Snow in Vicksburg, Mississippi (B&W film)

Dear readers, the heat is here, and the winter of 2018-2019 is fading away into memory. Other than a minor dusting of snow sometime in January, we did not see any of the white stuff. But the winter of 2017-2018 was much more interesting, with three real snowfalls. Because this is a rare phenomenon here in central Mississippi, it is worth recording on film. I bopped out with the Hasselblad and tripod as soon as I could while the white stuff was still falling or just afterwards. Here are a few examples (click any photograph to expand to 1600 pixels wide).

Beulah Cemetery, MLK Jr. Blvd., Vicksburg (50mm Distagon lens, Kodak Panatomic-X film)

Zollinger's Hill Road, Vicksburg (50mm Distagon lens, Fomapan 100 classic film)

Zollingers Hill Road drops steeply down from MLK Jr. Blvd. In the snow, it looks like a country lane. In one of the snowfalls, the city closed it because of the slick surface.

Sycamore Avenue, Vicksburg (80mm Planar lens, Panatomic-X film)

Sycamore Avenue is another small road that drops down into a valley from MLK Jr. Blvd. Once there were small homes along Sycamore, but most have been demolished. When I took this picture on December 8, 2017, the snow was melting quickly, and I wanted to capture the scene in soft light.

West Pine and KCS railroad cut from Belmont Street (80mm Planar lens, Panatomic-X film)

This is the railroad cut between West Pine and Belmont Streets. This has carried the railroad between Vicksburg and Jackson since before the Civil War. Once, there were many more cottages on the opposite slope.

Washington Street, view north (80mm Planar lens, Fomapan 100 film)

Vans, 2640 Washington Street (80mm Planar lens, Fomapan 100 film)

Heading west, we reach Washington Street, unusually quiet on a snowy morning. I have been unable to do much photographically with Washington Street, but the snow added contrast and eye interest.

Fairground Street (80mm Planar lens, Fomapan 100 film, yellow filter)

Fairground Street drops down to the west from Washington Street. These little cottages at the west end of Fairground Street have been here for decades. I have photographed them before. Most appear to be occupied.

2521 Pearl Street (80mm Planar lens, Fomapan 100 film, yellow filter)

This duplex on Pearl Street is on the east side of the street and faces the railroad tracks. All the cottages on the west side of the tracks have been demolished as have many on the east side, but I photographed them years ago.

Fairground Street Bridge (80mm Planar lens, Fomapan 100 film)

The Fairground Street Bridge is a Keystone bridge from the late-1800s. It is in poor condition and may be demolished despite its historical significance as being one of the only bridges of its type in Mississippi. I wrote about it in 2017. According to the Vicksburg Post,

"Nancy Bell, executive director of the Vicksburg Foundation for Historic Preservation, said the bridge is listed as the oldest in the state, is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Mississippi landmark. 

The bridge was closed to traffic in 1995 as unsafe. Its approach at the intersection of Pearl and Fairground streets is overgrown with trees and other vegetation, and the crumbling structure crosses over the Kansas City Southern Railroad yard."

Way to go, Vicksburg, make us proud! Demolish a historic engineering landmark, while meanwhile trying to promote the city as a tourist destination.

Durden Creek, Waterways Experiment Station (February 2010 snowfall, Sony DSC-R1 digital file) 

3000 block of Drummond Street, view south (February 2010 snowfall, Sony DSC-R1 digital file)

I found some snow files from the winter of 2010.

KCS tracks, Warrior's Trail, Bovina (80mm Planar lens, polarizing filter, Fomapan 100 film)

These are the Kansas City Southern tracks next to Warrior's Trail near the town of Bovina. The sun was just coming out and the light was magical briefly.

Highway US 80 over the Big Black River, Bovina (50mm Distagon lens, polarizer filter, Fomapan 100 film)

 Finally, this is the US 80 bridge over the Big Black River a short distance east of Bovina.

KCS railroad bridge, Big Black River, Bovina (50mm Distagon lens, yellow filter, Fomapan 100 film)

A short distance south of the US 80 bridge is this concrete arch bridge, which carries the Kansas City Southern railroad tracks over the Big Black. I am not sure when it was built, but an arch bridge this high  is unusual for Mississippi. The dark stain on the concrete shows how high the Big Black can rise after heavy rains in west central Mississippi.

This ends out short snow tour of Vicksburg and immediate area. Come back to this article when it is 100° F during some scorcher of a muggy summer day.

All square photographs are from my Hasselblad 501CM camera. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner controlled by SilverFast Ai software, running on an old Windows 7 computer.

Footloose around Vicksburg with Black and White Film

Abandoned cement silos, Redwood, Mississippi

Dear Readers, Vicksburg is an interesting town topographically and historically. When the light is diffused, which means winter when there is rain or mist, I can't resist driving around and looking for interesting scenes. The following will be a semi-random set of film photographs. We will start in the north in Redwood on Hwy 3 and work our way south to U.S. 61 and then on into town. The silos in the photograph above have been empty since the 1970s. If you are interested in more views near Redwood:  https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-mississippi-delta-19-into-woods-in.html

Chimney, U.S. 61 north of Vicksburg near Redwood, Mississippi

This chimney sits all by itself just west of the southbound lane of 61. Most people drive by quickly and ignore it.

Road leading from gravel quarry, North Washington Street, Vicksburg (Update March 2019: the house on the left has been demolished)

Kings Point ferry boat landing, Chicasaw Road (Mamiya C220, 50mm lens)

Drive west on Chicasaw Road, and eventually you reach the ramp for the Kings Point Ferry. The ferry is operated by the Warren County Board of Supervisors and provides access to Kings Point Island. Most of the traffic consists of logging trucks and hunters, but if the weather has been dry for a few weeks, a 2-wheel drive car can pass on the roads.

