This month I have two articles in the Online Extras section at the website of TRAINS Magazine. Both of these stories were written for a content extra that promotes the activities of the Center for Railroad Photography and Art, whose excellent 2010 conference I attended (and impromptu got drafted into staff for) in April.

The first of these articles focused on taking a project-based approach to railroad photography. As with many genre-driven photographic subcultures, the railroad photography crowd has a tendency to try and “shoot everything” and to try and capture subjects before change wipes them from memory. One possible approach to dealing with this successfully is to try and make better predictions about what is likely to be gone in the near future.

My approach, however, is different. I believe capturing the present before it is lost is less important than being cohesive in what you, as a photographer, are trying to say. The piece which ran earlier in August advocated this approach and explained how and why it can lead to better photographic results.

Today, the second half of the two-part series was put up on the web. In this article, I share one of my recent projects and use it to explain how I apply the project-based approach to railroad photography.

This is the first public unveiling of a series I have been spending a considerable amount of my time shooting. By-and-large, this is my attempt to create a railroad photography project that doesn’t rest on the romanticism and Grand-Style traditions that dominate this genre. It also represents a much more distinctive personal stylistic voice applied to the subject. I have to say, using this series as a basis of a teaching moment was a bit… hairy. Showing a major project to the public for the first time can be a nerve-wracking thing.

One last note: my thanks go out to photographers Wes Carr, the Center’s Scott Lothes, and Kyle Weismann-Yee, for contributing images to both articles. You made me look good.

Back from the Center for Railroad Photography and Art’s 2010 “Conversations About Photography” conference in Chicagoland, I’ve got a few brief things to catch up on.

First, Railfan and Railroad has published two of my photos and a short article about the relationship between the railroad and the Guild’s Lake industrial park in Portland (which I also briefly wrote about here a while ago). The story and photos were run on the Extra Board, a new web exclusive monthly feature on Railfan’s new web site. The only downside is that (right now at least) there is no archive for articles on the Extra Board, so once the July story goes up in about 30 days, the story and photos will disappear from the web.

I’m particularly happy with the photos they ran, especially the lead. (I’d link to it on my Flickr but really, go see it at Railfan’s site while it’s up.) Thanks to the boys at R&R for running this.

Second, the other photograph published with this story is a close-up of a Keline switch lock, one of many that can still be found in Guild’s Lake. This is also a photograph from a new series I am currently shooting, a long-term project to try and break through some of the conventions of the railroad photography genre. Expect more about this process over the coming year.

For more photos of Guild’s Lake’s, check out the Flickr Job 101 set or see everything of mine from Guild’s.

Denman Street and the West End is a prime example of a place where the focus is not on tourism as much as on the local, as evidenced by the presence of — tada! — that novelty, the grocery store, along with a post office and lots of small inexpensive restaurants. This is everyday Vancouver. And — perhaps this will come as no surprise — I enjoyed it far more than touristy Gastown or the shops of Granville Street. Keep Stanley Park, keep the Harbour Centre viewpoint, keep the Olympic Village. It is here at the West End (as well as places like the Chinese streets of Richmond) where the authentic Vancouver can be felt.

At Kintaro, in Vancouver, B.C.’s West End, ramen is served up from a genuine Japanese-style ramen shop.

Sitting in Kintaro — a ramen shop on Denman — I found heaven. The little shop’s kitchen is hopping with two young Japanese men, holding up the tradition of this culinary genre. Both staff and clientele are young, which bodes well for the future of the shop. Indeed, the formula must be paying off, as there are two more ramen shops within a block’s distance, and a third a bit beyond that.

Ramen, gyoza, Heaven.

The noodles came tasty, swimming in a rich miso-based broth, and accompanied by the prerequisite slice of pork, hard boiled egg, and a mix of vegetables. I also ordered a plate of gyoza, succulent and hot. This is the real comfort food, the way I like it, putting a smile on my face and made with genuine love for the art of its creation.

In Portland, Kintaro would be an ethnic restaurant, a culinary lark in a solidly intellectual, liberal, Caucasian American city. But here, in a metropolitan region where less than half the population speaks English as a first tongue, Kintaro is more akin to home cooking. And that is why, to me, this bowl of ramen is the real Vancouver.

Recently, I visited the Vancouver, B.C. area. Among a number of goals, I had one that stood out: to sample the legendarily good Chinese food available in the suburb of Richmond.

Interacting with the culture of Richmond was an adventure of its own, especially if that adventure involves ordering something to eat. The first restaurant I tried was Top Shanghai. Although they had some English signs the predominate language spoken inside sounded like Cantonese. I immediately felt out of place, not so much for my skin, as for my lack of fitting into the social norm: every table in this place was built for eight or so, and here I was, a single patron looking for lunch. My awareness of being the only gwai low in the place did not disconcert me so much as it puzzled me: Richmond is the heart of Vancouver’s storied Asian food scene, but here I was, the only non-Asian enjoying it? What’s wrong with these people? I thought.

English is definitely not the predominate language in Richmond.

Perhaps the menus are to blame. Mine had almost no English on it, with several pages of purely Chinese characters and only a handful of items with English descriptions. I looked on the bright side: there was no way I had time, even if I spent all the rest of my stay at the restaurant, to sample everything on the menu, so this helped me to narrow my choices.

