My camera is with me at all times. It may not always be on my person, but it’s always close by. This means whenever something catches my eye, I am ready. This also means that one roll of film may have many different shots that are not related. One roll of 36 frames may span over weeks or months. You can tell I don’t get in hurry when I am shooting film. Since these shots can’t be grouped together under a common theme for a single blog post, I figured I would start a reoccurring post call “Randomness”. Now I can categorize those photos that I want to share that don’t have an interesting enough story for one dedicated blog post. To distinguish between Randomness posts, I will add the post date in the title.
My first Randomness post has 9 images. Five of these images could be grouped together, but I felt the series as a whole fit the random theme when grouped with the other four shots. During one of my Nashville outings, I drove over the Jefferson Street bridge. My eye was immediately drawn to turquoise hue of the Cumberland River. I was also drawn to the cement plant on the shore. I’ve driven by this site many times and every time it always reminds me of playing in my cousin’s sand box with Tonka trucks when we were kids.
View from the Jefferson Street Bridge – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
I actually had a Tonka Cement truck. Tonka’s claim to fame was that their toy trucks were indestructible. I would beg to differ. If Tonka would have let me and my cousins test their products, they would have realize they needed to go back to the drawing board. I believe we turned that cement truck into a skate board, LoL.
Cement Plant – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
Obviously this is not sand we’re seeing in these photos, but the mounds of rock reminded me of the sand box. We were really elaborate with our creations. I can remember making tunnels where you could drop a marble in one side of the sand box and watch it come out another. We built castles with moats and draw bridges. This list goes on. My cousin Reggie was really crafty. It must run in the family because his Dad and older brother were engineers and so is yours truly. Those were the days.
Cement Plant – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
Cement Plant – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
On the way back to my car, I noticed the changing electronic billboard. When I saw the “Freezin for a Reason” advertisement, I decided to capture it with the cement plant as my backdrop. I believe there were four advertisements flashing on the board. I found my composition and waited for the “Freezin” ad to appear. This sign was appropriate because it was cold that morning. You can even see the frozen grey tree tops along the shoreline. This billboard is actually advertising a “Polar Plunge” coming up next week. It’s an event to raise money for the Special Olympics. This might be a good photo opportunity!
Cement Plant – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
I believe I took the next picture on the same day. When I am in the area, I always drive by the stadium. With the sun at my back, I took the picture below.
Nissan Stadium – Nashville, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
The next shot is in the small unincorporated community called Fly. It is just off the Natchez Trace Parkway in Maury County, Tennessee. The area was settled by a number of Fly family members from North Carolina in the early 19 century. They started a general store which is in the background of the picture below. This store is still open for business today. You can see a better picture of the store here.
Fly, Tennessee – Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.8, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
You can find photo opportunities anywhere! This next picture was taken one Saturday at the local trash dump site. Sometimes people leave items on top of the trash compactor that someone might want or the operators will see something someone is about to throwaway and ask them to leave it on the compactor because someone might want it. Well this time someone left a carousel. The operators tried to get me to take it. They even said that I could get a lot of money for it on ebay. I believe they started believing their own hype, because one of them decided to keep it. He let me get a picture before he put it in his office.
Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.8, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
My final picture was taken on the morning of Christmas 2015. To my surprise, my boys were not up yet. They are usually the ones waking my wife and I up. I had enough time to set up my tripod and get the shot below before the room turned into a chaotic mess of boxes and wrapping paper. The picture of the dog is a gift from me to my oldest son. I took this portrait of Gaia setting on our porch. It was made with my Olympus OM1 loaded with Ilford Delta 100. My son loved it.
Olympus OM1, Olympus OM Zuiko 28mm f3.5, Kodak Portra 400, Developed & Scanned by the Film Box Lab
Stay tuned for more Randomness. There will almost always be odd ball shots on every roll. Now I have a place to put them. Thanks for reading!
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