"Bowl for Health", Treasure Island, San Francisco, CA, 2007.
All the pixels, no special shoes required, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/2123765265
Discussion
Loading...
This was captured with a BetterLight scanning digital back and Nikkor 90mm lens on a Sinar P 4x5 camera.
This now-demolished bowling alley was part of the Treasure Island Naval Station, closed about 15 years earlier and then just starting to be redeveloped (a process that's been slowed by serious environmental contamination).
The composition emphasizes the simple lines of the structure and the isolated, rather desolate setting.
@mattblaze I learned on Sinar Ps, back in the days. It was almost all in the studio though, rarely was one loaded into loundry baskets and then in the van for "outside" work. It's a forgotten world.
(I think I could still load 4x5" film without a hitch now, I only need to close my eyes and move my hands to get the movements going.)
Congrats on the photo and keeping that beast going!
@mattblaze I have a Sinar P 4 x 5. I never use it, but it was a part of me for so long I can’t part with it.
@johnlehet Such a pleasure to use, with the geared movements. More for the studio than the field, though1
@mattblaze I used it as my field camera, in a backpack! Heavier than it needed to be, but I was young.
@johnlehet All that gear is so much heavier than I remember it!
San Francisco's Treasure Island is a weird place. An artificial island built adjacent to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the Bay Bridge, it initially hosted the 1939 World's fair, with plans to then use it for the city's main airport. At the start of WW II, the US government appropriated it for use as a Naval station. After the Cold War, the government returned the island to the city. It was extensively contaminated by radioactive waste from decontamination training conducted on the island.
By now many, though not all, of the structures from the island's military era have been demolished (including the bowling alley in the photo). Environmental remediation is proceeding slowly.
A small community of mostly low-income families live in the island's housing, and some of the larger buildings are used as sound stages for film production and related industries. Fancier redevelopment is starting to accelerate.