Olympus M. Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8

Definitely an interesting, pretty monumental day for this little bit of kit to come in. I feel like I'm drawing away from points that should be more spotlight by posting about it, but since so few issues of the lens seem to have been distributed for evaluation in this production phase of its release... well, why not?

I pre-ordered the M. Zuiko 7-14mm f/2.8 almost 2 months ago and have been waiting in eager anticipation for its arrival ever since. My primary working genre of photography is real estate, and the 12mm f/2.0 and 12-40mm f/2.8 have only been able to get me so far in that industry. With the expansion of my focal range in the 7-11mm region, it was an obvious call. Many could argue that I should've sprung for the 7-14mm f/4 Lumix lens prior, and they might be right, but I am something of a brand-name loyalist, for better or for worse, in my gear acquisitions, and it just felt weird to pick up an older, differently branded lens to complement my kit.

So, how does the Olympus ultra-ultra-wide hold up in test?

Let me begin.

I met up with my friend Rob at the local gay bar of choice today. With the Supreme Court's ruling this morning, fast as it came, it seemed like an obvious stop, but being in Maryland, a State where marriage has been a right to same-sex couples for some time, there was remarkably little fanfare. We chatted for a bit over beer, and eventually, I asked the bartender at the time if it was alright if I whipped out the tripod and put the lens to proper practice. It was still quiet in the bar, low traffic, and he didn't seem to mind. I quite readily stopped the lens down to f/11, ISO 200, and tried to pick within focal lengths in the middle of the zoom range, 9-11mm specifically, and see how the lens rendered the indoor scene.

The few samples I rendered to JPG speak for themselves.

The lens is wickedly sharp. Which isn't a huge surprise given the sharpness of Olympus' other pro-zoom offerings in my possession, the 12-40mm f/2.8 and 40-150mm f/2.8. Coming from the perspective of a photographer who only ever used prime lenses for just shy of a decade, the results left me stunned. Very little fringing, less so than what I'd grown accustomed to dealing with on my 12mm f/2.0 prime lens, and with a sort of micro-contrast clarity I wasn't used to seeing at all. And at f/11, such amazing starbursts... the likes of which I never saw on my primes nor my 12-40mm f/2.8. Tight, concentric balls of light, with sharp, pointed stems bursting forth. The nearest I'd seen prior came from Voigtlander's Nokton series of lenses, and they were a welcome sight to see on an auto-focusing pro kit zoom.

Subject isolation was also remarkable given the limitations of such efforts on wide angle lenses in such a cropped format. While not necessarily ground breaking, the lens focused close enough to throw backgrounds decently out of focus with a generally acceptable level of bokeh wide open, which was not an expectation from the onset of acquisition. I bought the lens to render rooms and design-heavy spaces with broad, in-focus point of view, certainly not thinking it could be used to capture smaller details with the stylistic isolation such elements of interior design demand. Needless to say, I'm excited to put the lens through its paces in a working environment, which will very well likely be tomorrow.

For regard to its current weaknesses in the widely unsupported post-processing environment, it does present some clear barrel distortion at the very far edges, but it is of a basic barrel type that is easily corrected in Lightroom or DXO with manual, built-in tools. Truthfully, this was entirely expected, given the lens has only now hit the market with pre-order deliveries. For my purposes, once DXO develops a proper module for the lens (which they have frequently done well before Adobe has managed to patch for new lens corrections in my experience), I expect to manage slightly wider than what JPG product out-of-camera produces based on the extra .5-1mm of wide-end focal range DXO's lens corrections seem able to provide. In the the mean time, I'll either settle just fine with JPG results or tweak images in Lightroom for proper results (admittedly slower for real estate work compared to DXO, but no less capable).

When the sun went down this evening I tested the lens for night shooting on my porch to determine viability of the lens' use for astral photography. Going by the good old rule of 500 is did just fine, even stopped down tremendously (granted, it's pretty bright in my area), but I did uncover another quirk to the lens in the form of strong flare at f/11. I've never owner nor used an ultra-ultra-wide angle lens before, so this may very well be a normal limitation to the design of such lenses, but the flare was certainly something I'd never seen before in other lenses, especially with the hood affixed. It may very well have been an instance of strong foreground light, however, so I'll have to try using the lens in a less point-lighted environment tomorrow to see how it functions. I get the impression that it was an anomaly I'll simply need to get used to in working with such an enormously wide focal length.

