(Full Disclosure: I have previously collaborated with Joel Jensen, the photographer for this book, for a lengthy essay in the National Railroad Historical Society Bulletin, and am presently working with him on a book proposal of my own. My views, therefore, are not entirely objective.)

The railroad, and especially the steam locomotive, has been profound to the American culture. Especially in the Western regions of the U.S., where the railroad was integral to the development of modern civilization, the steam locomotive’s memory lives on in the collective imagination, despite the fact that the such machines ceased to be a meaningful force in the region’s economy more than half a century ago. Their endurance has something to do with their now foreign technological nature — they are devices with their workings on the outside, crude yet elegant mechanical marvels that seem to breathe, seem to have a pulse, seem to be alive. Across the country, dozens upon dozens of steam locomotives survive in working order, cared for by loving and often unpaid crews, and run on numerous tourist and museum railroads. Many photo books on this subjects have been published — the steam locomotive with its built-in special effects is a sort-of camera magnet, after all — but few manage to rise beyond being overwrought photo albums. There is always something slightly treacly, slightly forced about these books, possibly because there is often something of the same nature in their subjects, a feeling of canned history. Yet somehow, Joel Jensen has created a work that surpasses these, a book that shows us preserved steam as merely a continuation of an unbroken tradition going back to the workaday, pre-digital world. In Steam: An Enduring Legacy, Jensen gives us not only a glimpse into a harder, grittier, sweatier side of preserved steam, but also a work of excellent photography that stands as an artistic achievement in its own right.

The book is not a guidebook but an extended photographic journey through the survivors of the steam era. It begins with an essay by writer-photographer Scott Lothes, who provides a brief introduction to the cultural importance of the steam locomotive. The essay tells us the basics, but to anyone with knowledge of railroad history it will provide little new; clearly this is meant as a primer for the uninitiated, and it serves this job well. Following this, the bulk of the photographs appear in a gallery section. Unlike more conventional books in this genre, the photos are not sequenced by time or place. Most of these images are displayed one-per-page, with healthy white margins at all sides. After the photograph section of the book is another essay, this time by John Gruber, founder and president of the Center for Railroad Photography and Art. Gruber relates an overview of preservation and the steam locomotive, including some interesting tidbits about early, 19th century preservation movements and an able survey of contemporary efforts. He completes his essay with an overview of photography’s relationship with the preserved steam locomotive. An afterword penned by photographer Jeff Brouws follows, with an apt assessment of Jensen’s photographic style. A page of acknowledgements from Jensen complete the work.

I am intimately familiar with the tourist and heritage railway world, and so, despite my respect for the photographer and the authors, I was not anticipating this book to be particularly impressive. Aiding me in this pre-judgement was my familiarity with other works on this subject, as described above. I could not, in the end, have been more wrong. This work is a success that it transcends subject matter interest, and would serve to appeal even to the least nostalgic of railroad enthusiasts, if only they can be convinced to pick it up and look through it past its opening pages.

For these first few pages in, it is all billowing steam and dramatic light, and one might begin to fear that this will be yet one more album in the tradition of Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg, pleasant in a strawberry milkshake sort of way but not particularly memorable in its own right. It’s not that these dramatic images are bad: they are neither technically nor artistically flawed, but they are also of a genre that is not unfamiliar. But then, on page 22, it all changes in a characteristic Jensen fashion. The photo here, of two large steam locomotives and their long train of passenger cars silhoutted against a damp sky, is one of my favorites from this photographer, and I am disappointed at how small that the image runs in this book; nevertheless it breaks through the romantic bombast and begins a pattern of complex variety that marks this book as something special. Opposite this image is another fine stand-out, an image showing the roughshod nature of narrow gauge railroads, with a wandering pair of steel rails, barely any ties showing, splayed out through a ramshackle landscape, a tiny locomotive working hard to traverse the route. All darks and midtones, with barely a fleck of highlight anywhere, the image is teeth-gnashing and evocative.

