#Cameroonian Vacationers

[ryanellisphoto]

#152 — Saturday, March 2nd, 2019 — Ryan Ellis Photography - Detroit Street Photography Session #152 — Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 (ca. 1971) - Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 (ca. 1971) - Tokina 60-300mm SZ-X f/4-5.6 (ca. 19??)

Hart Plaza Shredded Flags - Bogeyed and Bug-Eyed - Street Preacher - Sunn Studio Detroit - Cameroonian Vacationers - Hart Plaza Flags - Harper Florist - Detroit Public Library - Detroit Institute of the Arts - Wayne State University Sign - Orange Yarn Mop - Roy R. Rowlands

Arrived @ 8 AM

Departed @ 5 PM

527 photos (and also 7 videos) taken in 9 hours with but 48 “keepers” among them, rendering a self-accepted 9.10% “success” rate at a leadenly 58.56 shots per hour (what I desire to achieve, at the least, as I cover the streets is a 10% “success” rate paired with a pace of 100 shots per hour).

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PREFACE:

A week ago (last Saturday), after my Detroit Street Session ended, I went to meet with my friend, Mr. E.P., to be a guest as he photographed folks in Highland Park at an old stamping factory. Before I knew it, I was informally assisting his efforts at his request by moving things around during the shoot, which was my humble honor. The next morning (last Sunday), at 4 AM, I awoke with the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. My neck (on the right side) felt as secure as a spiderweb thread strung above and across an inferno (my head holder was in the hands of an angry throb). I cried, though I did not cry well (crying is essentially impossible for me nowadays), and I wept like this without any comfort in sight. Ibuprofen helped somewhat in the coming days, and I healed a good bit (though noticeably not fully). I took time off work to heal, and I now face the prospect of quitting my day job on account of this horrific turn in my wellbeing. There was melancholy in imagining how I would hang a camera strap around my neck all day to do as I have done before. Today was my test. Could I keep coming back to seek my passion through the pentaprism? I thanked the Lord that it was Winter still. I thought that the cold might “ice” my wound. I wrapped two scarves tightly around my neck like a neck brace, and I took 400 mg of ibuprofen when I arrived (I could have taken more; I should have taken more; I wanted to see if I could face the pain). I made it nine-hours despite the pain, and I hope my “top ten” shots from the day are not just a point of pride for myself; I hope I still have it in me to make things others might like too.

S.D.G.

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PATH TAKEN:

Greektown - Over the past several weeks, at this juncture, I would have changed into my Carhart bib. It was around 25° F outside with 10 MPH winds in the morning, but yet it did not quite feel cold-enough to justify the extra layer. It ended up reaching around 33° F in the afternoon with the same winds. It was a beautifully live-with-able, climate-wise, day in the city I do not love (but am learning, ever so sluggishly, to appreciate).

Campus Martius Park

The Esplanade on Woodward Avenue - I experimented with my Tokina SZ-X 60-300mm f/4-5.6 lens, using the zoom in video mode to trace the light up signs on one side of Woodward Avenue reflecting on the windows of the building on the other side of the avenue. I also spied a scene with a Detroit firetruck and police cruiser with glorious steam behind them coming up from the manholes. Attempting to satisfactorily-frame a video clip with a 300mm zoom lens forces me to disdain my $20 miniature tripod and wish for a nicer alternative. There is an overpriced camera store an hour from my home that I treat like the last branch I reach for as I fall down a cliff. I suppose I will have to visit that shop soon if I am going to be able to rely on my gear to do more of what I want it to do.

Spirit of Detroit Plaza

Hart Plaza - The other day, I fell asleep with my iPhone plugged into a charger. When I woke up the next morning, both cameras on the phone (as well as the LED light) were no longer functional. As a photographer, this was a left-handed sword stuck into the gut for me, and I yearned to be able to post on my Instagram the continuation of the shredding of the American flags in Hart Plaza. I may email mayor Mike Duggan (Detroit’s seventy-fifth mayor) and a local news organization about this tattered American standard debacle.

Campus Martius Park - Last Saturday, in Highland Park, I met two men that were in the “Art Deco Society” for Detroit. Being a lover of Art Deco myself, I asked them an obvious question: “What is the greatest building in all of Detroit?” They were torn between the Guardian Building (my #1) and the Fisher Building (my #2). I walk by the Guardian Building just about every week, because it is in the heart of Downtown Detroit. The Fisher Building is a number of miles away in what is known as City Center (beyond downtown and even midtown). I decided then to hunt for the Fisher.

