Photographing Key West

It happened that my wife and I were downtown and we drove past the county courthouse and I thought to myself that would be a good spot to start an early morning walk. So that's what I did, I parked in their  ample parking lot and  got going. But first...

...I got my camera out. There aren't enough brick buildings in Key West so when I get to see light and shadow I tend to stand there and enjoy it.  

 Rusty had his nose down while I had mine up. I never use a tripod so hand held shots require a certain finesse in the dark. Finesse maybe, but in camera and in lens stabilization helps a lot too! Modern digital technology is astonishing. I try taking pictures that should not really come out at all, and sometimes, as we shall see, I get a decent enough representation that I post it here so I can remember the moment.

 Since I was laid up in the hospital, a period that had me reflecting pretty hard about the years remaining to me, I decided photography would be an important part of recording the remainder of my life, partly as a record and partly to spur me to live a life worth recording through a  lense. I started several months ago coming to grips with what modern photography means. It turns out photography is a series of angry people on various mediums and in various forums telling everyone else what to do. Oddly enough that is pretty much a representation of life on line these days it seems. So I sifted and thought, searched and found.

There is a huge group of people who want to do more than take selfies with phones  and there is a small group of professional photographers who wield huge cameras (Digital Single Lense Reflex cameras) and these groups argue about the value of equipment and the meaning of composition and the number of megapixels you need and the length of the lense and the background noise caused by high ISO ("eye-SO"). I decided to go back and look at classic photographers and they showed me the way, simple equipment and stories well told frequently in black and white.

I use black and white at night for effect as the white balance changes all he time with the different kinds of light sources and grainy night pictures in black and white aren't as glaring as color shots. Plus I'm walking a dog, not standing in contemplation of my subject so right there I'm a rank amateur compared to the loud voices on the photography forums. I take a picture, I check it out as seems obvious when I have an instant digital representation and with a tug of the leash I get after Rusty who is ready to hurry ahead. Checking pictures in camera after you've taken them is known as "chimping" among the nattering classes who obviously can't remember what a pain it was taking an expensive film picture and having to wait to see what you got. Nowadays I check right away and make corrections for another go there and then. Obvious and simple.

I do use a few editing tools, in the phone on Google Photos where I store my pictures and I have a couple of apps, Snapseed by Google and Touch-ReTouch out of eastern Europe somewhere. I have been trying to overcome my squeamishness about messing with what the camera sees but it seems editing is part of the digital process and I am not a journalist or anything more than a rank amateur so I take out overhead wires often, or I will crop and delete the excessive number of trash cans left on city streets.

                                         

Years ago when I was a radio reporter in Santa Cruz, California, I got in the habit of recording my interviews on a portable cassette recorder designed for the job. I went to interviews with it slung over my shoulder with a microphone in hand and every time I heard a good quotation I popped the cassette out and put in a  fresh tape. That made it easy to recover the half dozen or so quotations I needed and the story pretty much wrote itself by the time I got back to the newsroom typewriter. I was fast and I met deadlines. I find myself doing the same thing with a camera. I take pictures, I line them up on the page and I write to them. This bench struck me when I saw it, but as you can see at 5 in the morning it needed a tripod or a steady balancing act on a nearby object, something Rusty was too busy to allow and these are his walks. Yet I like the picture, the artificial shade from the tree behind the Kino sandal factory on Lang Miliam Lane. I can imagine sandal makers taking their breaks right here. I took as dark a picture as I dared and lightened it up and sharpened it in Snapseed and this was as good as I could get it. Perhaps I should have left it out...

Walking back down the alley toward Southard Street I was struck by the huge head staring out onto the street from an art gallery filled with turquoise color. In black and white the effect was not there so I switched my FZ1000 to one of the color modes and took a couple of pictures. Amazon sells he camera for 600 bucks and I got mine lightly used on eBay for $350. It's an older model with a fixed lense but it is packed with features and above all is easy to connect to my phone to download pictures directly to the iPhone and to Google pictures. Like my radio days of my youth, my photography is  rapid, cheap and cheerful. A bridge camera or super-zoom with a fixed lense is not really the thing in the world of detachable lenses. A world where I'd have to spend at least two grand to get lenses for a Micro Four Thirds camera what the FZ1000 gives me in a  single package. It does use up batteries but I have three in my bag so I just charge them in rotation and keep taking pictures.