The human aspect of these survivors is not neglected, and may in fact be one of the volume’s chief strengths. The careful inclusion of crewmen and other workers is a key aspect of this book’s DNA. From trackworkers hammering in spikes, to groundlings passing hand signals, to roundhouse monkeys wrestling with the oversize parts of these steel behemoths, people are a subtle but integral part to the visual story Jensen lays out for us. Sometimes they are ghostly figures, caught at work amidst the steam, while at other times, such as with a Durango and Silverton crew shown in a photo on page 57, they are cocky, defensive, weary, and proud, staring straight at the camera for a portrait the likes of which is as old as the relationship between the steam locomotive and cameras. Other similarly successful images include a portrait of a crewman for the ATSF 3751 on page 81, a Mount Rainier Scenic engineer on page 124, and mechanical workers from the Durango on 134 and 159. In some cases, these people wear the clothes of railroaders and shop workers for a century, bibs and long-sleeved work shirts and hard steel-toed boots, but in others they sport plastic hard hats and, in the case of the last of these images, modern wrap-around sunglasses. Often, photographers of contemporary steam seek to exclude such modern details, to try and recreate some sense of what they think the past was like, favoring costumes and playacting. Jensen here rejects this, and comes out with material that is intensely modern yet intensely authentic in ways that those seeking the Colonial Williamsburg of steam railroading always fail to achieve. These men look like the railroaders of the past because they are the railroaders of the past, and things like modern sunglasses don’t break the effect because such little trappings cannot contradict authenticity.

Failings? Few. One minor quibble is that the book is exclusively western material, but the book does not strongly acknowledge this regional focus. This said, the book is subtitled as “the railroad photographs of Joel Jensen,” and Joel is a creature of the West, a photographer who is constantly roaming, constantly alone, and who sees the world through different eyes. And in the end, the artistic achievement of the photographer’s work makes complaints about his geographic biases seem trivial.

Overall production values are high, as one would expect in a book from a leading publisher such as Norton. That said, there are a few minor quibbles. The paper seems a tad thinner than I am used to expecting in such a book, so that when darker images are followed by a large white space on the next page, a very faint ghost can be read through the paper. It is, however, barely perceptible, and did not significantly detract from my enjoyment of the book. As for the photos themselves, reproduction is generally of high quality. There are times when I expected more shadow detail, but this is a common failing of black-and-white reproduction in printed matter, and overall Norton has done a great job with this. My only significant quibble with reproduction is with some of the larger images displayed across the gutter; a few, such as the image of an ATSF steam engine passing behind a graveyard on pages 70 and 71, appear rather soft, as if the prints had been scanned and then displayed larger than their original size.

This book at the end of the day is not at all about what it will be labelled as: it is not a photography book about tourist and heritage steam railroads. Instead, it is a book about undying tradition. No work has ever made contemporary steam more noble, more enviable, or harder work. The contradictions and anachronisms of these surviving steam locomotives and the crew that care for them are captured nakedly in Jensen’s photos, showing us something precious, something that is not at all playacting, but instead an unbroken thread to the relationship between man and steam that began on this continent in Antebellum times. This book will be of especial interest to those who appreciate steam locomotives, the interplay of railroads and geography, and the photography of railroads.

Steam: An Enduring Legacy: The Railroad Photographs of Joel Jensen is available from Amazon and Powell’s Books.

In American culture, the railroad is often viewed as a collection of marvelous technical feats, of brutish powerful locomotives hurtling thousands of tons of freight at great speeds. Beyond this technical and technological aspect, however, the railroad has always been a place of people, a machine sure, but a machine run by human beings. Thanks to social and technological changes, however, the railroad worker of today is no longer seen or heard from on a daily basis. Instead, they exist inside a closed, wholesale-side world, one that runs 24/7/365 but largely out of view of the public consciousness. Linda Niemann, a former brakewoman on the Southern Pacific, seems more adept than any other contemporary writer at cracking open this insular, often nocturnal world to outsiders. In Railroad Noir, Niemanns’s third book, she again plunges readers into the realms of the railroad world through a series of short non-fiction narratives, accompanied by the moody, pensive imagery of photography Joel Jensen.