Fox Theatre

The LCA (Little Caesars Arena)

MOCAD

The DIA (Detroit Institute of the Arts)

The Detroit Public Library - There was an older gentleman waiting near Woodward Avenue for the library to open up for the day. He and I chatted for a minute, and I shared with him my antipathy regarding the otherwise breathtaking Italian Renaissance-style building that housed the Detroit Public Library. There were names etched into the Vermont marble near the top of the building, visible from Woodward Avenue. They were, from left to right:  Aeschylus; Archimedes; Socrates; Plato; Cicero; Caesar; Aristotle; Epictetus. :—:— I was perplexed at the choices as well as the order in which the choices appeared. I do not know much about half of the named men. I do know that Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great. I was curious why Cicero and Caesar appeared between Plato and Aristotle. I was also curious why Alexander the Great was omitted from the listing. Certainly, Cicero was one of the greatest minds of the last twenty centuries. It is because of Cicero that I adore Latin (well, Augustine’s adoration of Cicero’s Latin writing is what made me start teaching myself Latin [it is said that to read Cicero in Latin is the closest one can get to hearing music through language]). The ultimate irony is that above the front door to the Detroit Public Library, these words are inscribed:  “Knowledge is Power” :—:— I laughed with the man I met outside the library regarding what I thought was a silly disparity. How much did that building cost to erect only to have such a blunder (in my layman’s opinion)? I hope to go inside the library and seek the answer to this one day soon (I fully expect [or at least hope] to hear a sensible explanation to correct my unsatisfactory opinion of the selections and ordering of the names on the front of the library).

The Department of Mortuary Science (for Wayne State University) - It did not smell like anything outside of this building, but then again, it was a 24° F morning! Hahaha. This is as close to the Fisher as I could get. It was then 10 AM, and I had an 11 AM appointment to make with my pal, Roy. I took a photo of the yet-distant Fisher Building with my 300mm lens before releasing it from my sights. I will catch the Fisher another day!

University of Michigan Detroit Center

Mack Avenue

Milano Bakery - Arriving fifteen-minutes early, my security guard pal that looks after the bakery commiserated with me. I told him of my insane week that included the neck injury (much more craziness than what I recounted in this write-up happened, as happens sometimes). He had similar and crazier tales to trade with mine, and he left me with much encouragement. I always feel imbued with apotheosis (pretty good word) by such outright kindness; I dare say such treatment makes me a merry man (and to that, I say, “Let it be!”). Truth be told, Roy did not show much of a tan at all for having spent the previous two-weeks in Florida. He took his truck-mounted camper and Harley to a campsite in the panhandle part of the state. He met with a realtor and scoped a $150K fixer-upper in a $250K “working-class” neighborhood six-miles from the ocean. The area in which he hopes to soon reside is in the middle of several nature preserves and is largely devoid of tourists—for now (it is slowly being converted into a course of tourist traps). He plans to list his Michigan home in April and be gone not long after. I will miss him, and I told him as much a few times. He reverberated in kind in each instant.

Bert’s Market Place Jazz - I hopped in Roy’s red Mercedes, and we parked at Bert’s (I think of Bert, the owner, as the black Willy Wonka of Detroit [he is a man of wonder and universal kindness]). Peckish but picky, the two of us were; we skipped Bert’s and headed to get tea leaves at Rocky’s instead.

Rocky’s Nuts

Dearborn Fresh Supermarket - Roy took me to a favorite supermarket of his in Dearborn after complaining Rocky’s sold their loose leaf black tea for $20 a pound. It was $6 a pound at this place.

Urban Bean Co. - Roy and I had our regular beverages (he had an espresso [double shot]). I had an overpriced ginger drink.

Avalon Cafe and Bakery - I ran into a group of Cameroonian (central-African) vacationers here that were trying to locate B-Dubs. I volunteered to be their temporary tour guide to help them find the Victorian-Era (ca. 1840’s-1870’s) building that housed the largest Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in America.

Buffalo Wild Wings - I photographed the vacationers here before heading back toward my car with the things I bought at Rocky’s. They had spent the day tracing black history through the city of Detroit. I hope their day continued with as much charm and glee as had been described to me by their chaperone.