I did shoot a bit with the lens handheld outdoors, but its implementation, so far as I see, makes the most sense indoors, capturing architectural elements at their finest. Then again, it is a new focal length for me, so it will require some experimentation to fully understand the best uses of its focal range. In any case, I'm enormously pleased with the results so far, and expect to enjoy a second wind of glee once DXO releases a proper module for the optic. Theoretically, this is the next step in real estate shooting I've been biting my tongue over for 3 years, so it should keep me wholly satisfied for some time.

Next up, Olympus... would love to see that patented 25mm f/1.0.  :)

Publishing Paradigms

I've been rolling through a long standing flux in my content publishing paradigms lately, and it doesn't really appear to be easing back at all. Or settling, in any way, shape or form, on a single effective solution. In general, I've come to the conclusion that while publishing content on the web is ultimately necessary, it is also the most inefficient method by which to garner attention to your work, and is absolutely the least likely source of new paying clientele (ones with actual budgets as opposed to bastardized "TFP" deals with companies who could pay but choose not to).

Most recently I've posted a couple blogs regarding mobile development and publishing of photography using the now de facto standard of WiFi connectivity for immediate content transfer and subsequent posting to the likes of Twitter, Instagram, what have you. For the purposes of most content publishing, I feel fairly comfortable adopting it as my new primary avenue of content publishing. Because I'm not often producing works of art. More often than not I'm having dinner with friends and snapping pictures of food and beer. Arguably my motivations are no different than any other foodie Instagrammer, only I choose to use a dedicated camera vice my cell phone for cliche captures. I am fine with this. And rendered JPGs out of the Olympus E-M1 look phenomenal even at ridiculous ISO values for this sort of content publishing. Hell, they look great in general, good enough to run to print in a magazine. (Amazing how far we've come, when my old APS-C Nikon D40X couldn't even shoot ISO 800 without becoming unusable)

Perhaps I am simply burned out of the numbers game of Flickr. To its merit, Instagram does not track "likes" or "favs" in a charted layout of metrics to quantify how much of a clickhole your online gallery may or may not be (though content can, of course, be "fav'ed" or "reblogged"). More of interest to me in regards to Instagram, however, is the rather immediate connections that can be made with appropriate hashtags. As I understand it, tagging brands is just as viable with Flickr or 500px, but the environments fostered by those photo publishing sites is more geared toward the fine arts, not commercialism and pandering. Which is fine, and fantastic, really, and I will continue to indulge the likes of Flickr with my fine art as it comes. In the mean time, when I'm at Ruby Tuesday with my boyfriend taking pictures of beer and bacon covered cheesy fries, I'm going to post snippets to Instagram, #SamAdams, #CheesyFries, #RubyTuesday.

Actually, my propensity for going out to eat lately, and insistence on bringing a camera along in the process, comes down to a neat bit of realization that should have been obvious. I really like to photograph food. I mean, I absolutely love it. Odd because I process and post very little in the way of food photography on the likes of my Flickr gallery, but again, mentally I file it under "commercial work" and feel it is less appropriate for that forum (perhaps, though, I need to re-evaluate that mental allocation). My Instagram is slowly filling with food and beer related content, and I'm absolutely thrilled about it.

I enjoy design, I enjoy still-life work, I enjoy the commercially viable image. And, genuinely, it is a kind of work I have done remarkably little of, and prompts a rethinking of my current business plan. For the longest time, I envisioned corporate portrait work as a desired next step element of my business after entrenching in real estate, however that segway hasn't metastasized, and after a battery of weddings in the last year I am rediscovering an old rationale for the avoidance of other people in my work. Real estate and the stylized photographic presentation of design and architecture is still a dominant love, however, and it makes all too much sense that the stylized photographic presentation of the design and flourish of food should appeal to me just the same. The trick, of course, is developing a competent portfolio to use as a tool encouraging adoption of my technique formally in the commercial world, and subsequent marketing. Trickier, in this instance, given that with real estate I've always had my "in" with contract work for Airbnb. Commercial food photography would involve building from the ground up, marketing myself directly, which has never been a strong suit for my part.

Another important element I rediscovered is the power of the print.

The norm of the digital age has always been viewing images on uncalibrated, 72ppi, compressed, low resolution JPGs. Today it is only slightly better with the higher pixel density displays boasted by many new smartphones which are quickly becoming the next standard photography viewing apparatus. For the youngest generations of human beings on this planet, viewing photographs on a screen is the only thing they've ever known.