Following the acknowledgements is a brief introduction shared between the writer Niemann and the photographer Jensen, primarily discussing how the book came into being after many years working together on articles. The book then launches into the heart of the matter, 20 stories or life on the railroad by Niemann. The first ten are each accompanied by a single opening image from Jensen in black-and-white. Following this group comes a gallery of 21 color images and a map of the Southern Pacific system, Neimann’s former employer. The map, though handy, seems slightly incongruous slapped down here in Jensen’s photos, and would have made more sense at one end or the other of the book. Next come two short stories that begin with color images, and then seven more stories accompanied by black-and-white photographs. One chapter, “Lord of the Night,” is accompanied by a photograph of an apparently ancient drawing of a Native American god; it is unclear whose photograph this is as it is not accompanied by a location, does not fit Jensen’s usual style or subject matter, and is not included in the publisher’s official count of photos in the book. A glossary of railroad terms rounds out the work.

Railroad Noir is essentially an anthology of Niemann’s stories. Some of these were printed previously as parts of her first book, Boomer, or in the pages of TRAINS Magazine (where they were likewise accompanied by the photos of Joel Jensen). Niemann’s writing is intense and often poignant as she tells tales of the hidden underclass who populate the railroad. Her personal landscape is made up of dry, dingy built spaces, vast and terrifyingly beautiful desserts, and windblown openness. This is not the ordinary America we all see and experience, but a private, clannish world, a refuge for the people who, as Niemann puts it, are “on the borders” of life. She is brutally honest and raw with her descriptions of her co-workers lives, from drug addiction to sexual problems and alcoholism. Niemann is no finger-wagger, however, and spends considerable time examining her own life with all of its flaws and mistakes. Yet at no time does Niemann come off as moralizing. She presents this world not without a judgement for or against it, but instead with a kind of documentarian’s sensibility. The railroad world and its inhabitants, to Niemann, are a microcosm of humanity that has value and should be recorded and understood. Her writing is both open and slightly sentimental, which only adds to the complexity and confusion over what to think of this part of society.

The pairing of the text with Jensen’s photos is very complimentary, as Jensen has a gritty loner’s eye that immediately makes the viewer feel like both an insider and an outcast. Images like “Mechanics on break” on page 62 or “Truck stop” on page 110 speak loudly of the isolation of this world view. More poignant, however, are the two images of railroad workers walking in the snow towards their motels, “Off duty” on page 70 and “Home away from home” on page 71. Both have an eerie, unearthly glow to them from a world lit only by off-color, man-made light. Beyond these pools of glow, in the blackness, there is, perhaps, another world out there sleeping, but if so it is one which the denizens of the railroad have no part or place in.

The format of the book is much like a photography book, not a book of text, and as a result it sometimes feels that there are not enough photos from Jensen. Beyond that, the book could also have benefitted from more images to help a fresh reader develop a better understanding of the tone of the world that Niemann is describing. As far as the text, Niemann continues to give us compellingly written stories of her time on the railroad. Occasionally, however, she delves into unusual side-jaunts away from the railroad — one such jaunt takes us with her to Mexico where she learns Spanish by immersion. It is only after a few of these narrative sidebars occur that the reasoning becomes clear: this is not a topical book about life on the railroad, but rather a memoir of someone who worked for and lived in the railroad world. In some ways, this limits the book, as an audience seeking a more topical focus might find these side-jaunts to be distracting. As a method of carrying forward a sense of authenticity, however, the decision to include these extra-railroad memories is quite effective. The title, however, remains deceptive: “Railroad Noir: The American West at the End of the Twentieth Century” does not very well convey that the book is, in fact, a highly personal biographical narrative. These are minor quibbles, however, and both the narrative and the images chosen are all top-notch work.