I am not a huge fan of photographing people, and if I say this I don't mean it as a criticism but I don't see a huge number of interesting people on the streets of Key West. In the tourist areas you get the tourist get up and the blank stares of people taking in stuff they've never seen before. The number of bona fide eccentrics left in Key West seems to have been crushed by the influx of mainstream humanity from Up North.I myself don't qualify as anyone you'd think would be worth photographing though in my own defense I am not keen to tell other people how to live. The constant outrage about every little act of non conformity in Key West has worn me down over the years. Ban this, ban that, regulate and limit just about everything is the mantra. Consequently if you ave a tendency to stick out you will get mown down. Art, eccentricity, and a personal vision of the world cannot flourish in a climate of disapproval combined with a ridiculous cost of living. 

Besides that refrain the world of photography has become a tool for outrage in itself.  The use of the phone camera to humiliate and hold up for disapproval has made the notion of public photography a negative activity.   I seek irony and contrast on the streets, I seek geometry and shapes and colors or shades, but people don't attract my eye.

This one below, I took principally not because he is not identifiable (he's not) but because he is lying right next to the Sons of Anarchy poster. Passing out in a Duval Street doorway is as powerful an act of anarchy as any you can dream up these days in button down Key West. I salute his temerity.

 It's tempting sometimes to feel sorry for yourself and your environment.  I look around and see: no seasons, no mountains, no rivers, no variety when I'm having a bad creative day.  Of course when looked at from another point of view I'm lucky to live in an endless summer etc...etc... But there is no chance for me to see a changing leaf color or a snow drift or even a bank of fog or a river valley. I live on a narrow strip of land with a mangrove monoculture and turquoise waters and uninteresting architecture outside Old Town. And yet, here I am after twelve years still taking pictures. 

I watched a YouTube video discussing the notion of someone making and selling a simpler camera with fewer settings  and of course the questioner, an English photo instructor Mike Browne, elicited lots of support from passers by for a camera with fewer buttons. No I said, no. I want all the choices and I want to choose which modes I want and which I don't and which I'll try now and which I'll try later when the mood takes me.I want choice in my camera because I have no choice in my locations. And not many in my subjects. I may have to try to learn how to photograph people here pretty soon. I can't keep using chickens or Rusty as stand ins.

The two photographs above I took on Bahama Street, the first was supposed to feature a non cooperative chicken and the second a skateboarder who beat me  into fuzziness as I struggled to hold the camera and the dog at the same time. Below I wanted to caption this picture as a question. What do you think the sign said? (And it wasn't Welcome.)"

This picture below came to mind as Rusty and I advanced down Bahama Street toward Eaton and Rusty took a turn into the parking lot at St Paul's so I got this less than usual shot of the big white cathedral on Duval Street. I brightened it up a little on Snapseed to try to highlight the tiny tips at the top of the steeple. It sort of works I suppose but the black sky sets it all off nicely, except....the black vee draws your eyes down to the presbytery on the left. Whoops...Not very successful.

I sent this picture to a  friend who had doubted the previous day that I would show up for Broga at seven in the morning. So I sent him a picture of Rusty from my phone and said I'm up. How about you?  But as you can see I should have adjusted the white balance to make it look clean. Instead I left what Apple gave me to illustrate my earlier point.

On our way back to the car we passed the Tropic Cinema and I decided to take yet another picture of the place. This time a long shot showing off half the block. I like the look offsetting the cinema i the right third of the picture. This time the leading line of the black night leads directly to the theater side of the buildings.

There. Full disclosure on what I'm thinking about when I take the pictures documenting Key West -beyond the selfie brigades - ad how I muck about with the pictures. When the day comes that I no longer live and work here I want to be able to look back and see the town I knew no matter what ghastly direction the future offers. A Category Five Hurricane won't take these pictures away no matter the flooding. We'll always have the pictures.

