Vintage Station and a few from Bessemer, Alabama (B&W film)

Bessemer is a suburb of Birmingham, formerly a major steel production town. According to Wikipedia,

The town was founded in the postbellum era by the Bessemer Land and Improvement Company, named after Henry Bessemer and owned by coal magnate Henry F. DeBardeleben. He had inherited Daniel Pratt's investments.[7] The mayor and councilmen voted to incorporate the city of Bessemer on September 9, 1887.[8] Located 16 miles southwest of Birmingham, Bessemer grew rapidly and its promoters believed that it might overtake the other city in economic power.

Given the iron ore, coal and limestone deposits in the area, the city became a center of steelmaking from about 1890 through the 20th century. It attracted rural migrants from across the South, as well as European immigrants. By the 1950s, the city was majority African American in population.

The industry went through considerable restructuring in the late 20th century, and jobs moved out of the area. Steel is no longer made there.

4th Alley, Bessemer, Alabama (80mm Planar lens)

8th Ave. at 20th Street, Bessemer, Alabama (80mm Planar lens)

Today, the town has a rather rough reputation, but I stopped on my 2017 road trip and took a few photographs. The alleys were surprisingly clean and uninteresting.

There is some well-preserved early 20th century architecture, like this elegant 1907 library, now used by the Chamber of Commerce. Note the Moorish arches. Well-done, indeed.

I drove to the rail line and stopped at Carolina Alley. The train really does thunder through town at high speed.

An interesting architectural salvage company! The Vintage Station occupied a big old warehouse next to the tracks at 18th Street. It had just relocated after its previous warehouse burned in March of 2017. The owner. Mr. Brad Watkins, also used the business as a Christian counseling ministry for unemployed men and for teaching job skills. Mr. Watkins was killed in January, 2018, when a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting entered his third floor room at a Fairfield hotel. I do not know if Vintage is open now (November 2019). It was a fun place to photograph.

These photographs are from Kodak Tri-X 400 film, exposed with a Hasselblad 501CM camera with 50mm and 80mm lenses. Please click any frame to expand it to 1600 pixels wide.

The 2019 Flood of Mississippi and Testing Kodak Ektar 25 Film

Introduction

Dear WorldofDecay readers, I am a dreamer. I keep hoping I will be able to buy some Kodak Ektar 25 (or Royal Gold 25 – the same emulsion) which has been frozen all these years and will respond perfectly, as if it was fresh. In previous posts, you have seen examples of 120-size Ektar 25. but I concluded that it was too late and was time to move on. Ha, I can’t keep my own advice. A seller on eBay claimed that three rolls of 135 Ektar 25 had been stored frozen in an old photography studio. The price was reasonable, so I bought them.

Expired Ektar 25 film - was it really stored frozen all these years?

The Flood of 2019 - More Examples

As of spring and early summer of 2019, much of west central Mississippi was inundated by Mississippi River floodwaters and local runoff, making for plenty of interesting photographic subjects. I have posted photographs before, but here are some examples that I took with our 1971-vintage Pentax Spotmatic Camera. My wife bought it new in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Inundated houses off US 61 near Floweree Road, Redwood, Mississippi (135mm Super Multi Coated Takumar, tripod-mounted). Click any picture to enlarge to 1600 pixels wide.

Farm road, US 61 near Floweree Road

Tar paper shack, US 61 near Floweree Road, Redwood, Mississippi (55mm Super-Takumar). This is in the area that would be drained by the Steele Bayou pumps if they are ever installed.

Dead dogs, US 61 near Floweree Road. 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar lens

 

Trump sign, US 61, Vicksburg, Mississippi (135mm, tripod-mounted). The pumps refer to massive units that Congress authorized in 1941 to be installed near the Steele Bayou flood gates. They would pump water out of the lower Delta and into the Yazoo River. These would be some of the largest pumps on earth and would now cost over $300 million. The US Army Corps of Engineers, farmers, and environmentalists have been arguing over the pumps for 75 years.