Fit and finish shows the book itself is a quality product. Photo reproduction looks to be good, and color is consistent and fresh. No image is spread across two pages, a stylistic choice that retains the power of most of the photos but at the price of displaying them rather small. The paper is solid and thick and should hold up well, but it also has an odd, rubbery feel to the fingers. The size of the book is moderate — its horizontal frame will fit on a standard shelf — but there are some odd quirks resulting from this format choice. Although this is basically a book of stories accompanied by some photographs, this size makes it inconvenient to take as a piece of travel reading. It is also not ideal to read in your lap in an armchair, or in bed. Despite the fact that it is a fairly small coffee-table book, a coffee-table book it remains, and it feels best to read it at a table. This is not exactly the most comfortable place to spend time getting lost in Niemann’s compellingly penned world.

Overall, Railroad Noir is an interesting book with some sophisticated photos and a moving set of narratives. Photographers may find the book a good addition to their collection, but this is not primarily a photography book and it is certainly not a pictorial aimed at a typical railfan market. The book should prove interesting to those with an interest the human and social sides of railroading as well as those who enjoy railroad literature. .

Railroad Noir: The American West at the End of the Twentieth Century is available from Amazon, Powell’s Books, as well as directly from the publisher.

Classic Steam: Timeless Photographs of North American Steam Railroading

By John Gruber. Forward by William L. Withun. Fall River Press, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10016; http://www.sterlingpublishing.com/imprints?imprint=Fall+River+Press; 12.25 x 12.8 in; hardbound; 224 pages, 43 color and 248 b/w photos, $19.98

The steam era of railroading in North America remains one of the most evocative subjects in transportation history. The period has become a romanticized, almost stereotyped part of the American narrative, part-and-parcel of our national myth along side Paul Revere, wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, and the storied two-lane blacktop of Route 66. Even to those far too young to have witnessed the steam era, the iconography of the word “train” remains the cartoon-like image of a steam locomotive, huffing and chuffing, belching steam, smoke, and cinders. In Classic Steam: Timeless Photographs of North American Steam Railroading, author John Gruber attempts to take us on a photographic trip back to that era.

The book opens with a forward by William L. Withuhn, a curator at the Smithsonian and author of a previous work along similar themes, the volume Spirit of Steam from the mid 1990s. As Withuhn notes, Classic Steam is meant to be a follow-on to that volume. The forward text — like all subsequent texts throughout this rather hefty volume — is short, and frames the work as a collection of photographs of the late steam era in the United States.

Following the forward, Gruber presents us with a three page introduction, by far the longest stretch of text in the entire work. Much of the text discusses the steam locomotive itself, rather than railroading in the steam era in a general sense. Although Gruber does briefly — and perhaps presciently — mention the influence of photographers Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg on the cultural image of the steam era railroad, this text is primarily a short nostalgic romp, even going so far as to rope in a mention of Lionel toy trains and the author’s grandson.

Next come eight chapters, each containing a multitude of photographs. Each chapter is themed: shortlines, narrow gauge, local passenger trains, luxury named trains, mainline railroads, people, stations, and steam in preservation today. These themes are not always immediately evident, however, as some chapter titles carry quotes such as “Connections to…” and no explanatory deck. Following the title is a short text — about 200 words or less on average — that provides a bit more explanation, but little in the way of additional detail. After this brief interlude of text — opposite a full page image — we launch into the meat of the chapter, consisting of primarily black-and-white images. Although some images are shown at less than a quarter page, most are bigger, and many are shown either full page (and full bleed) or double truck.

Also interspersed within each chapter are what could best be described as mini features, each relating to the chapter’s theme. These usually consist of 2-3 images across a two-page spread, accompanied by a text of some sort, usually about the action caught within the images themselves. Following the last chapter is an index, a brief listing of biographies for some of the photographers of the book, and some other housekeeping material.

Having almost no interpretive text, this book is dedicated to the images themselves. Gruber has chosen to give us a rich range of photographers, including the likes of J. Parker Lamb, Richard Steinheimer, David Plowden, Jim Shaughnessy, and Phil Hastings. He also gives us outsiders like Farm Services Administration (FSA) photographers Gordon Parks and Jack Delano. (A number of the latter’s precious color images adorn the book.) We also get work from less well known photographers such as Frank Barry, James P. Gallagher, and John Shaw, and a number of others. Finally, the author includes a number of his own images. Each photograph in the work is accompanied by insightful, sometimes lengthy captions.

