Uploads from frank3.0, tagged downtown

Rising Water (124)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Fri, 06 May 2011 16:26:52 -0700

frank3.0 posted a photo:

A still from a time lapse movie of high water in the Mississippi at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

You can check out the 1:49 time lapse over at my blog, www.lemonsandbeans.com/?p=4891

I would post it to Flickt but it is 19 seconds too long :(

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in the comments, I'm just not crazy about them.

Why People Start Rumors

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:40:30 -0700

frank3.0 posted a photo:

I, like everyone else in south Louisiana, have been suffering under some pretty intense allergies. But after two days of laying around on daytime and nighttime and all around time anti-histamines, I decided it was time for a long walk.

I am planning on taking a three day hike in Hawaii in May and I need to get in shape. The obvious problems with this is that the hike is vertiginous and Louisiana is dead-flat. But, you have to start somewhere. Anyway, it was a nice, hour-long saunter around downtown Baton Rouge. I took some pictures for my portion of a walking tour project my neighborhood civic association is working on. I noticed some pretty flowers. I spotted a very oddly inlaid door.

Tomorrow the plan is to get shots of some of the other historic homes that we plan to highlight on the tour, which will be available, via the interwebs, on iTunes and other such places. If we pull it off, I think it should be pretty interesting. As I am sure you can imagine, updates and the final project will be linked from this blog. Here's to beautiful Spring weather and civic obligations!

As a final note, the creepy cow skull embossed door on the hilariously immodestly named Dean Building was an odd aesthetic choice. I mean, what sort of message were the original designers trying to send with an early 20th century skyscraper draped in bronze sculptures of dead animals. This, people, is how rumors of child sacrifice and questionable birth certificates get started. So, watch out, you ambitious and whimsical embossers of the world.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

The Morning is for Walking (93)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:40:33 -0700

frank3.0 posted a photo:

99-97=2 Yellow Balloons (75)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:14:56 -0700

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Somewhere within the recesses of the opaque and labyrinthian confines of the marketing minds over at Raising Cane's Chicken Finger the idea was hatched to have a free lemonade day. This day fell on Saint Patrick's Day (the real one, not the Saturday when it is convenient to get drunk, wear a patterned table cloth as a kilt and try to knock other people unconscious with fists full of plastic beads) and so thus the lemonade, which is very tasty by the way and purports to actually use gasp... real lemons, was dutifully dyed green. Otherwise, the lemonade stand-aethetic was more-or-less adhered too—there were cheerful yellow balloons, a crudely painted sign advertising the "stand" created as to appear as though an entrepreneurial 5th grader had scrawled it and everyone seemed pretty happy. Cane's was also raising money for some school, for which they should be duly applauded. Free lemonade, education, chicken fingers, this is the stuff that Thursdays are made of.

This all sounds a bit snarky, I know. But, in truth I like their playfully disheveled approach to advertising. One minute it is a sunglasses wearing golden retriever proclaiming "One Love," which I know is supposed to be about their singular devotion to chicken fingers but can't help remindng me of some mid-1980's Stevie Wonder B-side. The next minute there is a billboard with an octogenarian swearing her love for chicken fingers and, by extension, demonstrating an admirably cavalier approach to her cholesterol level. And then there was the green lemonade with yellow balloons that has something to do with a throng of African-American children soliciting money for school books.

I admire my fellow Episcopal High School graduate, Todd Graves, for his success with Cane's. They really do make excellent chicken fingers. But, I also admire the whimsical, if sometimes confusing, approach to marketing they take. It has an almost, "Confuse them with Kindness" feel to it and in this age of rigidly controlled corporate image-making I appreciate a little whimsy with my fried food.

On a side note, Quinn is fascinated with balloons. This is probably not exceptional when it comes to two year olds but I know so few of them that her love of balloons really charms me. She has become much more verbal over the time that Anna and I have dated. As anyone who has experienced the wonder of watching a child develop, this is a fascinating, beautiful and often hilarious process. I'll spare you some of her more off-color malaprops, but when she sites a balloon, she identifies it gleefully as something that sounds like a mixture of "Walloons" and "aluminum." A Walloon is another name for the French speaking people of Belgium. So, every time Quinn points skyward at a passing balloon and yells "Walloominum" I imagine shinny Belgians, chatting away in French, floating by on the breeze.