When I ordered the Shanghai Style Pork — they are a Shanghai style restaurant, so it made sense to try what they ought to be best at doing — the waitress seemed perplexed. She brought over an older woman who tried to explain something to me that seemed very important. Bones kept being mentioned, and I indicated that was fine, fine. Perhaps my nice shirt and tie made them think I didn’t want them? Or was she so used to the Caucasian obsession with personal health and fitness that the ordering of a bony, fatty cut of meat was surprising? For a split second, I considered that maybe I had just ordered a dish of marrow. No matter, this is an adventure, I thought to myself; try something new even if it was the wrong thing to order. I just nodded and encouraged them, and with one last check back — “They ribs. Pork ribs. Okay?” I confirmed my order and sat waiting, drinking tea and reviewing some of the day’s photos on the digital camera.

Top Shanghai’s Shanghai Style Pork.

Having cycled through the photos on the camera, my food arrived, a large pile of lustrous deep brown, short-cut spareribs that smelled luscious. As if my insistence on ordering them had made some sort of difference, I could feel the mood change in my servers. Suddenly, I was attended to often, albeit in a discrete and non-intrusive way. Did I need some rice? It appeared in a bowl shortly after. When my plate began to fill with bones, a new clean one quickly arrived unbidden. And the ribs? Moist, tender, succulent. Were they worth the trip all the way here for? I was not convinced that I couldn’t find some similarly good food at home if I looked hard enough, but at the same time, consider, my choice of restaurant had been a shot in the dark, as had my selection from the menu, and they had arrived delicious and without fault, not dull or oversalted or greasy in the least. The same could not be said of picking a random Chinese restaurant in Portland and picking a random menu item.

Although I had done what I had not planned to do — finish an entire plate of ribs — I still had enough room left to try one more place before heading back. My next stop was HML Seafood, located on the second floor of a newer building and offering Dim Sum until 3 o’clock. Inside, the atmosphere was a bit like a modern hotel ballroom, with rich carpet and upholstery, pinkish walls, and crystal chandeliers. There was no overwrought Suzy-Wong-dancing-with-a-dragon theme here. The dining room was relatively packed, with only a half dozen or so tables empty. I was amazed and impressed, however, to note that they had tables set up for two and four people as well as the prerequisite Chinese restaurant staple of the 8 person round. Plus, the smaller tables were not shoved into some corner by the restrooms, but in the thick of things where a good view of the dining room could be had. The staff here all dressed up in rather nicely cut suits bringing a very professional air, and they glided about the room in silent stately grace.

Alas, I did myself in here, deciding to be a little more experimental. My order: superior shrimp dumplings, custard bao, and — yes, I’ve seen Anthony Bourdain in Indonesia, and yes I ordered it anyway, or perhaps even because of that — baked durien pastries. The dumplings were excellent, although not necessarily unobtainable at home. The custard bao was unique, but a bit difficult to eat as anytime you bit into one a hot stream of orange custard would gush out. (Fortunately, none of it landed on my clothes.) The flavor was sweet — perhaps too sweet for me, but still interesting.

And the durien pastries? Well I bit into them skeptically, expecting the horror story of their smell to suddenly cause me to be caught in a foul yellow cloud of stench that would drive my fellow diners away. I was surprised, and maybe even a bit disappointed, but they simply weren’t that bad. There was no foul odor, and Bourdains’ description of a “stinky cheese” didn’t really come to mind. At the same time, there was a slightly off vegetal taste to them that didn’t encourage me to finish one, much less eat the other two. When the waiter came back with the check, he made a double take and stopped to ask if there was anything wrong with the pastries. I denied it, stating only that I could eat no more; I did not want him to offer to take them back and replace them with something else merely because I had made the mistake of ordering something I had not in the end liked.

The Canada Line makes for a quick trip to Richmond, earning it the nickname of the “Orient Express.”

Sadly, my list of things to do on my stay in Vancouver was long, and I didn’t get a chance to eat again in Richmond. The experience, however, was good, like a tantalizing appetizer. Without question, the new SkyTrain Canada Line had made exploring the area much easier, and I am looking forward to returning to the area on my next visit to try another couple of restaurants. Or three. Or more!

I’ve rather provocatively titled this image “the future of Beaverton” with my tongue only partly in cheek. There are many ways that the pairing of Richmond/Vancouver does not hold as an analogy to Beaverton/Portland. Vancouver, for one, is a true international city, thanks to being the only major metropolis of its country’s (Canada) west coast, while Portland is more of a domestic city in the middle ranks of the United States.

That said, Beaverton — like Richmond — is a significant suburb of a larger city that is rapidly diversifying ethnically. Over the last decade, Beaverton has become the home to more and more small businesses catering to Japanese, Korean, and other Asian and Latin ethnic communities, a trend that shows no sign of slowing.

Beaverton, also, has ambitions, as evidenced by projects such as The Round, the recent proposals for mid and high rise towers on the old Westgate Theater property, and an attempt to secure a stadium for the soon homeless Portland Beavers AAA baseball team.