 

Flood waters north of Haining Road, Vicksburg (35mm Super-Takumar lens)

Trees north of Haining Road, Vicksburg (35mm Super-Takumar lens)

Big River Shipbuilders, 404 Port Terminal Cir,. Vicksburg (35mm Super-Takumar)

Summary

This first roll of expired 135 Ektar 25 surprised me:

The good: some of the frames are superb, like the poster of Trump Finish the Pumps.

The bad: On many frames, the colors are definitely off. Blue was not recording correctly, and many scenes were too green. However, that is not completely unexpected because here in summer, there is so much forest and wetland, the green light bounces back down from the humid summer sky. I noted this many years ago when I started a roll of Kodachrome in Greece and finished it in Mississippi. The Greek scenes were quintessential blue and glowing with light; the Mississippi scenes were green and muted – same roll of film, same Leica and lenses. Regardless, I was able to partly correct most frames with the auto color correction function in Photoshop CS3.

Scanner issue: I scanned this Ektar 25 with a Plustek 7600i scanner controlled by Silverfast Ai software. The Ai does not have an Ektar 25 profile. The closest appears to be the Ektar 100 profile (the modern emulsion), so this may account for some of the color issues. But I am sure the Ektar 25 is just too old now. I corrected the color on some frames by using the neutral grey dropper on pavement, concrete, or metal roofing, but afterwards, I needed Photoshop CS3 for further correction.

Camera motion: I also experienced some camera movement, so I am not being quite stable enough when hand-holding. And I slightly mis-focussed the 35mm Super-Takumar several times. The old Spotmatic has a rather grainy finder screen. I have had excellent results from this 35mm lens before, so my copy is not damaged.

Grain: This Ektar 25 seemed to be coarser grain than I remember. Possibly the emulsion degrades when it is old, but I am not sure. Maybe I am romantically remembering how fine-grain it was in the old days.

All in all, it was a fun experiment, but realistically I should concentrate my efforts on contemporary films, such as Kodak Ektar 100. This old Ektar 25 seemed lower contrast than when it was new, so I may try another roll in an environment with bright hard sun (such as my upcoming trip to the US southwest - Route 66, here I come again).

This is Abandoned Films 02f (the 02 series pertains to Ektar 25).

Here is a March 2021 test of 120 Ektar 25 in and around Vicksburg.

From the Archives: Moscow, Soviet Union, in 1978 (Plus-X film)

Kremlin walls from the Moscow River in 1978
(Kodak Plus-X film, Leica IIIC, 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens)

Kremlin walls from Bol'shoy Kamennyy Most (bridge)

Vodovzvodnaya Tower, Moscow

A few weeks ago, I had coffee with my karate friend Tatyana. She remembered her childhood in the Soviet Union. When I told her I had visited Moscow and Leningrad in 1978, she immediately asked if she could see my pictures. Well, that led to retrieving my negatives and scanning them. They were on Kodak Plus-X film exposed with the same Leica IIIC that I still presently use. The negatives were scratched and muddy in the low exposure areas. Maybe muddy low tones were a characteristic of Plus-X, but I am not sure. Back then, my technique was haphazard, and I can't recall who developed this roll. The scratches may be my doing. I do not see much grain, and in those days I sometimes used Microdol-X, which was a fine-grain film developer (i.e., it was designed to reduce the visual appearance of grain). But I was staying in Athens in those days, so maybe a Greek lab developed them. Regardless, they required some serious cleaning with the heal tool in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and adjustment with the curve to improve tonality.