Bark Park

My wife's car got a flat and she left it for me to deal with while she drove to work in my car, the old fashioned Ford that actually has a spare tire in the trunk. This modern weight saving crap of not having a spare wheel makes no sense to me. You need at least a doughnut to get you to a tire shop.  

 I had Rusty so we stopped at the bark park in Big Pine just because the idea popped into my head.

 I think they've done a really nice job of this dog park, with a small dog area on its own side.  This one is expansive and shaded and even though the grass is shredded where it continues to grow it is lush and thick.

 Apparently they fear a not picking up problem. Check out the signage:

 I don't understand people who don't pick up their dog shit. If you can't grasp a dog turd in plastic bag then don't get a dog because your neighbors don't want to step in it.

The worst of it is when you own a dog you end up stepping in far more of it because your dog takes you where others have gone before. I pocket it, take it back to the car and put it in the fuel cap. When I get home i drop it in the trash. If I forget I'll remember when I stop to get gas and open the filler cap and there it is, right next to the gas station trash can. Simple.  

 I don't know why all this signage is necessary but it seems to work. I stepped in nothing and saw nothing. Small mercies.

It was raining and I was driving my wife's car so instead of my sober black umbrella I was mincing around walking my dog while protected by a  polka dot dome. 

I notice the assistance offered to wheelchair users, Pretty cool I thought when I saw the strip of asphalt. In the past I hadn't really thought much about it. After my bout of wheel chair riding I tend to notice this stuff more. And appreciate it.

Rusty loved the grass. He isn't too fond of dog parks generally as he gets overwhelmed by too many dogs and even the confused mass of scents they leave behind seems to make him nervous.

 But he seemed to enjoy this one.

 He sloped around nose to the ground...

 ...while I found a bench to sit on.

You'll spot the ball field from Key Deer Boulevard as you drive toward the Blue Hole and Port Pine Heights. The dog park is, as you can see right behind the playing field.

 It could be a busy place and in winter it will be too.

I'm glad it survived Irma.

A Van Not A Boat

Custom Coach Creations in DeLand cashed our five thousand dollar check, our  van is ordered and expected sometime around March next year. It will be delivered to the conversion factory in North Florida and CCC will then start the work of creating a camper interior to our specifications. The die is cast. The deposit is non refundable, the journey into retirement has begun.

My wife is working out all the details in her head, as she ponders and rejects options, plans kitchen drawer space and rejects the notion of a convection oven. She thought she really wanted a convection oven but we bought one for the house and she finds it to be an excellent microwave but as an oven she has little use for it. She prefers the toaster oven which she uses all the time. So she created a few sleepless nights for herself figuring out if this was the best idea, and then she mentally dealt with how to store the toaster oven while we are driving. If she doesn't use the convection oven at home she probably won't on the road.

I offer that anecdote by way of example. When we bought our boat I wanted a boat that could sail and my wife knew she wanted a comfortable interior. We spent ages trying to find a hull for me and  an interior for her compatible with the needs of two large dogs. If you care to know a Gemini 105 catamaran filled the requirements even though we were told it was too lightweight for extended travel. Guess they were wrong, but then armchair critics always are.  With the van our choices are much simpler with only three brands of van to choose amongst and we already knew we needed 21 feet in length with a high top and a gasoline engine. Ford or Dodge? Not much difference for me, front wheel drive versus rear...ho hum I don't care. The Dodge Promaster won out because we can get a queen sized bed sideways in the back where the Ford Transit is a tad too narrow.  Not a very engineered decision but if momma ain't happy....I certainly wouldn't be happy. We both knew  a diesel Sprinter van wasn't right for us as diesel fuel requires special blends these days and catalytic converters require diesel exhaust fluid.  Plus Mercedes Benz charges $30,000 more for their very special diesel vans...none of which added up for us. Modern gas vans get around 16 mpg to the Sprinter's 20 mpg.

Now we wait until Dodge delivers the van to Bob who is the owner of CCC and a Promaster dealer, then we get together and finalize our build which should be completed three months after Bob receives the van from Dodge. This timeline means quite a bit of fielding queries from my wife about table size, drawer design and  where will we keep the gadgets?  For my part I find myself trusting the process which gives me a weird sense of detachment.

