The skyscrapers along Park Avenue in the East 40's and lower 50's are all minor engineering marvels. They're built atop the rail yard for Grand Central Terminal (an early adopter of the modern real estate concept of "air rights"). Many of the newer buildings are much taller than was anticipated when the terminal was constructed more than a century ago. This heavily constrains their foundations and anchor points, leading to unusual load-bearing designs such as the steelwork shown in the photo.

Captured with the Phase One IQ4-150 Achromatic back and the Rodenstock 138mm/6.5 HR Digaron-SW lens, which, unusually for large format lenses, employs a floating element integrated into the focusing helical.

This view is literally a construction site (which became the new JP Morgan building), but abstract at the same time. We see the new skyscraper, and the buildings in the background, essentially as a Mondrian-esq deconstructed tangle of lines and rectangles.

270 Park Avenue (Under Construction), NYC, 2021

All the pixels, no hardhat required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/51382836481

#photography

I think it was in making this photo that I understood better Picasso's famous comment that art is "a lie that tells the truth". I don't actually know the story of this little house, but in photographing it, I think I tell a version of it that is both literal and fanciful.

The natural landscape of the American west has stunning and unique beauty almost everywhere you look, but when I'm out there I usually find my camera drawn more to the built world we attempt to superimpose on it.

Captured with a DSLR and a 24mm shifting lens, shifted vertically to preserve geometry.

The tiny ghost town of Harvard is one of a series of sometimes extravagantly named, but now largely abandoned, communities near the Union Pacific Railroad and former Route 66 in the Mojave. Most of these tiny towns became forgotten victims of an upgraded Interstate highway system that passed them by.

I think the couch may still be there, if you need one for cheap.

Stone House (with Sofa), Harvard, CA, 2010

All the pixels, some repairs required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4611078542

#photography

Apparently pushback from party leaders has nixed the plan to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

It might be tempting to conclude from this that there are lines they just won’t cross. But those lines tend to become remarkably flexible after a time. Just a few years ago, there was a line about storming the Capitol and trying to kill members of congress, but that now seems like a quaint throwback to a simpler time.

All packed and ready to head to the wilds of suburban Philly for #jawncon

The natural landscape of the American west has stunning and unique beauty almost everywhere you look, but when I'm out there I usually find my camera drawn more to the built world we attempt to superimpose on it.

I think it was in making this photo that I understood better Picasso's famous comment that art is "a lie that tells the truth". I don't actually know the story of this little house, but in photographing it, I think I tell a version of it that is both literal and fanciful.

Captured with a DSLR and a 24mm shifting lens, shifted vertically to preserve geometry.

The tiny ghost town of Harvard is one of a series of sometimes extravagantly named, but now largely abandoned, communities near the Union Pacific Railroad and former Route 66 in the Mojave. Most of these tiny towns became forgotten victims of an upgraded Interstate highway system that passed them by.

I think the couch may still be there, if you need one for cheap.

Stone House (with Sofa), Harvard, CA, 2010

All the pixels, some repairs required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/4611078542

#photography

This is a really stupid game. Zero stars.

Playing the game where I look at the delivery driver driving farther and farther away from my house with my food on the little map in the app and helplessly yelling ineffectual driving directions at my phone.

Maybe that sounds too pretentiously artsy for some people's liking, but it's really how I think about it.

I'm not trying to be difficult, really, but when I'm asked "why didn't you make this photo in color?", they might as well ask "why wasn't this rendered as a sculpture?" or "why didn't you write a poem?". They're all just different media.

@mhoye And I appreciate your comment! I just don’t generally incorporate color into my practice.

@mhoye That said, there are many different excellent photos one could make of this interesting building, and fortunately, I’m not the only camera owner out there.

@mhoye For the record, I’m not “committed” to monochrome. I do work in color sometimes. But I’m generally more interested in exploring shapes and geometry than colors, which represent a dimension that I haven’t really mastered.