Greektown - I had loose leaf teas from Rocky’s in a grocery bag clipped to my camera bag that I wanted to drop off at my car before making one last pass through the city. On my path back, a homeless man put a pair of brand new (still in its packaging) winter gloves in my face, offering to sell me them (I was wearing gloves at the time myself). I was disgusted. Someone likely had given those new gloves to him to keep him warm, and he preferred, rather, to make quick cash (possibly for his next score) off them. I had not seen any homeless folks yet in the day. Earlier in the week, to redirect my pain into a noble cause, I bought ten pairs of size 9-12 men’s long black socks from the dollar store that I filled with gospel tracts. “This man would have sold the socks,” I reasoned, and I walked away in sadness and bitterness having not given him anything but a brief scolding for crying wolf, as it were.

Donald “Sunn” Anderson’s art stand - For the first time in 2019, I saw my good friend, Mr. Anderson, with his art stand set up in Greektown. He told me about his brick and mortar studio space / store front and said I should check it out (it was nearby).

Monroe Street - I saw a man walking a bike down the sidewalk, which to me says “bad day” or “flat tire.” He looked familiar—like a homeless man I met last summer on a bridge in Eastern Market (also walking a [different] bike then). I asked him if his bike had a flat. He said no and added that he found the bike left under a bridge for three days and decided to take it as his own. I told him it was not his and that he should return it immediately. He said that a “known drug dealer” he knew claimed it, though the man refused to acquiesce it, since the dealer was mean. I figured the bike was stolen and that the “known” dealer was his dealer. I recalled how this homeless man told me last summer how he had just been released from a long prison sentence for a crime committed in his youth. The world had entered the Digital Age while he was locked up, and, by Providence, he had connected with a homeless service, called “Southpoint,” that provided training in computers, which resulted in his working for Dan Gilbert’s loan company. I hinted at our previous conversation from this past summer. The man claimed no knowledge of “Southpoint” and said he was never given such a job, though he admitted he was the man from last summer. He lied to me before as well as now! Feeling pity for the man, I gave him a pair of the socks I had on me. He snatched them from my hand and forcefully stuffed them into one of his front coat pockets. We parted ways, and my mind split under the weight of my naivety. I have told innumerable homeless folks since that summer meeting about this “Southpoint” resource that was nothing but a druggy’s deception.

Campus Martius Park - A faithful street preacher, named Reuben, was with his little boy plying his professed faith to the people passing his portable P.A. system. I walked up to him and told him I had great pictures of him if he would just send me a message. I handed him one of my business cards, and he smiled and apologized for not getting in touch before. I wanted to capture the man on camera before I left, so I started super close with my Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 lens and finished with my Tokina SZ-X 60-300mm f/4-5.6 lens (as zoomed in as I could muster). :—:— In my passage out I ran into a third “homeless” man with freshly-laundered folded blankets and a large smart phone and plenty of food atop a state-of-the-art walker. Judging by the quality and condition of the items he lugged, he seemed to have a home. Determined not to be fooled again, I rejected his pleas for monetary help and walked on by (albeit with a heavy heart at my coldness toward him).

Capitol Park

David Klein Gallery - I asked the kind folks at the gallery about the latest MetroTimes cover picture. It looked just like the Low Rider style of a recent showing at the gallery. They said they were not in cahoots with the magazine and lamented that fact, since it could have been excellent publicity for their recent Low Rider-themed gallery showing.

Campus Martius Park - I again photographed the street preacher and his young son. I wanted to get a shot of the two near one another with the son imitating his father. The shot in my “top ten” is as close to that goal as I could attain in the time I spent shooting there. I caved and gave the (”third”) homeless man a pair of socks, though when I tossed them at his hand, they fell short and hit the sidewalk, making him pick them up. This was an absolute accident, and I again felt bad (I am all too apologetic; am I becoming Canadian? The Windsor Hum must have buzzed my brains bonkers!).

The Hudson Site 

The YMCA - Photographer, though I am, I do not look at everyone around me always. As I was on the lookout for Mr. Anderson’s brick-and-mortar studio space/storefront, a fourth homeless man passing against me in the sidewalk exclaimed at me, “Eastern MarkeT” (emphasizing the final letter in the word “market”). I looked up, startled, and I asked if he worked at Eastern Market too. He glared at me with the wildest eyes a mentally-drained man could manage, and I looked him up and down. He had on a coat that unzipped into a blanket that seems to be the universal winter uniform of Detroit’s homeless. Preoccupied with my goal of finding Mr. Anderson’s spot, I walked away without giving him another word.

Donald “Sunn” Anderson’s brick-and-mortar studio/storefront - I was amazed by Mr. Anderson’s storefront. His window art skills are fantastic.