Rapid transit, high rise towers, acres of parking, strip malls of ethnic small businesses. This is the vision of Richmond, B.C. today. Might it also be the vision of Beaverton, Oregon in the next decade?

Vis Major: Railroad Men, an Act of God: White Death at Wellington
By Martin Burwash. iUniverse, 1663 Liberty Drive, Bloomington, IN 47403; http://www.iuniverse.com/; 9 x 6 x 1.1 in; trade paperback; 480 pages, 15 maps; $29.95

In the late Winter of 1910, the largest avalanche disaster in the history of North America struck the tiny railroad town of Wellington, Washington, perched in the Cascade Range. One hundred people died, and the tragedy remains unsurpassed to this day. The cause, according to an inquest held later that year, was determined to be “vis major”, an act of God. Afterwards, the Great Northern Railway abolished the station name of Wellington from its timetable, hoping to eliminate the memory of the disaster from the minds of passengers on the line. The story, however, lived on, becoming a source of legend about the power and danger of the high Cascades. Photographer Martin Burwash is not the first person to write about these events of 1910 — guidebooks to the region often contain thumbnail accounts of the tragedy, while more recently Gary Krist dedicated an entire volume to it — but he may be the author who comes closest to bringing a reader to understand the experience. To do this, Burwash worked within the tradition of Jeff Shaara and Patrick O’Brien, and delivered to the world his life’s work, the historical novel Vis Major.

The book starts with a brief author’s note, discussing the actual event and noting that this novel is the author’s attempt to tell the story of the men who lived through or died in the snow slide. After this short note, the novel begins. The book is organized into a series of chapters, each following one character for the duration of the chapter. Overall it is an effective device, allowing the reader to gain an understanding of the events from multiple perspectives without sacrificing the human point-of-view. The subject matter — an obscure event in the insular context of a railroad from the often forgotten past — is in great danger of being difficult to access. Burwash largely succeeds in avoiding this problem, restraining from overuse of insider technical terms as well as staying away from lengthy esoteric descriptions. Instead, the author strikes a good balance of minimal terminology and the use of context to orient the reader.

The book has a lengthy narrative pace, and this seems to be a deliberate choice made by the author. Although we get only a few key days in the Fall of 1909, once the fateful storm of 1910 strikes the mountains, we follow nearly every move made by the men, day by day, step by step. Burwash has made many public comments about his dedication to doing justice to the men who endured and in some cases lost their lives in this tragic event, and it is no doubt this historian side of the author that is manifested in this narrative choice. Much of the events of the story were pieced together through research and the records of the inquest that took place in 1910. Although the dialogue in the novel is imagined, the movement and actions of the characters are as accurate as the author was able to piece together from the records, as stated in the author’s note at the book’s beginning. The result is generally positive. While the book feels too long both figuratively and literally — it weighs over a pound and a half! — the pace of the narrative is a bit like a horse galloping, and is difficult to resist.

Although Burwash’s first novel, Vis Major shows little signs of it. The biggest weakness of the novel is likely it’s length, as mentioned above. This said, the reader never feels their time is wasted, and the overall effect is to become accustomed to the characters. There are, perhaps, a few too many instances of Burwash trying to put us in the thoughts of the characters, (invariably indicated by italics,) thus using exposition when description might have proven more effective. This said, by placing us on the shoulders of the men (and women) of Wellington, the reader gets a highly sensory ride. We get to know the isolated community of Wellington, the passengers of two stranded passenger trains, and the workers of the Great Northern Railway. Most of all, we get to experience as if firsthand the valiant, frustrating, and ultimately futile battle of the rotary snowplows and their crews as they attempt to keep Wellington connected to the outside world. When the reader finally reaches the penultimate tragedy, the hairs will very nearly stand on the back of their neck.

Following the novel, Burwash provides an epilogue discussing what became of the main survivors, and then includes a list of the GN’s men who were caught in it, noting who lived, who were injured, and who died. Given that the novel is based around a true story, the book would have benefited from a slightly longer epilogue with a bit more detail. Finally, a brief statement of acknowledgements closes out the book.

The fit and finish of Vis Major is very professional. The book is quite hefty but it feels good to hold when reading. Cover stock and paper quality feel standard for a trade paperback, and the typesetting and layout is professional. Considering that iUniverse is a print-on-demand publisher, this is far more than I would expect to see. The biggest question might be, is it worth the price? Even for such a hefty book, thirty dollars seems a bit steep. In the end, however, what you pay a premium for is not the physicality of the book, but the content. (Would Vis Major have seen print through traditional publishing houses? In these days of increasingly thin margins on published material, it is an unknown.) For me, the question was simple: it was worth an extra $5 or so to have a book with rare and interesting content and production values that felt professional. [Note: a hardbound version is also available. The paperback version was used for this review.]

Overall, Vis Major is an effective vehicle for telling the story of the Wellington disaster. Burwash’s passion for the human aspects of this story ring through in the text, in some cases making the novel feel more like creative nonfiction in the tradition of Norman Mailer or Tom Wolfe. The book will prove of interest to readers of historical fiction, as well as those interested in the Great Northern Railway, the history of the North Cascades, or the futility of attempting to fight nature.

Vis Major: Railroad Men, an Act of God: White Death at Wellington is available from Amazon. [The hardbound version is available here.]