Beulah Cemetery is a historic burial ground at the end of Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd. The cemetery was overgrown and neglected for many years but has been cleaned and put on city maintenance during the last 5 years. It is a peaceful spot.

Empty house at 2228 MLK, Jr., Blvd, directly next to Beulah Cemetery

1904 MLK, Jr., Blvd., Vicksburg

Condemned house, 1844 MLK, Jr., Blvd, Vicksburg

Georgia Ave., Vicksburg

Head back downtown, and you pass empty or condemned houses on MLK, Jr. Blvd. Georgia Ave. drops steeply down to the south. There were once many more houses in this valley (and I may have some pictures of them from decades ago), but today, the City could cease maintenance of this road with no obvious inconvenience to anyone.

2212 Grove St., Vicksburg

We have lost many early-20th century houses and cottages. There just is not an economic incentive to fix up a house that has been neglected too long. This little asbestos-shingled cottage on  grove Street is an example.

61 Coffeehouse, Vicksburg

By now, it is time for a coffee. Vicksburg's best espresso or other java beverage can be found at 61 Coffeehouse at 1101 Washington Street, right at the corner of Grove Street. Decades ago, this building housed Velchoff's Restaurant. The always interesting Attic Gallery is upstairs.

Morgan Lane, east of Washington St. and south of Bowmar Ave.

2008 Pearl Street, Vicksburg

Pearl Street parallels the railroad tracks. Decades ago, Pearl Street was lined with modest cottages and shotgun houses. But residents and the operators of bed and breakfast homes complained of the noise from the locomotive horns. Over the years, the railroad bought properties and tore down the houses. And the city closed the grade crossing, after which the train engineers no longer needed to sound the warning horns. Click the link for photographs of many of these houses: https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2014/03/more-pearl-street-cottages-vicksburg.html

2511 Cedar Street, Vicksburg

We head east to Military Avenue, another historic part of town. Here, too, many of the early 20th century houses have been neglected or torn down.

Copeland's Bar & Grill, 2618 Halls Ferry Road, Marcus Bottom. As of 2018, the establishment looks closed.  

Marcus Bottom, Halls Ferry Road, Vicksburg

We can end our short tour at Marcus Bottom, an old neighborhood at the junction of Marcus Street and Halls Ferry Road. A new convenience store has been built on the site of this toilet.

The square frames are from a Rolleiflex 3.5E 6×6 camera with 75mm f/3.5 Xenotar lens, using Panatomic-X film. Most of the horizontal frames are from a Fuji GW690II 6×9 camera with Fuji 90mm f/3.5 lens on Panatomic-X or Tri-X film. The grainier horizontal frames are from a Leica IIIC 35mm camera with Kodak TMax 100 film.

Testing a 35mm Super-Takumar lens in Beulah Cemetery and around Vicksburg with Tri-X film

Kansas City Southern railroad cut between Belmont and West Pine Streets, Vicksburg.

Sometimes, really inexpensive things prove to be fantastic. In a recent fit of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome, suffered in varying degrees by all photographers), I bought an early-1970s Asahi Pentax Super-Takumar 35mm ƒ/3.5 lens. It was only $45, so not much of a gamble. Mine is single coated (meaning one layer of anti-reflection coating on the elements) and predates the Super-Multi-Coated versions that were introduced around 1971 or 1972. All share the same glass formulation of 5 elements in 4 groups.

This lens fits my wife's 1971 Pentax Spotmatic camera. These were elegant, reliable cameras made by the Asahi company and marketed in the USA by Honeywell. They used the Practica M42 screw mount for the lenses, and many companies made lenses that would fit. Camera-wiki lists many of these M42 lenses. But the best mechanical and optical quality usually were the Asahi ones. Many photographers considered the Pentax lenses to be better optically than equivalent Canon and Nikon versions in that era. The thorium-element 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar is one of the best 50s ever.

Well, my new-old 35 is an amazing performer! It is sharp and and has beautiful rendering. It is a retrofocus design, meaning it is designed to fit far enough away from the film plane to allow room for the mirror in a single lens reflex (SLR) camera. My 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron-M for my Leica is probably sharper and more contrasty, but it is not a retrofocus design and is a $2000+ lens, not $45. Below are some examples from in and around Vicksburg.

The cottage at 1900 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd. had a fire and will likely be torn down soon.

2228 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd is a mid-century wood duplex. It is right next to Beulah Cemetery and is empty; status unknown.

Historic Beulah Cemetery is located at the very end of Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd., right next to the Vicksburg National Military Park. The cemetery was formed in 1884 and is still in occasional use. 

"The cemetery is the final resting place for over 5500 members of the most prominent black families in Vicksburg, including ancestors of almost every native black in the Vicksburg area. The cemetery documents the existence of generations of people for whom otherwise there might be no surviving material available." 

The site was overgrown and largely neglected for decades, but an AmeriCorps team and other volunteer groups cleaned the site, and it is now on City of Vicksburg maintenance. It is a quiet place for photography. For more information, see http://beulahcemetery.org.

Photographs: Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera with the 35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens. All photographs were tripod-mounted.
Film: Kodak Tri-X 400, developed in Kodak HC-110 developer.
Light measurement: Gossen Luna-Pro SBC light meter.
Scanner: Plustek 7600i using Silverfast Ai software, scanned at 3600 dpi.

I would be glad to hear from readers who use classic cameras.