Some time ago I volunteered to be the staff photographer for the photo suite of the Fur the 'More convention held in VA the last weekend in May. It was a straightforward job - set up studio gear, lights, backdrop, stands, and provide high grade portraits for donations to the convention's annual charity (for Friskys Wildlife and Primate Sanctuary, which is a stellar organization). Very straightforward. But convention staff surprised me with the provision of a printer, some glossy 4x6 photo paper and a couple spare ink cartridges. I was under no instruction to charge for prints or obligation to provide them, but in the high energy spirit of the convention I decided to go whole hog and print absolutely everything I could.

Attendees gushed over the prints. And I mean GUSHED. The response was of universal bewilderment, with a camp of those who lived during at least the tail end of the film era fondly nostalgic to have a physical artifact in-hand from the convention, and another camp of those so young they never handled prints before and were all too giddy to show and share a print in their hands as opposed to an image on their phone. Simple 4x6 prints elicited such an enormous response it has me determined to employ provision of prints henceforth to clients and potential clients alike, to friends, to family, hell, I want to print everything. It is a lost magic in the digital age and absolutely deserves to be capitalized upon.

A sister convention to Fur the 'More, Anthrocon, is taking place the second weekend of next month and I intend to attend. I won't be working this convention, and have no reasonably portable printing solution available at current, but have decided that, to recapture some of that magic of the physical artifact, I may pick up an Instax camera just before heading out to provide that little enjoyment to others in the party-minded atmosphere. I'd juggled the ideas of portable printers or printing in the hotel room and tracking down subjects after the fact, but immediacy seems ultimately necessary in the case of wandering a several thousand attendees strong venue. Frankly, I can't wait.



Meanwhile, it's been very hot and excessively stormy for the month of June. It has had me in a functional coma of sorts, barely managing photo work while leaving me too exhausted to care about personally motivated photographic pursuits in general. I did have dinner and coffee with my Dad for Father's Day this past weekend, however, and we had fun getting caught in the rain, forced to shutter in a Starbucks.

I forget how fun the toyful "Art" modes on Olympus cameras are. Letting go of the "GOTTA SHOOT RAW" thought process is another critical paradigm shift that needs to happen. Photography is meant to be fun, so it's okay to not be tied down to "what ifs" in each and every single exposure. Just shoot. Just have fun. Not every single image you record is meant to win a Pulitzer.

Anecdotal Experience

Had an experience in the grocery store this morning which hearkens back to the concepts posited in my mentally exhausted posting last night.

After picking up a few things and heading to the register, the cashier finished her scanning and came up with her total. She was an older woman, but based on her choice and application of makeup she was desperately trying to hang on some semblance of youth (I suspect because she feels young, as if her life has still yet to start). "Your total is $19.83... I was in high school that year". Not prompted for the latter portion of the statement at all, she uttered the words with depressed disappointment. I kindly paid and smiled, moving to be on my way.

Before I made it out the door the woman behind me made it up to the register. Greetings between the two were shared, then the woman behind me proudly proclaimed, "My tax return finally came in so I'm buying myself some real food!"

The register woman mirrored the joy and excitement.

This is where I live. This is who the new middle class American is. This is what it is to be blue collar today. We are the Working Poor.

A 28 Year Old's Perception

(Having just finished writing this out, do understand it is strictly stream of thought and I've stumbled over my words enormously with generalization and hyperbole. It was simply a train of thought that needed open release lest it fester into something worse as the night wore on. So please, do read, and leave your thoughts on the subject, but understand I may very well not be nearly as subscribed to these notions as my elaborate monologue might indicate. Thank you.)

_________________________________________

No matter how well off I may be doing relative to the economies of the town in which I live and city to whom I'm near, I feel decidedly mired in the same relative degree of idle misery as everyone around me.

Pardon me as I run down a tangential thought that struck as I pulled into my garage this evening.

The mean, median, and mode incomes of denizens in the Nation that often lauds itself as being the richest and most immediately swelling with growth and opportunity are wildly separated from those people most noted for making such egalitarian statements. Glen Burnie is my home town, a very blue collar town, much as Baltimore is notorious historically for being a blue collar city. And much like anything historically stamped with the label "Blue Collar", both suffer, their people suffer, from a marked disconnect from what modern times have labeled valuable economically. This region was the powerhouse of industry. Industry no longer possesses value.

