Going Uptown...

Well, in a previous post I showed you the natural landscape that surrounds Butte. I even showed some other bits and pieces in previous posts. (If you haven't seen those then you might want to check those out and then come back...it'll make more sense) That lady on the mountain is "Our Lady of the Rockies". It's a statue that is taller than the Statue of Liberty perched atop the Continental Divide. There is some story to it, but I won't bore you with that; but it is the strangest thing to go around town at night and in the darkness, high in the sky is a glowing (it's lit at night) Virgin Mary staring at you from the East Ridge. That filthy bathroom was on the top floor of this old building called Metals Bank. That picture of Cindi in the doorway was also in that building. That tunnel with Cindi jumping leads to a thing called the Berkeley Pit, which was a mining pit that was over 1,000 feet deep. (I don't remember the actual depth, but it is staggering) When they abandoned the mine, they turned off the pumps, the water rose, and it turned into a massive toxic lake (It's at least a mile across). It's been rising ever since and will one day (unless they can detox it) endanger the local water supply. It is noted as a tourist attraction...and whenever I visit we make a big joke about it...but I've seen pictures before the water rose and it gives me weird Atlantis type vibes of history submerged under the depths. But this is old...
...Let's move on to today's post. We're gonna look at some of the buildings. So, speaking of mining... Almost all of Uptown Butte was built around the turn of the century (1900). It was built to be used while the mines were in operation and then most likely abandoned (the way most mining towns work). There is some impressive architecture, but something that is odd is all over the hillside that Butte is built on there are these "Gallows Frames" as they are called, which used be the portals into the mine shafts. You can walk out of a shop, a home, a restaurant, a bar and be greeted to the site of these frames...it's very strange.


I wonder if they used if they used a ruler on this thing, I can't figure out why it's crooked...this picture kind of baffles me.


These next two buildings were involved with some very rich guy who had a large stake in the mines. He was called the "Copper King"...since copper was the main mineral being mined. This first one is his house, the other is called the "Art Chateau"


I've had a love affair with this alley since the first time I saw it... This picture really captures the feeling I get about Uptown Butte. I've shot it from several different angles and have never really been satisfied until now. Uptown Butte used to have underground tunnels that networked all around uptown. There used to be a lot of brothels around town and most of these all had secret tunnel entrances...so the patrons wouldn't be seen visiting houses of ill repute. There was also a large Chinese immigrant population that had whole communities that lived underground, and with the bone chillingly cold, sub-zero degree winters this would help as insulation. There used to be many secret entrances to these tunnels...most have been sealed closed. But if you look along the left wall you see a series of doors that most likely don't all go into the building or basement. That door (from the previous post) with the red bottle seems to be door that did not go into the building.


And I want to apologize that I said when I started this that I would keep the words to a minimum...but I always get long winded with my writing and I love words and pictures. I don't know why I thought that I wouldn't write about these pictures...

The Surf Sessions

Living near the ocean, you come to recognize it's different moods season to season. With the ocean always being in motion I find capturing those moments of motion to be easy and ellusive at the same time. I can capture motion, but it's difficult and time consuming to capture that moment or sequence of awesome power or beauty. I've found it has required great patience and a lot of disappointing pictures to pull out that one good one.



I was looking through some photo book at Borders or some bookstore like I tend to do when I'm in a bookstore and I've run out of ideas for what to look at...it's my default. I came across a book of just motion sequences and kind of had a little fling with them...but I directed almost all of them to the ocean, since I thought it was a nice way to show some of the process to trying to capture that "one" shot. Turns out that I don't think any of these had the "one", but the process became the shot for me.




I spent an afternoon on the pier shooting down at the surfline taking hand held time exposures and got some interesting results, most of my shots got ruined by my own unsteady hand, since time exposures are usually tripod only behavior, but I like the challenge of the hand held time exposure and the ease of travelling without a tripod. I think all the time exposures I have done are all hand held. I do very little tripod work if any. So, here is the motion of what should be multiple frames all smashed into one.


I don't know what it is, but I love taking pictures of photographers taking pictures. It must be that self-awareness crap that you always read about in art books. It usually just makes me smile...so if self-awareness makes me smile then that's nice.

Kerouac said it better..

Alright...this post is going to be dedicated to to Butte, Montana. This might get wordy...but the next posts won't be. As many of you know, Cindi, my girlfriend, is from this very unique place. It used to be an expansive mining town nestled a mile high against the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. It was once called the "Richest Hill on Earth" and has been described as "A Mile High and a Mile Deep", since the mines actually, against all physics, delved that deep into the earth. It used to be one of the richest cities in the world per capita when the mines were going full steam. Winter grips this beautiful and treacherous landscape for 6 months at a stretch. Jack Kerouac visited this place frequently on his journeys east-west, west-east. Reportedly his favourite bar in the world was this bar the "M & M", which still stands today. But, now the mines have been shuttered and the population and wealth have dwindled with it. I love taking pictures in places I've never been before or visit rarely, because I get much more excitement about the possibilities. You can walk the historic streets and feel the history. You can shoot expansive landscapes or microcosmic moments...there will be many more Butte posts to come, but I think Kerouac's memoirs of his first visit to Butte, describe it best.

"I slept en route to great Butte...over the Divide, near Anaconda and Pipestone Pass...Butte of the rough geographies. Arriving I stored my bag in a locker while some young Indian cat asked me to go drinking with him; he looked to crazy. I walked the sloped streets in super below-zero weather...and saw that everybody in Butte was drunk. It was Sunday night, I had hoped the saloons would stay open long enough for me to see them. They never even closed. Montanans drink to much, fight too much, love too much. What characters: old prospectors, gamblers, whores, miners, Indians, cowboys, tobacco-chewing business men! Hundreds of men played cards in an atmosphere of smoke and spittoons. It was the end of my quest for an ideal bar. I also saw a ninety-year-old man called Old John who cooly played cards till dawn with slitted eyes, and had been doing so since 1880... There were Greeks and Chinamen. The bus didn't leave Butte till dawn. I promised myself I'd come back. The bus roared down the slope and looking back I saw Butte on her fabled Golden Hill still lit like jewelry and sparkling on the mountainside in the blue northern dawn."