A number of images stick out as notable. One of the finer conventional scenes is that on page 29, a photograph of a small Texas shortline by Fred Springer. A small, generic looking steam locomotive approaches across a blank, rolling grassland, belching out a plume of smoke with the depth of black usually associated with burning tires. To the left and far away are some low scrubby ridges, and to the right there is only a boney old pole line, receding into the lonestar distance. There is a vast emptiness here that is timeless. On page 40, we have a view from a similar region, this time Colorado and a scrappy narrow gauge line from that state. The photographer, Barclay Robsinson, has shot from the roof top of some of the train’s boxcars, looking up towards the head end and against the sun. Two plumes of dense black exhaust pile skyward, one from the lead engine, and one from a helper tucked in mid-train. It is not just a photograph of a train, it is a classic photograph of the mythic West. Looking at this image, one almost expects to see Wyatt Earp riding down the dreaded red-sashed cowboys on the flanks of the distant rolling hills.

More precious, perhaps, are some of the human interest photographs. An image on page 102 from the Arthur Dubin collection at Lake Forest College shows a worker at Chicago Union Station in 1938, adjusting a new electric sign for the Pennsylvania Railroad. There is only the monolithic sign with its promises of escape, and the face of the worker awash in its reflected glow. What is there, beyond the darkness, between the worker and the sign? The picture is sharp and precise, and the years between the viewer and the viewed fall away into the shadows. Another image of labor and the steam era is found on page 153, in a photograph of a young hostler in Winnepeg, Manitoba helping to refuel a locomotive with coal. Taken by FSA veteran Gordon Parks, the hostler is fresh faced and caught mid-work, with no artifice or pose, his hair tossed in the breeze and his feet lost in the swirl of blurry coal dust. The photograph does display some odd yellow haze, as if it had once been toned, but despite the flaws it remains fresh, almost cinematic.

The last two images I will mention are both panoramas, but very different ones and from different eras. The first is a photograph by Esther Bubley of the New York Central’s yards at Weehawken, New Jersey, found on page 174. Apparently taken in the 1930s, the photo shows a busy, gritty yard beside the Hudson River as a short train departs below the highly-set camera. Taking up the upper quarter of the image, beyond the river, is the classic skyline of Manhattan, triumphantly centered on the ghostly presence of the Empire State Building. Few images so well capture the era of American industrial progress. Just looking at it gives one the urge to break out the Monopoly game board. Displaying an equally breathtaking but completely opposite scene is Joel Jensen’s black-and-white panorama of a Union Pacific steam special, found spread across pages 210 and 211. Pushed far down to the bottom of the frame is the train — the entire length of it, from it twin steam locomotives at the head end to the observation car at the rear. Hovering over the train is a sweep of exhaust, and above it all is a sky that is vast, tumultuous, and heavy with portents of rain and change.

Classic Steam puzzled me from the first glance. This is a thick volume — it is over 200 pages after all, and weighs a total of five pounds. It is, in short, a tank, with a massive amount of content stuffed into it. Between the sheer number of images and (at first) unclear organizational method, it seems to lack focus. Upon cracking it open for the first time, one wonders, is it a book on locomotives? The forward suggests not, the introduction doesn’t really clue us in either way, and the first chapter with its nebulous title is primarily a collection of locomotive pictures. While the book is more than locomotive-centric, this makes for a misleading start. Even after grasping the organizational idea, there’s still the feeling that there’s just too much there. The book would benefit from tighter organization, or less overall content, or best of all more text to provide a narrative upon which to hang this large collection of images.

It is only after considering the broad range of photographic talent within the volume that the book begins to make some sense. Classic Steam is not a comprehensive illustrated history, nor a book about the photography of steam era railroading. Instead, it is a general pictorial, in every way the spiritual successor to the many works of Beebe and Clegg, mentioned by Gruber in his introduction and included among the ranks of the photographers in the book. Like this duo, Gruber includes a wide selection of the best photographers, has a ranging taste in subjects, and happily includes his own (thoroughly deserving) photographs along side those of his contributors.