Nearly one year ago, I, a dedicated film photographer, did something unthinkable: I bought a digital camera. No, I hadn’t eaten one too many happy pills. No, I hadn’t drank my fixer one too many times. (Mmm, fixer!) No, rather, I had come to the conclusion that I needed to stop burning film on snapshots and marginal images, and a digital camera would help me fix that.

For the last decade, the Canon G series have been amongst the best performing digital cameras in the world. These little machines have been the backbone of advanced amateur photographers, especially photographers shooting candid images — you know, street photographers, wannabe pornographers, and stalkers. Over the years, though, the G series has wandered. As Canon introduced more and cheaper and better digital SLR cameras, the company began intentionally crippling the G series, to reduce in-house competition. Things came to a head when, with the introduction of the G7, RAW file format capabilities went the way of the 110 instamatic.

So it is with some trepidation that the news of the G7’s replacement was greeted in 2007. What would be gone next? No manual controls? No viewfinder? No hotshoe?

But no. The bitch, as Sir Elton would say, is back. Meet the Canon Powershot G9.

The Canon Powershot G9, courtesy khedra @ flickr

Like all its G series forebearers, the G9 is a handsome machine. It has the classic lines of a mid-20th century rangefinder. The body is sleek and matte black. And unlike many of the competing cameras in the G9’s market segment, it isn’t made of the same material as Jacko’s nose; the G9 is metal bodied with only a small plastic piece closing in the top of the camera. The result is a body that feels solid and rugged. It also makes the camera heavy; unlike, say, a Fuji Finepix S100, if you swung this thing on it’s neck strap you could probably kill someone with it. This handy trait should make the G9 quite popular in, say, Detroit, or South Central Los Angeles.

But forget how it looks. What really matters is how the G9 performs as a camera. The first thing you notice when you pick it up is… dials! The G9, like every proper camera ever made, has little round turnable dials! In this case, one controls ISO, while the other scrolls through shooting mode. While the camera does have special “idiot modes”, they are mercifully buried under a single dial entry labelled “SCN”. The rest of the dial cycles through video, a panorama mode, an all automatic mode, program, shutter priority, aperture priority, manual, and two customizable settings.

The back of the camera sports some buttons, along with a rotating selector, and a truly massive 3″ LCD screen. Although bright sunlight can still play havoc with the latter, the LCD is unusually bright and has a wide acceptable viewing angle. Unfortunately the screen is hard attached to the back — no fold out tilting screen like older G series cameras, meaning that its a bit harder to do those sneaky, creepy candid shots. Those buttons allow the user to customize the camera settings, including –mercifully! — the ability to turn off those dumb “look at me I’m taking a picture!” system sounds and that absolutely pointless fake shutter mirror sound.

Once you’ve shed the poser features of the camera, you discover all sorts of other customizable options, like how long the LCD will stay on after no activity is detected, or if you want digital zoom, or enabling advanced features like image stabilization and red eye reduction. And of course, you can also set it to remember whatever settings you are in now via one of those customizable dial entries up top. Be warned that it will not only remember your white balance, color mode, control method, and so on, but also your exact aperture and shutter settings. Be sure to set it when you’re in typical conditions for the mode you’re saving, or you might find yourself constantly resetting the shutter speed from 1/8th like I was. I didn’t bother playing with the idiot modes; they are, after all, for idiots.

Image quality is outstanding. The camera has a whopping 12.1 megapixels. To put that in perspective, when the Nikon D1 came out just about nine years ago and revolutionized newsrooms with digital photography, it had 4.3 megapixels. The G9 has nearly three times that. That’s more megapixels than the original digital Rebel, more megapixels than Nikon D80, more megapixels than the Moon. Images shot at ISO 400 came out crisp with only a marginal grain that is comparable to most 400 speed films, and ISO tops out at a stunning (albeit somewhat grainy) 3200!

Basic adjustments like white balance, color modes, and the like is easily accessed via a button on the back, and can be made rapidly on the fly. Intriguingly the camera includes a built-in neutral density filter, three different metering modes, and the ability to fine tune flash output. You can even select auto bracketing, and switching between resolutions, image sizes, and file formats can all be handled in seconds. It’s absolutely brilliant.

Of course, not all is perfect with the G9. The manual focusing is accomplished by hitting a button on the camera back and then using a rotating selector to fine tune the focus, which can be monitored on the LCD display. This is fine except that the LCD version of a focus screen is still relatively small and hard to judge by.

In addition, the G9 feels too small. In the typical “how small can we go” digital camera theory, the G9 is a lot smaller in person than in photos. The big screen on the back will within seconds of opening the box begin to collect thumbprints from your left hand. You get the impression that if Canon had stopped trying to make the camera smaller, there would have been room for a slightly more intuitive manual focusing system.

…Or perhaps to fix the viewfinder. Now on a camera in this price point, you’d expect the viewfinder to be sharp and poised. And… you’d be wrong. The image seen though it is on 80% of the visible scene, and what’s worse, it’s not centered, horizontally or vertically. It’s utter rubbish. You could always get used to cropping your images, but what’s the point of 12.1 megapixels if you can’t use them all? The least they could have done is properly centered the 80% you can see. Ironically, it is equipped with a manually adjustable diopter to accommodate for the user’s eyesight. To see what? 80% of a scene with no idea what portion that 80% is of? Totally useless!