Blue collar workers of old, a generation born into companies with clear ethics, morality, and a sense of responsibility for their workers, retired into pensions and satisfying retirement funds, with houses paid for and, today, their children pushed out into what they think is still their world (the one of good jobs with gracious wages for those with steadfast work ethic). But that is not the world of today. That is not the world anymore. We are a generation born of an overpopulated species in a world keen on automation and digital transference (neither of which are inherently bad things in and of themselves). Jobs of old no longer exist. Companies no longer care for their flock. An admirable notion of independence and self reliance entered our rhetoric and our culture, but decades of consumerist leanings allocated nearly all the resources with which to do so in the pockets of an immensely small band of individuals who felt compelled to push their own capabilities and capacity for "winning" so far as to leave all the world at enormous detriment. Not only people of this Nation (of which, comparatively speaking, even the poor do well for themselves), but of all Nations, of all people. And there is no meaningful avenue by which these individuals can undo this damage without enduring significant harm themselves. They are stuck with a global perception as villains whether or not they intended wrongdoing or merit the label. We are stuck dealing with the world in a lesser state than it was when we were born.

I look around every day and observe distractions. People of the former blue collar caste, I'll refer to us as the "Working Poor", are drawn to distractions like LED lit bug lamps. From our cell phones to our video games to our television (or Netflix, these days) to the unfortunate condensed world of Web 2.0 governed by Facebook and BuzzFeed and Twitter, the only saving grace with which we have been left in this post-wealth society is a bounty of distractions fed forth by cheap technology. We will never afford a vacation to Europe or experience sunset in the Sahara. But we will see a picture of it on Flickr and pin it to Pinterest. A Nation populated by those who would live vicariously at all times.

Most individuals are simple. Like any species, our brains operate on evolved logic patterns and we can be cognitively "gamed" to tame the unrest that festers in a population saturated with boredom. This is not to say most individuals are stupid, that is itself another relative judgment given the variety of peoples' inherent strengths and weaknesses. I make the statement simply to indicate that there are those of us for whom the game does not work. Whether actively or passively due to irritation, the distractions are shunned, mentally ousted, or simply ignored. And for us unrest is a daily struggle that seems a thing forever unsatisfied in a climate of complacency. Most individuals, aware of the failed state of our lots in life and misfortune of our place in the societal timeline, will seek the passing distraction to afford some contentment in their lives. But for us there is no ample distraction, only the enduring, excruciating idleness of our lives, no matter what mechanisms we employ to overcome the very low glass ceiling.

My affinity for the photographic documentation of abandoned properties, especially the industrial, is very tied to this sense of unrest. Unlike any other activity, simply experiencing the asbestos ridden rotting husks of old industry was enough to leave me satisfied, in tune and at peace with the state of things although nothing had directly been changed. To this day I walk away from blighted properties with the thought that everything will be alright, no matter how bad things come crashing down. But these are buildings with which I have no history, locations in which I have not previously developed memories while they were still in heavy operation. Anymore I drive down the roads of my town and see stores and strip malls with vacancy signs and a number to call to lease the property. The Nation's first shopping mall in Harundale was closed down years ago, transformed today into a grocery store and Burlington Coat Factory. Marley Station Mall is still marred by a long abandoned 3-story department store addition and the entire wing where First National Bank used to be, the place I opened my first bank account 14 years ago, is completely empty. Glen Burnie Mall is in much the same state, and despite a face lift on the side facing the road, the rear entrances and parking lots of the property show the real state of things, with grass growing from the sidewalk and a busted up Toys-r-Us sign. This is all in a 5 mile strip north and south of where I live. Everything gone. Everything abandoned. Broken. Our potential is gone. And we all know it, but, as a majority, we simply stare into the soothing LED void in our palms, like an optically ingested heroin (drugs are another matter altogether around here).

Anymore I'm not sure if I'm sick and tired of us all being so hopelessly broken or sick and tired of being surrounded by the hopelessly broken. As I stated in the beginning of this post (vaguely), I am arguably successful beyond the mean, median, and mode denizens of my own hometown, but for sake of an odd perception of guilt and fear that leaving this area behind is most akin to abandoning any sense of compassion, I stay. But I am at a new point in my life, finally, no longer wishing to idolize permanent brokenness and wanting to achieve more, attain more, become more. And I feel guilty even entertaining the thought that my home town demographics, the aura of the place I've called home for decades, could ever possibly be an anchor in the calculations I make in how to push just a little farther ahead. I would rather see a rally, a shock to the system, a home brewed renaissance that restores the glory of places I grew up in, places with a history. The long shot hope of every blue collar town today.