Red Square from the GUM department store

This is the view of Red Square and the Kremlin walls taken from the GUM store. The GUM department store was a giant arcade built during the czarist era. It was reasonably well-stocked when we visited in October of 1978. Tatyana said Moscow and Leningrad were quite cosmopolitan in those days, but small towns in the hinterland had stores with empty shelves. We bought something in the GUM, but I do not remember what. The purchase process was multi-step. First you pointed out what you wanted to a clerk, and she wrote out a ticket for you. Then you took the ticket to the cashier's counter. The cashier took your tickets and added the total amount on an abacus. She accepted your Rubles (definitely no credit cards in the Soviet Union, and regardless, I did not have any cards in those days). Then the lady gave you a receipt in multiple copies, which you took back to the original counter. Upon close examination of the receipt, the lady gave you your merchandise. They were reasonably friendly and did not seem too surprised to see foreigners. It was not yet the era of Perestroika (that came in the Gorbachev era), but the Soviet Union was semi-opening and increasing interaction with the outside world. Tourists were encouraged to come, stay in hotels, and spend foreign currency.

As tourists, we were herded into one of the Beryozka shops. These only accepted foreign currency and catered to tourists, diplomats, government officials, and special people (athletes? ballerinas?). The Beryozka shops sold goods that were hard to get in normal shops. Most local people were forbidden to enter the premises, plus they usually did not have any foreign currency. We saw the normal offerings of liquor, cans of caviar, scarves, and some jewelry. I almost bought a Kiev camera but passed.

In the photograph through the arch, the people in the distance are waiting to see Lenin's body. If we tourists wanted to enter the mausoleum, the guards would have put us in front of all those people, but that seemed rude and we did not want to flaunt privilege. So we never did see Lenin's body. Stalin  and other notables are buried at the base of the walls. Notice the gents hanging around in "plain" clothes? We assumed we were being tracked, but who knows? Maybe our grumpy Intourist guide was the only official watching our group. In our hotel room, we occasionally said "Hi!" and "How are you today?" to the telephone receiver.

Soviet tourists, bronze Czar Cannon (cast in 1586)

The premier tourist site was the Kremlin, the ancient seat of power of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. We were surprised how open it was. You could not enter the government buildings, but could pretty freely walk around and take pictures. I occasionally looked for First Secretary Brezhnev, but of course, he was nowhere to be seen.

Church of the Nativity, Kremlin 

Several ancient cathedrals and churches are inside the walls of the Kremlin. Although religion was officially discouraged in the communist era, some churches were maintained and, I think, held services. The government preserved others as museums.

St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow

St. Basil's Cathedral, Red Square

St. Basil's Cathedral, (from Wikipedia: The Cathedral of Vasily the Blessed (Russian: собо́р Васи́лия Блаже́нного, Sobor Vasiliya Blazhennovo)) is an architectural wonder. This, too, was a museum. I recall the inside being rather dark and claustrophobic. The ornate chambers were much more confined than the soaring spaces in Gothic cathedrals in France or Germany.

Smolensk Cathedral

The bell tower of the 1690 Smolensk Cathedral dominates the walls and passages in the ancient Novodevichy Convent. This is now a museum.

Bolchoi, Moscow

We saw the Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione) at the Bolshoi. I recall a superb performance, but cannot remember if it was sung in Italian or Russian. Also, I cannot recall if we went with our tour group or just bought tickets and attended by ourselves.

We stayed in an old hotel called the Berlin. It was on Pushechnaya Street and and within walking distance of Red Square and most tourist sites. It dated back to the Czarist era and looked like it had not received much maintenance or cleaning since the 1917 revolution. Sturdy babushka ladies sat at a desk on each floor and gave you your room key while they glared at you. I am not sure if they worked for the KGB, but they certainly had been instructed to report any suspicious happenings.

This was a quick tourist look at Moscow. I am sorry I did not take more pictures of ordinary life. There are some slides in my boxes, but scanning will wait for "some day" (like so many other mythological projects). These black and white frames were from Kodak Plus-X film, exposed with my dad's Leica IIIC camera and 5cm ƒ/2.0 Summitar lens, which I am still using many decades later.