Greektown - I saw the “fourth” homeless man (from just before) ahead of my planned path back to my car, so I ran up to meet his pace on the sidewalk and asked him what his outburst from before was about. He said I had told him there was work to be found in Eastern Market and that he had sought a job there to no avail. I apologized for his wasted efforts and told him he had done a great thing to get on with finding work for himself. I gave him a pair of socks, and he pocketed them with grace in his front coat pocket. I asked him where he was staying. He said he lived under a certain bridge. Our conversation continued through different topics. He said he had girl problems. Trying to peer-ify him, I joked back (referencing the famous Jay-Z song), “I feel bad for you, son!” The joke was lost on him; he blankly looked forward and kept walking. At right about that time, I reached Mr. Anderson’s stand and broke off to chat with him instead.  

Donald “Sunn” Anderson’s art stand - I told Mr. Anderson that every self-respecting business in Detroit needs “Sunn” to shine upon its windows. He laughed. I was serious. There should be a campaign to get his art all over Detroit in this medium.

Greektown - Parting with Mr. Anderson, I caught up again with the “fourth” homeless man. I brought up his girl problems and asked what happened. He replied that a lady he had gotten with “bogeyed” him. Unfamiliar with what this meant, I asked for clarification. He loudly shouted some gibberish at me, at which point I locked eyes with a beat cop that happened at that moment in our walk to be to our right. I gave the policeman a bug-eyed look of pitying confusion about the homeless man’s outburst and walked onward. When out of earshot of the policeman, I told the homeless man that such an explosive response to a level-headed question was not socially proper and added that we were done for the time with our conversation.

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WHAT WENT ON ON THIS DAY OUT IN DETROIT?

I sought to find if I could shoot street photography despite my pain from an injury incurred exactly a week ago. I think I succeeded, though my mobility was limited. :—:— The torn American flags in Hart Plaza were still (and further) torn. Unable to post about them online at the time, I think I should email the mayor and a news organization about this embarrassment. :—:— I fell into four odd interactions with some of the homeless in Detroit today. I want to learn the best advice to pass onto them.

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⋰B⋰U⋰Z⋰Z⋰W⋰O⋰R⋰D⋰S⋰

“Inside baseball” concepts talked about in this Detroit Street Photography Session  —

● Carhart Bib - I used to have to seek shelter from the winds and the cold more often when it got “bone-chilling” cold (~15° F) before I started wearing Carhart overalls on colder outings. This “bib” also lets you get low without dirtying your regular clothes underneath (as a tall fellow, I find extra goodness in lower angles).  

●  Mini Tripod - Get one. Get a good one that stays put when you set it. Learn from my mistake, and buy yourself a steady, sturdy mini tripod. I swear by mine any other time. You will get too much camera shake if you try to steady (by hand) a drooping (cheap, like mine) tripod.

●  Art Deco - There are almost a dozen Art Deco buildings / structures in Detroit (The Guardian Building; The Fisher Building; The Penobscot Building; The Livingston Lighthouse; The Rackham Building; The David Scott Tower; The Federal Building; The Detroit Free Press Building; The Macabees Building; The Water Board Building). Art Deco as a style is marked by modernistic aesthetics made with luxurious materials and executed with precise and complex designs. The 1920′s may well be my favorite decade of all time, and so, I am head over heels that Detroit has so many glorious Art Deco remnants yet extant. For any photographer, I would assert, such pretty pieces make for great pictures. :—:— Wherever you find yourself shooting shots, know what is around you and why it is there and why it is important (if at all). To borrow a phrase found atop a not-Art Deco building in Detroit: “Knowledge is Power!”

● Digital Age - We are in the Digital Age (a name for the present era that our offspring may change in a lifetime [or in eight]). To be in the present means you have the past to play off of. The sixteenth-century super-genius, Martin Luther, thought he was beyond spoiled to have press-printed books to use for study (this was a vast improvement in convenience over enormously-expensive and rare hand-copied scrolls and books). We have computers (and who knows what else in coming years?). A great photographer that sells his (and his father’s) prints in Eastern Market gave me great advice when I asked for his best wisdom for pursuing photography. He asked me, “is that a digital camera you are using?” I answered affirmatively. He said, “you basically have unlimited shots, given the memory card’s capacity over and above any film camera roll, so shoot everything you want to shoot, and take multiple shots each time.” We are in the Digital Age. Be retroactive if you like, but know that there are liminal conveniences that may teach you as much or more than dated, sometimes less-convenient approaches.

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