Still, the overall feel of holding the G9 in your hand is hard to beat. It feels like a quality product, and despite a totally useless viewfinder and a body size about 20% too small, it quickly becomes very intuitive to shoot with. Putting it through its paces on city streets, the G9 becomes a fast blast for quick images. And its size is also a plus point, as it can easily be tucked into a pocket or under a coat and not attract any attention at all.

There is one more downside, however. After a hard day of shooting, the next morning the G9 will not have your breakfast fixed. This is actually one of the camera’s redeeming features. Most camera makers offer machines these days that not only take photographs, but do your washing, balance your checkbook, call your mother, take the dog for a walk, and iron your shirts. And all this before tea time. But does the G9 have any of these extra features? No. The G9 is a photographer’s camera. Sure, it has some useless idiot modes, but with the turn of a sleek and very familiar feeling metal dial, the camera becomes a precision image making machine.

The Powershot G9 is simply brilliant. I can’t say enough good things about it. Weighing in at nearly $500, it’s not a cheap camera. But for the price of a crippled entry level dSLR made of recycled styrofoam coffee cups and cheese, you can have one of the best made, best performing digital point-and-shoot cameras ever. Canon just announced an improved version called the G10 with added megapixels, but really, a good closeout or used G9 is a much better bargain. It’s a more than worthy successor to the 35mm rangefinders of the last century.

Opening up today’s Oregonian is quite an education sometimes. In today’s paper, staff writer Larry Bingham outlines an in and out list, of “how life in the Northwest is shaking out in lean times.” The title is “The Frill is Gone.”

And the list? The list of outs include microbrews, Powell’s Books, New Seasons Market, boutique coffee, the Portland Opera, Oregon wine, and heirloom tomatoes from the local farmer’s market. In? Pabst, the library, Grocery Outlet, Folgers, radio broadcasts, California 2-buck-chuck, and home grown tomatoes.

When I first read it, I was shocked at the stupidity behind it. Let’s step backwards for a bit of perspective. Yesterday, Moody’s down-rated the status of Macy’s bonds to junk status. Macy’s just happens to be one of the biggest advertisers that the Big O has. Without them, the paper would be in serious revenue trouble.

Now journalism isn’t about advertisement, (or at least it shouldn’t be,) but I would hardly call a puff piece on trends from the “How We Live” section journalism anyway. Given that, is it smart to be, in essence, insulting potential and actual advertisers in this way? Last I checked, New Seasons inserts their weekly sales ads into the Big O, and in fact they are a partner in one of the paper’s promotions on the back side of the very page this story appeared on. Ah, irony.

But this is more than just a matter of keeping advertisers happy. The economy is, indeed, in a dark, dark place. People are being laid off, and markets are shrinking. In this time of all times, our brewers, booksellers, grocers, farmers, and artists do not need to be listed on an “out” list. They do not need the region’s largest newspaper advising people that spending money on these things is a poor choice. To suggest that spending on these things is “out” is a cruel blow, is kicking these sectors while they are down.

For all of these reasons, the Oregonian in general, and Larry Bingham in particular owe an apology to everyone on that “out” list, from Apple at the top of the chain (iTunes was ruled as an “out”) to the smallest farmer at the local farmer’s market.

But it is an even deeper mistake than all of this.

Microbrews, books, good coffee, local and organic produce; these aren’t “frills”. Bingham writes that “some would even say good riddance to our age of excess.” These things are not excess. They are our culture. What Bingham proposes would be akin to asking the French to give up bread and wine, the Carolinas to give up Cheerwine and Q, or Wisconsin to give up grilled bratwurst and beer. And for the sake of what? Saving money? Yes, money is tighter now than it was, but to suggest that we would give up our culture for the sake of our wallets is preposterous and insulting. Mr. Bingham, you will have to pry the heirloom tomato from my cold dead hand.

I, for one, know the perfect protest. I am going to Powell’s this afternoon to buy a book.

For a long time, the answer seemed to be no. But some intensive Google digging turned up the critical gem: a rural transit program out of Longview. It was not only possible to get to Seattle using local busses, but plausible that it could be done in one day, and in time to return to Portland via Amtrak!

It had to be tested. It was begging to be tested.

Leg One: TriMet No. 12, 5:19 A.M., Tigard, OR

TriMet No. 12 at about 5:25 A.M.

This was the second 12 of the day according to the schedule. I was unsure how popular the bus would be. Empty? Jam packed? In the end it was neither, yet it was about as busy as it was on a typical normal (non commuter) hour of the day, which surprised me. There truly are some early risers in the P-town region.

With almost no traffic and in the light rain, the ride went very smooth and fast. Before I knew it, I was being dumped off at 4th & Hall near PSU, where I was to make my first connection of the morning. The city was dark, quiet, empty. I had once had a theory that the lack of nightlife in Portland was because the city was a morning town. Now? Now I’m not so sure. The cafe behind me was almost clinical in its absence of life, with vinyl letters on the door stating that it did not open until 7 A.M. Useless.

