Oh Naugatuck…
Caught this on my way to the Super Stop & Shop in Naugatuck, CT.
I’ve never seen so many bumper stickers! Good luck reselling this car, this hippie chick must be off her rocker.
Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene has come and gone, and 31.5 hours later power has been restored to my neighborhood. Parts of Waterbury are still without power, but luckily for me I’m on the same grid as Waterbury Hospital, a fire department, and an elementary school, so the priority of bring us back online was pretty high.
On a controversial note I think the media hyped up Irene a little too much, calling it a category one hurricane when in reality it was a tropical storm by the time it got to the Big Apple. But, its not to say it still wasn’t a nasty storm!
Here are a couple pictures I was able to get of the wreckage in Waterbury and Naugatuck, CT. The first 3 pictures are of flooding from the Naugatuck River near the Stop and Shop where I was working on Sunday morning. The final three images are from near my friend’s house in Town Plot, a nearby neighborhood in Waterbury. The image of the chopped wood and broken fence was right next to my friends driveway and came close to hitting his truck with their back up generator in it.
All in all things weren’t too bad where I was. I heard Bristol, CT had some terrible flooding, and Irene caused other inland areas to have more trouble with fresh water flooding than most costal areas had trouble with tidal surges. So, good luck to everyone who is working to restore normality and get back to the way their lives were before the panic Irene caused.
I was unable to post my analog street shots as planned yesterday because I was at Calverton National Cemetery in Calverton, NY to lay to eternal rest the beloved Anna C. VonEschen. She will surely be missed and we all extend our prayers and loving memories to Anna and her family.
“My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I’ve lost what’s really there…been seduced by someone else’s standard of beauty or by the sitter’s own idea of the best in him. That’s not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest.”
- Richard Avedon - 1980
Old Photos, Done the Old Fashioned Way
I was going through my portfolio this morning and dug up some old photographic gems from my analog photography classes with Professor Charles Meyer. I’ll be posting some of the images that I’m scanning over the next couple of days. I hope to have a series of head shots up by tonight, followed by some street shots of Boston and a third post of some random pictures.
These photos bring back some good memories from Freshman and Sophomore year. It is still hard to believe I’ve already graduated and how quickly those four years flew by.
Gulf Gas Station South Main St. Waterbury, CT BY Pedro Ondrush
I used to work here six years ago, back when it was an Exxon and cigarettes were only $5 a pack.
Graduation for many means the beginning of the end as we leave the rough and rowdy life of college for a structured corporate life style. As a photographer I thrive on capturing that rare moment to freeze forever. As college students we’ve all had our embarrassing moments, regrets, and personal “sins” that shade our pasts and fill our closets. I feel the ultimate image of regret and reflection is the mug shot/line-up photo after an arrest and booking. It is the quintessential moment of humiliation, catching a person at a terrible moment in their life; usually after they have been caught committing a “sin.” The bright flashing lights of strobes and the click of the camera’s shutter magnifies the subject’s expression as they expose both their transgressions and their biggest regret of their four years at college.
Waterbury Clock Tower - by Pedro Ondrush