When the promise and opportunity of the world dried up as my generation first entered adulthood, we still held onto a sense of community, involvement, we went out and did things. As things got worse, we retreated because the world could not harm us more so long as we stayed shuttered within the walls of whatever run down apartment we called home. We're still shuttered behind those walls, no matter how much nicer they may have become over time. We still don't risk the world, living it vicariously with LED heroin. Assuming anyone other than the offspring of those who have collected wealth ever impact the world again, maybe then we will finally be able to risk the world again. But much like the rich hold onto their wealth, we hoard what we have as safely as we can from those who might tempt its surrender and will do so until we're either dead or it hemorrhages from under us like a bleeding wound. A very lightly nicked artery.

We were meant for more than this.

"Mobile" Photography

My trip in Colorado last weekend really saw the quiet, underlying affinity I have for mobile sharing metastasize in a fun way. For a long time my biggest dislike in the greater photographic process has been the post-process. In the context of outings with specific images in mind, sure, it makes sense to run through Lightroom and DXO and Photoshop until the image looks precisely how I want, but when you're snap shooting at an event or venue with no higher art considerations in mind it's horribly taxing to then be saddled with the chore of curating, editing and uploading. It may be that my baseline for the minimum standards of how an image looks after edited and how it is shared upon upload has spoiled the process for me. I tend not to like batch edits or the application of presets, yet I dislike images until they've been treated with specific attention to detail, and even then once that attention is given I'm still extremely likely to discard it for not measuring up to a higher standard. It's a rare thing that I'm ever able to quiet that inner demand and simply share.

That all goes out the window when it comes to editing and uploading while still in the field, however. My first experience publishing from the field was during the 2012 Raven's Superbowl Win Parade in Baltimore City. I picked up an Olympus PENPAL just before the parade, knowing that I wanted to rubber stamp "FIRST" on everything happening that day. And barring technical issues due to an antiquated tablet, it went swimmingly. RAW files quickly processed in-camera to a usable JPG, fired to the tablet and promptly uploaded to Facebook. Those quick, sloppy uploads had exactly the effect I wanted, and for a day I enjoyed the fleeting sensation of being a veritable fame monster.

Since that event, however, I haven't dabbled nearly as much in mobile uploads. In 2014 I regularly bombed a convention's Flickr page to get my photos up on their monitor's live feed of the event, but returning home I promptly took them down because... well, they looked awful. Nowhere near my typical standard, and having them published to Flickr felt like a compromise to the integrity of the portfolio I treat my Flickr page as these days. The catch in that, however, is that they only looked bad to me on my computer monitor. On the lobby TV screen, on a cell phone, they looked fantastic, and really that is the de facto standard display medium on which people are going to view any image today. For better or for worse, the display medium has lowered the bar, and at least in my case the only interruption to a steady flow of on-the-spot, mobile phone edited works being thrown up to my Flickr gallery is an almost arbitrary concept of minimum quality that nobody else seems to share. Honestly, it's probably holding me back more than I care to admit even when admitting it to begin with.

Lately that conceptual barrier has been breaking down, though. Instagram, social media juggernaut that it is, quickly appealed to me for sake of its relative ease and simplicity in content sharing. More so, it's an almost exclusively phone-based medium, nearly guaranteeing the content uploaded is seen on a cell phone screen and thus not nearly as revealing to quality flaws that would otherwise have me gnashing teeth. Snapseed has proven to be both a fun and remarkably powerful editing tool. Anymore, I'm wondering why I bother with the begrudged Lightroom grind, wherein the standard set by a large, calibrated monitor spoil my ability to enjoy my own photography. And that's really what it's supposed to be about, isn't it? What's the point in practicing photography if you aren't enjoying your own work?

Armed with the E-M1 today, it's not even a conscious thought to throw shots to my phone for quick edits via WiFi. Lately, that passive practice has resulted in a strangely complete catalog of my trips to breweries, renditions of artistic photography I like better than the Lightroom edits later produced, and significantly more complete timeline of my life than I ever expected to assemble.

 

 

 

Arbitrary standards of quality be damned. I had more fun in the experiences surrounding the above 7 photos than in the hours of labor I'd have otherwise spent trying to turn shit into gold with ISO 5000. That is the definitive differentiator in these two workflow methodologies, the traditional geared toward optimal print quality and the mobile geared toward immediate sharing of content. For me, at least right now, I garner happiness from the mobile process, whereas the other has rarely come without compulsion driven by copious amounts of depressed and lonely drinking beforehand.

