Assateague is a skinny island just south of Ocean City in Maryland. Where Ocean City was all tourist attractions and (probably) trucked-in sand, the beaches along Assateague are natural and wild. The northern part of Assateague Island is in Maryland and hosts both Assateague State Park and Assateague Island National Seashore. The southern end of the island is in Virginia and hosts the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

Assateague is perhaps best known for the wild ponies that roam it. I’ll share some pony photos soon, but for now, just enjoy the beach.

Canon PowerShot S95

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The beach at Assateague

Just some photos of the wild, natural beach on Assateague Island in Maryland.

Construction at North and Maple
Nikon N90s, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF Nikkor
Agfa CT Precisa 100 (x-1/2006, cross processed)
2018

An apartment building is being built where the parking lot for my company’s office used to be. I never thought I’d say this about a parking lot, but I sure miss it. They built a parking garage for us, but I’m not a fan. I park on the street instead.

When I first worked for this company, this part of Fishers was all little houses, mostly used as small-business offices. Our office building, at two stories, was by far the tallest building for a mile. Now the houses are all gone, replaced with office, apartment, and retail buildings in various states of completion.

It’s been fascinating to watch this building go up day by day. I was looking through my photographs and I see that I have a pretty good record of this building’s progress, from parking lot to now. I’m going to need to see this accidental project through, and keep photographing it until it’s done.

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Film Photography

single frame: Construction at North and Maple

Film Photography

Shooting Agfa CT Presica 100, original emulsion, cross-processed

While I had my Nikon N90s out I decided to shoot one of the rolls of expired slide film that Stephen Dowling of Kosmo Foto gifted me some time ago. This time I chose Agfa CT Precisa 100, expired since January of 2006. This is another of the Agfa films that survives, zombie-like, after Agfa stopped making its own films. The film sold as CT Precisa today is made in Japan, and by all accounts it’s not the same.

Word on the street is that this stuff loves to be cross-processed — that is, developed in the C-41 chemistry used for color print film. So that’s what I did. Roberts, the photo store Downtown, still has a minilab and they cheerfully processed and scanned my roll.

I shot part of the roll Downtown after I got a good barber-shop haircut. I’ve bought shoes at Stout’s — it’s like stepping into 1942 in there, with the same technology and the same service.

I aimed my camera (with the 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF Nikkor lens) at anything colorful as I walked along Delaware Street and on the first block of Massachusetts Avenue. The entrance below was to a Burger King when I worked in a building across the street more than 20 years ago. Today it’s a tapas joint.

I made the photo below to finish the roll before dropping it off for processing at Roberts. I’m a little disappointed that the sun washed out the hood and snout of the Camaro so strongly but I’m showing the photo anyway because of all the colors I got otherwise.

I also brought the camera to Zionsville Village and made some of my usual shots.

I really liked how cross-processed CT Precisa rendered the greens of grass — so supernaturally vibrant.

Look around online for people who’ve cross-processed this film and they’ll all tell you it really brings out the blues. Sure enough, that’s what happened here.

After my last roll of expired slide film was so washed out, I researched online whether exposure compensation could help. The wisdom I came upon over and over was that if you weren’t sure how the film was stored, overexpose — but only by about 1/3 stop given slide film’s narrow latitude. So I did. And I didn’t need to; everything was slightly overexposed. Photoshop rescued every shot. This stuff must have been stored frozen until I got it.

Shooting this roll of CT Precisa was great fun. Maybe I’ll come upon another someday.

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Ike & Jonesey’s
Nikon N90s, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF Nikkor
Fujifilm Superia X-tra 400 (at EI 200)

It’s funny how when I go Downtown to have fun, I tend to stay north of Washington Street, which is the north-south dividing line in Indianapolis. I don’t do it on purpose — that’s just how it works out. But now that Margaret has a job Downtown but south of Washington, I’ve walked those Downtown streets and have found that there’s fun to be had there too.

Ike & Jonesey’s has kept their party going for 25 years now. When I moved to Indy in 1994 I remember hearing ads for them on the radio. I guess they have (had?) a very popular dance floor. Finally I know where they are located. Not that I dance. Heavens no.

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Film Photography

single frame: Ike & Jonesey’s

Photography, Road Trips

Touring Arlington National Cemetery

If you know the region, you’re not at all surprised to see a photograph from Arlington National Cemetery that includes the Washington Monument. But for people like me who grew up more than 600 miles away, for whom this cemetery was only ever seen through television on a significant anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s death, it was a surprise.

Indeed, Arlington National Cemetery is on one side of the Potomac River, and the National Mall is on the other. The cemetery is just a mile from the Lincoln Memorial. The Arlington Memorial Bridge connects the two sites.

It’s a truly lovely cemetery of gently rolling hills. I could tell it had been there for a long time as the terrain looked natural. Today, building such a place would certainly begin with big earth-moving equipment to create a desired landscape. Anyway, I was right: veterans have been buried here since the Civil War.

Not just any veteran can be buried here. Anyone killed in active duty can, but beyond that the rules are fairly restrictive to honor the limited space.

It’s staggering how many of these little grave markers there are, row after row in every direction as far as you can see.

We visited just before sunset. The low sun created golden light and long shadows. It was an ideal time of day to visit; it created a reverent atmosphere.

Behind the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the stunning Arlington Memorial Ampitheater, completed in 1920.

Its classical style was also enhanced by the setting sun.

The cemetery was closing as we reached the last place we wanted to see: the eternal flame at John F. Kennedy’s burial site. This was just after we saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, by which I was so moved that I could not find it in me to photograph Kennedy’s grave. Instead, I turned around and photographed the cemetery as it led away from there.

The trees, freshly flowered, were a lovely counterpoint to how I felt: struck by all the loss families had suffered across the generations as their children fought for their country.

Canon PowerShot S95

Blogosphere

Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

The beach at Assateague

single frame: Construction at North and Maple

Shooting Agfa CT Presica 100, original emulsion, cross-processed

single frame: Ike & Jonesey’s

Touring Arlington National Cemetery

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