Saguaro Wanderings: Seeing 2011 (#151)

For your consideration: a post-sunset post, one of a dear friend . . . a chip off the old block as they used to say.

Jerry and I have developed quite a good friendship stemming from both a mutually-shared large circle of friends as well as photographic pursuits. While our essential vision is somewhat divergent, a common sense of delight in the pursuit of intriguing subject matter (and the occasional successful result stemming from these adventures) has served to forge a delightful bond between us.

Pictured here, Jerry "sat" at my request as an oblique homage to a black and white image I took many many years ago — circa 1976 — which involved having my high school photography teacher (Mr. Swenerton) poke his head into a window opening (looking into the room) of a bunker at Battery Spencer. That posed shot, probably taken with my Minolta XE-7 with a Rokkor 135mm, was the last on my roll of 35mm film, likely Plus-X Pan (ISO 125). The outcome turned out to be an award-winning effort: titled The Cell, it took First Place in three of the four photo contests in which I entered it.

Although I doubt very much this post's offering will win any prizes, there are some interesting parallels, not the least of which is that, like that long ago day in '76, Jerry and I were exploring a similarly decrepit, deteriorating landscape, one of buildings long abandoned and suffering the slow erosion imposed by the unceasing toll taken by nature's elements.