There were half a dozen options we had to order with the van, a larger alternator for more electricity when the engine is running, a shelf over the cab, cruise control, a back up camera and Bluetooth radio so we can connect our phones to the speaker system and navigation screen. We also ordered windows in the back door and after that minor rush of activity, which amounted to a thirty minute phone call I'm back to twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the next step. Bob says we'll get in touch when the van is delivered and discuss the final build. The cost for the van with options came to $39,500 and the build should cost around $35,000 and we expect the grand total with tag and taxes to be around $80,000.

The odd thing for me is I feel no anxiety.  I move forward with some inner certainty I cannot identify that reassures me that all is well.  I barely give any thought to what we shall do after the journey is complete, where we will live or how. We have a few ideas, perhaps a boat in Key West, but we both know the journey will change us and what we will want, if we are even alive, may well have changed by the time we get back. I had the same irrational sense of ease and certainty before we took off sailing and indeed things fell into place after we arrived in Key West. Except then we needed jobs and this trip will be funded by our retirement pensions deposited automatically each month in our bank account. That's the payoff for these years of work. We stopped sailing to make money and decided back then we wanted jobs with pensions to fund our old age and here we are, 65 and 62 respectively (about 6 for Rusty) on the downhill slope. 

I am excited to return to my nomad roots. Modern miniaturization makes living in small spaces easier than ever and modern communications keep us all in touch more efficiently than previous generations could ever have hoped.  To be on the road does not mean anymore than one has to be a hermit, and we expect to stay in touch from the road. This page may look a bit different but the photos will keep coming from other places. I have bought the domain name Travels With Rusty for a new title though the routing will remain the same conchscooter.blogspot.com and keywestdiary.com will continue to work to land here.

My wife the other night got a speculative look in her eye and wondered out loud who we will meet along the way.  In our two years sailing to Florida from California we met an extraordinary range of people and we lived and traveled with them in intimacy and difficulty that created bonds. It's hard sometimes to come back to society and explain what you have seen and done, but with others who have done the same one can often create a connection that extends beyond the adventure itself. My wife is now  thinking actively about the road we will travel, not simply as a matter of well ordered living, but of those important encounters and making connections and learning new skills. She is deeply committed.

Rusty likes his routines and I wonder sometimes how he will feel as he enters middle age, a former street dog possibly nine years old, finding himself with the horizon that keeps changing. He travels easily in the car and is as always no trouble at all, so it would seem the van will present him with nothing more complicated than an alternative space. He is an indoor/outdoor dog so our plans to camp away from crowds and away from campgrounds and away from box store parking lots will most likely suit him. On those occasions when he will be boxed in by circumstance I expect him to cope with his usual equanimity with being leashed or kept inside. He did fine when I disappeared out of his life for three weeks into the hospital. He was glad to see me when he was finally allowed to visit me in rehab, but he kept his cool when circumstances inexplicably changed and he had to stay with friends at random and his life appeared all upside down. Van living should be a piece of cake by comparison. I imagine him lying under the van as he does now under the boat in our front yard.

It's going to be a lot easier traveling with  him in a van than it was with dogs on a boat. I am looking forward to his company on the road and seeing things through his eyes.

The great thing about this plan for me is that it comes after a life time of experiences traveling. This was my idea, cooked up in my head as I tried to figure out why it was I survived an accident I had no business surviving. But I will not be alone as  it will be a journey shared equally entered into by us to seek out new experiences before we can travel no more. Rusty will be along for the ride and all I can hope is he finds it more enjoyable than life in a house on a leash getting conventional walks and endless repetition of his daily life were he in a normal retirement situation.

We were often asked how we prepared for our sail to Key West from San Francisco and the only answer we could give was to go sailing and go sailing a lot. We practiced on San Francisco Bay two weekends a month for more than a year. We'd drive up to Alameda from our home in Santa Cruz, with our dogs, on Friday evening and spend all day  Saturday and Sunday sailing round the bay, finding strong winds, anchoring anywhere we thought we could get away with it and coming back Sunday afternoon chased by cold foggy winds as the sea breeze built up. Over and over we did that so that when we took off we knew what we could do with the boat and we did it.  Most people want to buy equipment when they prepare for any big venture but we bought experience with our time and it helped to quell our nerves as we set off into the unknown without radar or a host of electronics other people bought and installed and failed to practice with as they ran out of time to go sailing. In heavy weather we were ready.