Busses stopped about every five minutes, with sporadic passengers. I was ever watchful for my quarry, C-Tran 134, the Salmon Creek Express. I had time, fortunately. There were at least two of these expresses I could catch and still make the following connection, but where were they? As I stood eagerly looking at my watch, along came a C-Tran bus. It was close to the right time, and I didn’t have my schedule out. The reader board said I-5 express, but there was no mention of Salmon Creek. Was this the right bus?

“You go to Salmon Creek?” I asked the driver through the open door. He seemed not to notice, so I repeated my question hesitatingly.

“Yeah, eventually,” he replied. I climbed aboard.

Inside, the bus was clean and neat. The layout felt a tad more open than a TriMet bus, and it had that bright, Shell-station-at-2am quality to the illumination. Aboard were a smattering of people, including some elderly women. I took my seat and we charged off. The bus had one more stop to make in Portland, down at 2nd and Alder, and there the elderly women left. The driver announced “next stop, Vancouver!” and we charged over the Morrison Bridge and onto the interstate. I glanced around me. Who was he announcing to? Me? There was nobody else left on the bus, and I certainly didn’t need loudspeaker announcements to hear the driver.

Leg Two: C-Tran 105, ~6:10 A.M., Portland, OR

Backhaul commuting apparently isn’t too popular.

We crossed over the river, and in Vancouver, picked up a couple more passengers, including an elderly man with a massive backpack, a long gray beard, and a walking stick. Then back on the freeway we went. About this time, it occurred to me that I was not on the bus I had wanted to be on. Outside the window, in the fast lane, a 134 Salmon Creek Express passed us by at such speed that I feared we’d never see it again in our lifetimes. If that bus, headed to Salmon Creek, had been one of the ones I had needed to make my connection, just how slow were we? How long did the driver really mean when he said that we would “eventually” get to Salmon Creek?

I fretted, and the minutes passed slowly in the rainy darkness. Then, we were once more pulling off the freeway. Shortly after, we turned into a large transit center with great sweeping wood-rooved shelters lit artistically from below. I had seen the place before, from the freeway back when I had a car still, and always recalled it as being attractive. It was rather large, too. Surely, this must be Salmon Creek. Saved! There was plenty of time left before my scheduled connection.

Or not. The driver: “99th Street Transit Center!”

99th Street? Where the heck is 99th Street? My ignorance of Clark County was not helping me any here. I dug out a C-Tran map and sure enough, we were only on the outskirts of Vancouver proper, but not yet at Salmon Creek. With the map not to scale, it was hard to know just how much farther that really was, much less what it looked like.

Back on the freeway we went. Outside, the sky was getting a bit lighter, turning from black to shades of deep larkspur. Dawn was approaching, and this was bad. It simply reinforced what I knew: that time was moving onwards, and I was still not at my connection. If I missed it, the challenge would fail. I would still be able to reach Seattle, but not return the same day, meaning that I would have to cut my trip short no later than Tacoma at best, and Olympia at worst.

We began to sidle off of Interstate 5 again. A couple of turns, and we entered a rather sketchy parking lot. Another stop along the way? Must be. And yet… we stopped. Here, in this dull parking lot, with almost no architectural form whatsoever, we stopped. Yes, this, this was Salmon Creek.

Leg Three: Salmon Creek Park & Ride at dawn

Salmon Creek, landmark of the masses.

On the bright side, I was well within my target time. It was 6:45 or thereabouts, and my next connection was at 7:05. I cannot stress what elation I felt. If I had missed this connection, failure would have been certain. Making it was the first and, really, the most critical of the narrow gateways I had needed to pass.

At seven, a little van-bus pulled into the lot, the kind that are often used for paratransit services, complete with the massive side door to accommodate wheelchair access. Welcome to the Lower Columbia Community Action Program Rural Transit line. Open to the public for $1 each way.

I once recall reading legislator (and future governor of Oregon) Theodore Geer’s account of riding a ramshackle narrow-gauge railway in Oregon’s Willamette Valley during the 1880s. He recounted the horrendous ride, the slowness of the pace, the utter uselessness of the employees. I felt much in sympathy with Governor Geer, and believe I have found a spiritual successor to that railway line. The seats felt as if they had been trampled on by a heard of bison, and smelt like it too. The driver was sterner looking than an Easter Island carving and about as taciturn, with his only utterances being to curse under his breath at fellow drivers. With no interior light, I huddled against one of the windows to try and read my book and forget. Sadly, though, the ride had more texture than Joan Rivers’ face, and half the time my eyes bounced a few inches northward on the page, forcing me to reread the same sentence over and over until we got to smoother road.

The interior signage was rather amusing. “No food / or drink / allowed”, in red letters, with not one but two exclamation marks at the end. A second sign read “Please” (underlined) “do not ask the / driver to make / unauthorized stops.” Another: “Absolutely / No food or drink / ” (last three words underlined) “you will be put off the van / immediately and permanently / (last three words in red letters) “if you do” (one exclamation mark). Lastly, “if you vandalize the can / the appropriate police agency / will be called and you will / be prosecuted” (one exclamation mark). One is glad for their sake that punctuation is free.