That's been the trick as of late, finding avenues in which I can indulge my compulsion to photograph without inevitably coming to a point of misery staring at a catalog of images and experiences I'll never have adequately shared. For a long time I've been distracted by the pointless numbers game of the web, trying to maximize favorites and page views or likes or upvotes. I recognize the pointlessness, the fruitlessness of such superficial attention, but being raised on video games it may as well be ingrained in my behavioral centers to always seek the high score. I recall watching a documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters", following an historic rivalry between celebrated champions of the original Donkey Kong arcade game. The greater takeaway I had from that documentary dealt with the degree to which competitive nature eliminated the capability of enjoyment in what was difinitively an enjoyable distraction. More often than not these days I see myself going down that road, and I'm trying desperately to sidestep my competitive nature and simply revel in the enjoyment of photography for the fulfilling pleasure that it is.

Colorado is for Snowing

Made a weekend trip to Colorado to visit a good friend whom I originally helped move out to Denver about 2 years back. He'd made his way to the East Coast many times, visiting family and friends to the point of being broke from airfare. I felt he deserved some reciprocation.

Colorado is notorious for two things weather related - It is sunny with blue skies 300 days of the year, and seasons mean nothing when it comes to weather patterns. The Rockies create almost randomly chosen climate systems at any given time. The weekend of my trip Colorado decided it was time for snow.

I suppose most people would begrudge the forces of nature on their vacations should they not opt to cooperate with the arbitrary ideal of sunny and 75 degrees. Personally, I don't think the weather could have been any more incredible. I'll take the uniqueness of inclement conditions over the predictable safety of the sunny-75 rule any day.

In total it was a fantastic weekend. The perfect sort of relaxed escape with no pressure in regard to expected activities or obligations to "see this" or "do that". Hell, we spent a good portion of time lazing about my friend's apartment watching movies and TV series. Friday we hit up a small dozen breweries in Denver and a hookah lounge (where I have discovered that, since kicking the habit some time ago, my body cannot tolerate actual smoke at all anymore). Saturday we toured the mountain passes leading through Golden Gate, south near Colorado Springs and then returning back North toward Boulder. More time spent driving around than stopping for hikes given the weather, but I couldn't have been more content playing passenger to such a wonderful sightseeing trip.

A great experience, with the paradigm of my publishing process having quite silently switched comfortably to lots of mobile broadcast of images taken during the visit. Perhaps a topic for another post more meaty in wordage. For now, I just want to share a few of my favorites with you of snowy Colorado on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Concrete City

Made a short little historical blurb of a post on my Tumblr account yesterday. Feeling rather compelled to share it here.

                                                               

Concrete City is the iconic historical landmark of a small town tucked into the mountains of Coal Country Pennsylvania, Nanticoke.

A piece of early American International Architecture, an unornate modernist style characteristically devoid of personality, Concrete City was built as employee housing for workers of the Delaware, Lackawana and Western Railroad’s coal division of miners in 1911. The same company abandoned the tract housing project in 1924 after 13 years of bi-annual repair and repainting of the buildings, which presented the unanticipated side effect of sponging moisture up through the porous concrete.

The Glen Alden Company bought the property with intention to raze it, but the construction of each building proved so sturdy that even heavy blasts of dynamite failed to collapse their structure. It has sat in increasingly blighted condition ever since, periodically seeing use in military and emergency service training exercises, scheduled paintball tournaments an ATV races. More frequently, it is the haunt of graffiti artists and curious photographers or disaffected youth simply exploring the world around them.

I’ve made two trips to the locale myself. Much like Maryland’s former landmark abandonment, Henryton, it is generally uninteresting from any architectural or directly engaging standpoint. It’s simply a calm place to be. Though not separated from civilization by a great distance, it is detached enough from the hustle and bustle of common routine to allow one to simply sit, listen, and exist without thought to obligation or pretext. There are fewer and fewer places these days where one can simply be aware of the world without distraction of media saturation. For that, this area is one of my favorites.

A place to simply be.

                                                               

Shooting this past weekend was a long needed reprieve from self-impose stress. No obligations, no worry, the opportunity to do things without any end goal, intention or point. To be able to just do things. I really need to schedule these weekends to myself with more frequency.