So it will be with the van and you know my wife will be all over every detail as the build goes forward. Vacations will involve traveling by van, sleeping by van and cooking by van. It will take time to get used to the small spaces and handle the differences between throwing out an anchor and parking for the night. I for one am looking forward to traveling with a heater, air conditioner and windshield wipers. I have not so fond memories of getting cold and wet struggling upwind through the western Caribbean coping with strong winds,  wet waves and constant spray while I kept a  shivering watch much of the night. Comfort will be appreciated.

Parking garages will not be available to a vehicle nine and a half feet tall but at 21 feet long our Promaster should be able to fit into a regular north American parking space. My wife will also feel comfortable enough to drive from time to time when  I need a break. The van may look small, and indeed may be small, but there are advantages to the size and we intend to take advantage of the utility. Shipping to South America should cost around $2,000 on a freighter from Texas. That should be doable to Colombia.

I am not one to name my vehicles, motorcycles or cars but I have been discussing the land yacht theory with my friend Webb Chiles who is following along with quite some interest and I have promised to follow his example and send reports back from the edge of human experience as he puts it. That's  a bit easier to define when you are sailing around the world in an open boat or going around Cape Horn alone but I will do my best to look over the edge of experience from the front seat of the heated and cooled cabin of the Dodge. 

So if this van is a land yacht Webb argues it needs a name. He asked me to consider naming it after his extraordinary little boat that has been around the world. GANNET is a modest Moore 24 designed for racing downwind along the coast of California. Webb sailed the thing around the world on his sixth circumnavigation. In similar vein we want to drive our Promaster where some people feel a rugged 4 x 4 is the only tool for the road. So how could I resist calling our van GANNET 2? I who don't name vehicles...Rusty thinks it's a splendid plan.

We travel not for trading alone,
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known,
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand

                                                                                                    James Elroy Flecker

The Golden Road to Samarkand

HASSAN:
Sweet to ride forth at evening from the wells,
 When shadows pass gigantic on the sand,
And softly through the silence beat the bells
 Along the Golden Road to Samarkand.
ISHAK:
We travel not for trafficking alone;
 By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
 We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
MASTER OF THE CARAVAN:
Open the gate, O watchman of the night!
THE WATCHMAN:
 Ho, travellers, I open. For what land
Leave you the dim-moon city of delight?
MERCHANTS (with a shout):
 We take the Golden Road to Samarkand!
(The Caravan passes through the gate)
THE WATCHMAN (consoling the women):
What would ye, ladies? It was ever thus.
 Men are unwise and curiously planned.
A WOMAN:
They have their dreams, and do not think of us.
VOICES OF THE CARAVAN (in the distance singing):
 We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.

Mangrove Mysteries

It was obvious we weren't alone, Rusty and I, on a rare day off when I took him for a noon time walk. 

 As we approached the trail  I heard a loud splashing noise coming rhythmically from the mangroves. And I wasn't alone in noticing the noise. My chief security officer was on high alert. It sounded like an animal tramping through deep water.

We poked around for a while trying to find the source of the splashing noise and even after Rusty lost interest I kept looking trying to figure it out. I spot little flashes of silver so I was guessing it must have been a fish breaking the surface periodically.

But whether the fish was prey or hunter I couldn't tell. The nose of rhythmic splashing went on and n and eventually even I had to give up hope that Sasquatch would come plodding out of the mangroves.

 It was a lovely day but really hot and humid and I lost the desire to take Rusty into town. The breezes dried up on my day ff and left behind a blanket of hot wet air.

 Rusty wanted to walk, so walk we did, alongside the empty silent road.

Hurricane Irma in 2017 stripped many of the trees alongside the road and left them to die, leafless. Slowly the lower bushes are coming back but there are lots of dead and grey trunks and branches along the roadway.

Me, hot and bothered tempted into a selfie by the presence of a flat post at the end of the trail. No signs of Sasquatch behind me ready to pounce, either.