On the Dixie Overland Highway, Historic US 80 - east Mississippi (MS-01)

Route US 80 was one of our earliest paved cross-country auto roads. According to Wikipedia, much of the present 80 was once part of the Dixie Overland Highway, a southern route stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. Today, 80 ends in Dallas, with the sections further west absorbed into various interstate highways or local roads. "As an original US Highway commissioned in 1926, US 80 was the first all-weather coast-to-coast route available to auto travelers. For a time known as the "Broadway of America", its history is second only to US 66 in American highway folklore"

The present U.S. Route 80 (in red), from Creative Commons, Wikipedia (in the public domain)

Map of US 80 (from the 1941 Mississippi Tourist Guide (courtesy Preservation Mississippi). Note that north is to the right in this diagram 

This is the first of a multi-part series. We will start our trip in the Mississippi city of Meridian and drive west. This is not a comprehensive guide, just some of my random photographs along the way. Meridian was a major rail junction for 200 years and still has many tracks running through town as well a historic depot. US 80 enters Meridian from the east and merges with Interstate 20 at a complicated intersection near the mall. Within town, 80 may have run along 5th (also known as Main) Street or 8th Street. Maybe a reader can  advise.

Commercial hotels like this once served the Dixie Highway as well as rail travelers (Nexus 4 digital image)

Main Street, Meridian, Kodak Panatomic-X film, Hasselblad 50mm Distagon lens

The Miner Saw Company on Main Street is an example of the type of industrial activity that once flourished in Meridian.

E.E Young Hotel, Main (5th) Street at 25th Ave., Meridian, Hasselblad 50mm lens

Historic Benevolent Association Building, Main Street, Meridian, Hasselblad, 50mm Distagon lens

Meridian has a wealth of old architecture. I need to explore in more detail. The E.F Young Hotel in the photograph above has been placed on the Mississippi Heritage trust's most endangered list for 2019.

Former Cities Services station, 3700 5th Street, Meridian, 80mm Planar lens

On 5th street, I turned a corner, and there was one of the classic Cities Services Company stations with the characteristic peaked roof. Previously, I seldom paid attention to gasoline station architecture, but Thomas Rosell had just written about Citgo stations in Preservation Mississippi, and my interest was on alert. This one is now a restaurant. Some ladies were making ribs and offered me a plate, but it was only 10:00 in the morning and a bit too early for a hearty rib lunch. Pity. They were very gracious and said I was welcome to take pictures.

Hodges Variety & Arcade, 3400 5th Ave., Meridian, 80mm Planar lens

Not far from the old Citgo station was a building in poor condition at 3400 5th Ave. A sign stated "Hodges Variety & Arcade."

Heading west out of Meridian, US 80 passes through a number of small towns with names like Chunky and Hickory. I did not see all that much to photograph. It looks like most cultural or architectural remains of the Dixie Highway have been replaced with modern gas stations, fast food restaurants, and characterless steel utility buildings.

Lawrence Garage, Lawrence, Mississippi, 50mm Distagon lens

The Lawrence Garage in Lawrence may have seen Dixie travelers back in the day, but I can't be sure of the date.

Whimseys store, 23 Cedar St., Lake, Mississippi, 50mm Distagon lens, green filter to lighten foliage

Whimseys store, Lake, Mississippi, 50mm Distagon lens, green filter

Whimseys occupied a nice little 1920s cottage on Cedar Street. It was closed so I do not know what they sold or did.

Lyle's Power Equipment, 606 2nd St., Pelahatchie, Mississippi, 50mm Distagon lens

Lyle's Power Equipment occupies an interesting semi-Spanish style building on US 80 in Pelahatchie.  Look at the name molded into the arch above the door: Rankin County Motors Ford. A gent from the store told me that this was once a Ford assembly building and dealership. Model T parts were unloaded from the rail line in the back and cars were assembled and sold on the premises. The building was in nice condition and I complemented them at maintaining it so well. In fact, Pelahatchie overall looked prosperous and busy.

This ends out very short ride on the Dixie Highway east of Jackson. As usual, there is more to explore in the future. The square photographs are from Kodak Panatomic-X film taken with my Hasselblad 501CM camera. I scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium-format film scanner.

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 a Dell Windows 7 computer.