Longview could not come quickly enough, and nor could I wait to leave it again. The transit center was amazingly busy, with every stall filled with a clean if dated looking bus. Passengers stood around in fair number, smoking and waiting for their departures. I could see why the system was busy. Looking about me, I saw more twenty-year-old domestic automobiles than I had seen since a trip to West Virginia years back. Probably none of them ran, or even if they did, it was widely agreed that it was preferable to be seen in a bus. Beyond the transit center, it was the typical sad sight of former lumber towns like Longview: Meth alley. Cinder blocks, badly painted buildings, decay, gambling parlors that had the effrontery to claim to share a professional tradition with the likes of The Sands.

Leg Four: Longview Transit Center at 8:00 A.M.

And by here I knew how T. T. Geer felt.

Then Longview surprised me. At 8 A.M., sharp, every bus in the lot started up their engines. People scattered, and then each of the vehicles departed. All at once. At the same time. It made me wonder if their schedules had been planned by someone who had worked in school transportation in their past.

Once they had gone, about five of us were left at the very, very empty transit center. Our “bus” from Salmon Creek had left us here and drive off, perhaps back to the Hades from whence it had come. I hoped, likely in vain, that it had not simply gone off to refuel before returning for us. Please, please, please, be a different vehicle, or at least a different driver!

Another van-bus pulled into the lot, looking much as the other had done, and stopped before us. The doors opened, and prayers were answered. Not only was the driver different, but so was the van. This one was clean, and did not smell, and had a driver who actually asked a friendly question or two, remarked on the coldness of the weather, and cranked up the heat. It was 8:05, and we were off.

The ride from here was a long one, one that would take me from the waters of the Columbia River and its tributaries, to those of Puget Sound. Along the way, we would pass through the heart of Washington’s timber country, a land that was once a cash cow for the state but has sadly turned sour. Environmental restrictions and international trade have conspired to make logging in the region less and less attractive. While protectionists had and have good intentions, the communities that once depended on the timber monies have, like Longview, declined rapidly. The ride filled me with bittersweet thoughts. Sure the forests are beautiful, but humanity here? Perhaps it’s unfair, but it’s hard to ignore the meth houses, the abandoned trailer houses, the closed mills, the empty storefronts. Centralia has, perhaps, fared the best, as it tries to convert itself into a tourist center. Antique stores have settled like a benign rash on it’s main streets. But even here, you have the distinct feeling that anyone who wants a better life for themselves and their families goes to seek their fortunes elsewhere. For many it’s a place to be from, but no longer one to call home.

This long ride was scheduled to terminate in Tumwater, just south of Olympia, where I would be able to transfer to the local transit agency, Intercity Transit. The point of embarkation: Tumwater Square. I wondered what it would look like. For a time, I had lived in Olympia, but I had rarely had occasion to visit Tumwater. Would Tumwater Square be some kind of transit center? Perhaps it was a suburban mall of some kind. Maybe, just maybe it was some kind of transit oriented development? The Olympia region does have a progressive streak, it was possible. It was surely, however, a very impressive name.

Too impressive, by half. Tumwater Square consisted of a pair of bus shelters on either side of a road, amongst the swanky delights of two gas stations and a Safeway.

Leg Five: Tumwater Square at around Ten A.M.

Is it square because the streets are at right angles?

Shortly afterwards, IT No. 13 rescued me from oblivion, and we charged into downtown Olympia. The route followed Capitol Boulevard, whose streetcar era bones show through today in the gentle curves and continuous lines of bungalows. Past these residences, the road and the bus route begin the slow descent through downtown Olympia. Not far after this descent begins, the dome of the capitol building pops into sight to the left, but even before then you can tell you are in a seat of state power. There’s lots of concrete buildings and a hollow, haunted look to the streets. Subconsciously, you just can’t figure out why the city exists. It is large, yet looks poor. It seems to have more importance than other towns, and yet it lacks the bustling air of a city. It is the whiff of futile dreams, suspended in the amber of bureaucracy.

Olympia Transit Center has always impressed me. It is clean, modern, white and glass, and appears by all observances functional and busy. Arrival here was a kind of celebration, really. This was the hump. Here, actually on the waters of Puget Sound, everything suddenly became “downhill.” Now the question turned away from if and towards when: when would I reach Seattle? I was hungry, I wanted food, I had not eaten yet and I had been up for nearly six hours. I pondered walking around the harbor, gloating in the waters of the sound, dining beside them at someplace-or-other from years before.

But over at the north edge of the transit center, a Tacoma bus idled.

Leg six: IT 603

Aboard the Tacoma express at 10:30 A.M.

The bus was rather on the full side, and I was lucky to find a seat. Up front, the driver was rather garrulous, chatting with a flight attendant headed to SeaTac International to work a flight to Japan. “If I had my way,” the driver noted, “you’d ride free. Transportation people would always be free.” Returned the steward, “yeah, and you’d fly free too, right?” The driver rather liked this notion.

I glanced at my private timetable and noted my progress. My original goal had been to be aboard a 603 to Tacoma departing Olympia at noon, and here I was 90 minutes earlier than that. If things continued as planned, and assuming that my connections were available when I got to Tacoma Dome Station, I’d be in Seattle near lunch time. We made an odd circuit of Olympia and Lacey, stopping at park-and-ride lots to pick up people here and there, and then we hit the freeway and sailed down into the Nisqually River Delta. With the crossing of the delta, I had entered Pierce County, and soon after, Tacoma.

