles and surroundings had a “wrapped” look of their own through my telephoto lens.
Off Center & Not Even 