Opening Day

I wrote a short post for the image and words site Physical Grain about my rituals and baseball. Have a look...

[Physical Grain seems to be no more, the essay follows below- eg, opening day 2026]

Opening Day

There was a time in my younger days, in my view camera days, when I imagined my photographic season aligning with the baseball season. Although that has passed (I wrote about that here.) I still try to honor my commitment to my photography on two particular days: New Year's Day, when I go to the darkroom, and on the opening day of the baseball season, when I get out there with a camera. One might imagine from this that I’m a huge baseball fan. I’m not. This year’s opening day fell on April 2nd, and I was barely aware. This was a typical Sunday filled with tasks and family time. We have an Easter Egg hunt and a formal tea on the ticket for the afternoon, but I have a brief window in the morning, and so I set out.

The day before, I had spotted a couple of promising locations from the car. At the first location, I realize right away that the sun is exactly on the wrong side of the street, so I take a pic or two for reference, and on to the second. This is just a scruffy bunch of trees at a curve in the road, with a steep slope falling away, houses visible through a screen of winter bare branches and trunks.

I walk along, recalling what I thought I had noticed the day before, considering what might possibly make a picture. The spring sun is warm, and the wind that had been tormenting us seems at last exhausted. It is good to be out, with nothing to do but look. On this day that is almost literally true, I had grabbed my camera bag from a previous outing, cameras still loaded, but I find myself at this moment with one frame remaining. Determined to make it count, I carefully considered my options. Finally, my eyes land upon a cluster of trees with the curve of a concrete water tower beyond, a glimpse of a house puncturing the space on the left. A quick check with the meter, a double-check that the reading has been transferred to the camera, a deep breath, and ca-chack. Throw my pitch, and I’m off the mound.

Ampersand

A Christmas Eve post for all my friends at the FP-4+ Party & to good people everywhere.

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Providence, RI December 2016

&

Erudite Vulcan, quondam forger of alliances, uniter of distant lands, close confidant to power brokers and the crafters of contract, acquisition and merger. No boardroom portrait was complete with out you, shoulder to shoulder you stood with the principals, yet discreet, name never mentioned. There was a time when no wheel could turn on the nation’s rails without you, but that was long ago. 

Now you find yourself struck from the masthead, unwelcome in the corridors of power, banished from the corporate style guide. You’ve been done in by the manufactured word, the brittle acronym, the awkward portmanteau. Reduced to sleeping rough on a park bench and to endure the worst indignity of all: spelling your name out in full. 

How the mighty doth fall.