Then there was another snag. We pulled off to another nondescript park-and-ride, this one somewhere near the McChord Air Force Base. “This is the SR 512 Park and Ride,” yelled the driver. “Transfers here to SeaTac and Seattle!” I puzzled over this. Was not the 603 bound for Tacoma, where I could make my transfer as planned? As nearly the entire bus emptied out, I took a gamble, and got out too, trusting that we couldn’t all be wrong.

On reflection, this was likely a mistake. The 603 did indeed touch on Tacoma at Tacoma Dome, where I could have transfered to a Sound Transit bus to Seattle. But no, instead of staying in the warm bus, I got out with the crowd to stand in the cold and await my transfer. It is very, very likely that the bus I had to take — Sound Transit 594 for Seattle — was the same exact one I would have caught in Tacoma proper, meaning my wait was no longer. But here, at the SR 512 lot, there was nothingness. Some shelters. Some garbage cans. Freeway exit ramps. Parked cars. No food, no warm drinks. I dug into my stash of snacks for the first time that day, but found little comfort in them. I was cold, I was wondering not for the first time why I hadn’t done this in warmer months. But it was too late now.

Twenty minutes passed. Other busses came and went, including those from Pierce Transit, Tacoma’s transit provider, and a massive boat of a bus from Sound Transit. This was ST 574, the SeaTac express, a bus very similar to those used by Greyhound, complete with dual rear axles and cushy reclining seats. Ah, the thought of reclining seats! And warmth, too. The moments dripped by slowly. But finally, finally, a blue-and-white bus pulled in the lot with the name SEATTLE on its destination sign, and I stepped aboard.

My stomach was growling, my eyelids were drooping, and I was lulled ever more to sleep by the warmth inside the bus. The seats were nicely cushioned, though annoyingly they did not recline despite the presence of headrests. I checked to be sure multiple times. But it didn’t matter. I was down $13.80, and I was nearly there. I only opened my eyes a few times, mostly to note passing through Tacoma. This city has always been my favorite on the sound. It retains a blue collar edge and an honest, industrial vibe. It is no city, and likely never will be, but it is a fine, fine town, the likes that few are fortunate enough to be. The fact that our bus had exited the freeway for a slow and prolonged trip down surface streets, making stops every two or four blocks? That was only mildly annoying, for it gave me time to glance about and try and remember the buildings I had been inside of. And then, we were back on the freeway, and my head was nodding back, and I was asleep.

Leg seven: Fresh off of ST 594

~12:48 P.M., Pike Street at 3rd.

I woke with a jolt as we exited the freeway and traversed Spokane Street, bound for Fourth. Alongside the latter road, to one side were the rails of a BNSF switching line, and along the other side were the tracks of Sound Transit’s first light rail line. Shoehorned into an area vastly comprising of light industry and railway yards, I really wasn’t sure why they bothered to put stations in so frequently. I counted at least two in the industrial flats, places that by the nature of the constrained rail assets of the region will never be anything other than railroad infrastructure. I shrugged. It’s Sound Transit’s first light rail line, and this is hardly the biggest lesson they have yet to learn.

Then we ascended the viaduct beside King Street Station, and passed into downtown itself. I kept an eye out for the streets, waiting for the one I wanted. Jackson, no. Cherry, no. Spring, no. Then there it was. Union. I gathered my bags, my stomach growling louder still, and began to plan where I would find my lunch. Outside, the pavement was wet, but it was not raining. I checked my watch, and found that it was 12:45 in Seattle.

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.

Speaking of, my brushes are quite a mess. Frayed, some of them. Some of them got mangled from non-watercolor uses. Some of them are simply getting old. How I’d love to have one of those big, pure Kolinsky sables! But wow. Those cost as much as a motel room or an Amtrak ticket. I could justify it, eventually. If I had the cashflow. But I don’t. So I make due.

Making due is a serious constraint on my work, I’ve noticed. For example, in one painting I have just begun, the sketching portion suffered severely from my inability to keep a piece of paper taped to a door while I projected a slide onto it. Frustrating, as I held up the paper with my left hand and hurriedly sketched with my right. But then these little imperfections are part of the very character of the painting, part of what separates the painting from the photo it began with. Which brings up another serious issue, that a poor photograph can make a great painting. And perhaps, vice-versa?

I’m coming to like working larger. Big 22×30 sheets are unlikely to see scissors of mine in the future. The scale allows finer detail, a finer perception of precision, and less percentage of the image hidden by a theoretical matting. But it really need bigger brushes! And for large areas like skies, it needs far more skill and rapidity in washes!

My paper, speaking of, is running short, though I’m still finding working on an oversized clipboard to be ideal. I can move it anywhere I wish, though if I ever do plein-air work it may have to be with the benefit of the car.

Now that I am back with the brush again, I have to say there is a slight satisfaction from feeling it all come together again subconsciously. Watercolor for me is almost like an old, irreplaceable friend, one whom you can not talk to in ages and then pick up with exactly where you left off. And that is the best kind of friendship at all.