Regarding quality and finish, this is a mass market book, produced for sale at Barnes & Noble, and as such there are a number of compromises that have been made to bring the price down. Most notably, the cover stock is printed paper over board, much like a college text book. This likely will not hold up as well long-term as a cloth covered binding. The book does come with a dust jacket, printed with the same colorful design as the cover, but in true B&N fashion it will likely have a large price sticker slapped on the front, as mine did. Overall, the size of the book is massive, to the point that it feels almost too large for holding in ones lap; this truly is a coffee table book. Fortunately, the spine does allow the book to lay fairly flat, and the double-truck images thus are displayed fully and excellently.

Image reproduction is acceptable, but there are many cases where the darks of an image have become somewhat blocky and dense. Having printed black-and-white before and seen many prints in person, I suspect that there were subtle midtones and darks that were lost in the printing. That said, this is a generalist book and it is unlikely that the audience it is intended for will notice this. There are a couple of odd choices, however. Although the quality of images chosen is generally high, a few images were sourced from prints that appear to have been made in rather dusty darkrooms that were not equipped with spotting brushes. (This can perhaps be forgiven, however, considering the rarity and likely lack of negatives for some of these images.) Worse, though, is the leading image of chapter eight, a shot of an East Broad Top locomotive wreathed in steam. The color image blatantly displays heavy pixelization, as if the image were a low quality JPEG from the Internet that had only been used by mistake.

Overall, Classic Steam is one of the more comprehensive photographic anthologies of steam era railroading produced in the last half century. Unlike many consumer oriented generalist books, Gruber has assembled an “all-star” cast of photographers and content. Although the book has some flaws — mostly due to a lack of enough text “backbone” — it is a huge endeavor and when the price is considered it becomes likely the best book deal in a long long time. Although the book frustratingly lacks much in the way of an interpretive history, a photographer may find this to be the greatest bargain way of sampling some of the most meaningful railroad photographers of the mid 20th Century. In addition, those with a general interest in railroad history or those seeking a gift for a young person with a budding interest in railroads would be well advised to pick up a copy. In some ways, this successor to the tradition of Beebe and Clegg is just that, a gift to the author’s young grandson and an attempt to convey to that generation a precious experience before all traces of its memory are lost.

Classic Steam: Timeless Photographs of North American Steam Railroading is available from Barnes & Noble.

The desk serves on today, but with slightly less pizazz. While it still holds checkbooks and postage and envelopes and the like, it also serves as a stand for a three year old iMac. I’m reminded of my own “desk” a bit, and the war that always goes on between the space my computer takes up and the space I need to spread out my eight-and-a-half-by-eleven redundant memory aides. (They used to call that paper in the 20th century.)

Earlier today I used my computer and the incredible power of the Internet for a very non-technical purpose: to find labels. You know the type: gum backed, with a little foil edge, the kind that used to go on the marbled covers of composition books, the kind that used to lurk n my mother’s desk. I didn’t find any, but much like when I go searching Wikipedia, I ended up making what a friend calls a “wiki-tree” of strange ephemeral goodness. Follow along, all you fellow paper geeks!

First up is Donovan Beeson, who makes various handmade stationery products and sells them on her Etsy page. Handmade envelopes, custom journals, shipping labels. All very cool stuff. Donovan also has a blog, Murmurs and Musings, which focuses naturally enough on the lost world of paper. While browsing through her archives, I found a post point towards sarcastic stationer 16 Sparrows, who had begun a campaign known as the “Letter Writer’s Alliance”. (You can buy LWA stationery here.) The LWA mission is, and I quote:

“In this era of instantaneous communication, a handwritten letter is a rare and wondrous item. The Letter Writers Alliance is dedicated to preserving this art form; neither long lines, nor late deliveries, nor increasing postal rates will keep us from our mission. As a member of the Letter Writers Alliance, you will carry on the glorious cultural tradition of letter writing. You will take advantage of every opportunity to send tangible correspondence. Prepare your pen and paper, moisten your tongue, and get ready to write more letters!”

