Blog Archives
Robots. Oh, and writing.
I thought this was the funniest store I’d ever seen. But I didn’t go in to see what their deal was.
It wasn’t until I was working on this post that I thought about trying to find out about it. Turns out, it’s way cool. Robot Supply & Repair supports 826Michigan, an organization that helps students learn how to be better writers. I’ll give you a minute to head over to their website to check it out.
Interesting, wasn’t it?
Anyway, now I wish I’d gone inside and bought a book or a hoodie or some coffee.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
photographed 4.19.2013
An unfortunate name
I don’t think choosing a name that includes the word “fear” was a good idea for a hair salon, but maybe I am just being too sensitive.
Am I missing a hair-related pun? You know, something along the lines of The Hair Em, Julius Scissor Hair Design, or Hair Force One (all actual names)?
Or am I still freaking out from that one bad perm back in the 80s? (Also: is the term “bad perm” redundant? What about “bad pun”? Also redundant? Judges?)
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
Building elevations and shadows
Back when I was in architecture school (Yes! I was in architecture school!) my favorite thing to draw was shadow lines on building elevations. I loved to calculate the angle of shadows and the different shapes they’d be. The fact that this was my favorite part of architecture school explains why I went to graduate school and studied something else.
But it will also probably explain why even now – a LOT of years after architecture school – I photograph all these building elevations. And you can thank (or not, depending) Professor Ric Vrooman at Texas A&M University for making us draw shadows accurately, based on actual sun angles at actual building locations, instead of taking the easy way out and using a 30° triangle to strike shadows across our drawings. It was from him that I learned to love a nice building elevation with good shadows.
(He also made us cut our presentation boards down so they maintained the Golden Mean ratio, which was actually sort of a pain in the ass. Good with the bad, I suppose.)
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
Air Conditioning
Another town, another alley.
The thing that caught my eye here was that air conditioner and the way it broke up the rhythm of the arched, boarded doors and windows.
Which reminded me of my childhood home. It was cooled by one of these kinds of units, which work by the cooling effects of air blowing across water. We called them evaporative coolers, or evap coolers; in New Mexico they are known as swamp coolers, for reasons that escape me since the state is relatively swamp-free and anyway, these things don’t work if it’s humid outside. (I’ll let Wikipedia explain it in a lot more detail.)
When these coolers first come on, for just a minute the air smells like the first drops of a rain shower. I remember that smell, and the white-noise effect of the fan, and the way my mom always opened the window in the front bedroom just a little bit to draw the cooled air through, and how I could sit on the porch and feel that air blowing through the window screens.
Amherst, Texas
photographed 5.24.2013
Mostly sky
There’s no need to add any deep theological meaning to the large amount of sky above the Living Word sign.
I mean, if you want to, I certainly won’t stop you. My point was that I didn’t do that when I took the shot; I just liked the way it looked.
at the corner of Pile Street and East Grand Avenue
Clovis, New Mexico
photographed 5.25.2013
One Day | One Image 