I always find it amusing to see the net used for these sorts of projects. Paper hasn’t died, it’s just become a fashion symbol! It’s probably no surprise this kind of thing is up my alley, after all I do shop a Blue Moon Camera and Machine.

Another source for ephemeral goodness is PodPost. Sadly, their “Pod Post Mail Art Bento” is out of stock. Too bad, too, it combines all my love of ephemera and otakuness in one convenient bundle. Drat!

As I skipped along, I also ran into busynest cards. Busynest focuses on a very lost art — the calling card. There’s some really nice graphic design work here. These cards really do drive home the odd mixture the Internet has brought about: an out-of-date practice (calling cards) married to a very sleek and modern graphic design and sold worldwide over the ‘Net. The 21st century is a strange place.

As for calling cards themselves? This page has the scoop on what they were and why. Interesting tidbits: a calling card doesn’t include where you work, and includes your profession only if it gives you a title (M.D., General, etc…), as including your place of work or firm makes the card a business card, and therefore socially inappropriate to leave as a calling card:

“it was considered to be in very poor taste to use a business card when making a social call. A business card, left with the servants, could imply that you had called to collect a bill.”

Interestingly, what we consider today to be a business card — flashy pictures, promotional saying, establishment name displayed prominently, and so forth — was not at that time considered a business card at all, but a “trade card”.

Now, where did I put my Fedora?

From The Addendum @ route99west.com | © Alexander B. Craghead

Unfortunately my current living situation makes developing and printing at home impractical. In addition, developing slides is very nearly impossible at home, involving a process that is far more touchy and hazardous. Because of this, I’ve done most of my developing with labs. Portland, a capital of the advertising industry, was at one time blessed with pro labs who offered top notch work and fast turnaround.

Of course, the digital revolution has changed all that. My first pro lab, Wy’East Color, went out of business not long after the media industry implosion that followed the 2001 Dot Bomb. Following that, I began to use a gem of a lab, PhotoCraft. The lab was located on the third floor of the Oregon Pioneer Building. The base level of the building houses the famous Huber’s. PhotoCraft offered a quick turnaround of 4 hours for film developing. The result was that whenever I needed to handle developing, I’d just hop an early express bus downtown, drop the film, then go kill four hours exploring downtown. I always meant to get to eating at Hubers, reasoning I’d stop by and have a Spanish Coffee and one of their trademark turkey sandwiches.

Earlier this year, the Photocraft offices moved one door down, to a smaller space. At the same time, they reduced their hours. I began to sense something might be closing in.

Fast forward to this August, I returned to Ohio to visit friends and do some photography. Once I returned, I had a small pile of Fuji slide film to deal with. Since I was broke, I tossed them in a Ziploc and threw them in my mini-fridge. Motivation didn’t strike until a week ago. I hadn’t been downtown since July, so I was looking forward to the trip, figuring I’d do a bit of walking around, maybe checking out the progress of construction on the Bus Mall. In through the doors of the building, up the elevator, down the hall… to a darkened door.

The course of things had finally taken it’s toll. As of August 20th, the lab’s retail film services had closed.

This isn’t to say I’m without options. Thankfully, Blue Moon processes film as well as maintaining it’s stock of retro-cool cameras and journalism-related gear. (It’s like stepping into 1965 there.) But of course, there’s no 4 hour turnaround at Blue Moon. Plus, they are located in St. Johns. As much as I love St. Johns with its nostalgic yet healthy blue collar feel, it’s an additional twenty minutes away for me and not easily accessed via transit from the depths of suburbia.

I’m thankful for Blue Moon. Many places don’t have it so good. And I have to say their work was excellent. But all the same, I’m saddened to see this latest turn of events. I’ll always shoot real, honest-to-goodness black-and-white film, but at least as far as color photography goes, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before I go digital.