This now somewhat lengthly blog post may provide more insight into the inner working of my mind than I might like, skipping as it does from oddly-honored holidays to crispy chicken bits and then to airborne peoples of the Low Countries. But, there is no point hiding it. I can't seem to find the post now, but I once wrote a piece about Haruki Murakami's wonderful short-story, The Fall Of The Roman Empire, The 1881 Indian Uprising, Hitler's Invasion Of Poland, And The Realm Of Raging Winds. The story, not the un-locatable blog post, is about memory and the way our minds flit across details to form a coherent picture of the past based on seemingly disconnected bits of information. It is contained in the also excellent collection The Elephant Vanishes. If you have nothing else to do with your Sunday, and you are not tired of reading after having waded through all this nonsense, then I suggest picking it up. I can't image anything that would suit the day better.

My apologies to my photo-blogging pal Chloe, who has an irrational fear of balloons.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

That Time of Year Again (43)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:21:18 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

In honor of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras Ball last night, I present to you the remnants of last year's Spanish Town Parade. At the end of the day, there is nothing pretty about plastic beads hanging in a tree all year and tossing junk into the air is a debatable way of celebrating anything. But, Mardi Gras wouldn't be Mardi Gras without the beads and so I guess we should consider this collateral damage. Maybe I am am going a bit overboard with the post-processing effects these days. It is probably lack of patience, because there has been no lack of beautiful sunshine. The weather has been picture perfect lately, but I have been more drawn to abstracting things rather than rendering them faithfully. Maybe it is the vivid, cartoon-like way I like to see the world sometimes, maybe it the residual effects of some questionable choices made during college. Whatever the reason, sometimes a faithful telling of visual truth just doesn't do justice to the splendor of the world. Or, maybe I just can't help playing with my toys.

Enough navel gazing— I like the way the light bounces off of the beads, I like the simulated light-leaks and why make apologies for the things you like?

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

The Cost of Progress (31)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:44:47 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Here, in piles, lies another historic building in downtown Baton Rouge. I have it on good authority that a great new structure will replace it. But, I can’t say I am ever too excited when I see former arched brick windows and triple-course walls reduced to a heap. We lost some of the oldest brick buildings in downtown on Main Street with the promise that a new, multi-story apartment complex would go up there and redraw the skyline as well as infuse much needs residential space into the area. Ten years later, we still have an empty lot.

I have much more faith in the folks that took down this old girl, but I still hate to see her go. I even have a relative involved in one portion of the project. For new things to be created, sometimes old things have to be destroyed. I am comfortable with that. However, when you think about the soundness of the bricks, the stories that they oversaw, the lives they sheltered from the elements then it is difficult to be too enthusiastic about beauty (and there was beauty under that 1960′s, plastered facade) reduced to a junk pile, waiting to be hauled to the dump. In fairness, the building was in bad shape, but I have yet to see a structural brick building that cannot be saved. I am not so much chastising the parties involved for taking down this old building as I am saying that it worth noting that even if it is for a good purpose, we are slowly loosing our built heritage and that is something I can never get excited about.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

One Way to Relax (4)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:20:34 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Trash is an interesting thing. Why do people choose to leave their junk in inappropriate places. The city of Baton Rouge will pick up any large object that you leave in front of your house. You don’t even have to call it in. The large debris, crane-truck comes by every week or so. Leave it long enough and one of your neighbors will get tired of looking at that old, rusted water heater and phone in a complaint. Either way, trash removal is not the issue. This leads me to believe that someone went out of their way to dump this Barcalounger on the corner of River Road and Laurel Street. There is the possibility of some anti-social soul who simply wanted to litter up the area but getting this chair to this spot took some work. Leaving it curbside at your abode would have been much easier.

This raises the question, why would anyone want to sit at the corner of River Road and Laurel Street and stare at the passing cars, levee or the occasional freight train grinding along the Kansas City and Southern track? Rather than imagine this chair as just one more lazy miscreant passing his junk onto the general public, I like to imagine that he put the chair here for some specific purpose: watching the recent eclipse or counting tanker cars or hopping to see a long lost love speed by through the passenger window of a new sedan. Happier now than he ever could have made her, but longed for all the same. I say “he” because women don’t really do such quixotic things and most of the ones that I am acquainted with would never relax in a blue corduroy Barcalounger.

The life of a found object, sitting somewhat out of place, fascinates me. How did it get here? Where did it come from? Was it cherished? Did a man save up every week so that he could buy it, bring it home and watch television from it after a long day of labor. Did it find its way to a college dorm room after a choice had been made to redecorate the house? Did it see violence? Did it see love? Every object has a story and I wish that I had the time to hear them all. But, we rarely ever get to know the private life of things. We can only speculate. Until we do stumble onto that genealogy of possession, goodnight Mr. Blue Corduroy Barcalounger owner, wherever you are.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings.

Bokeh Serendipity

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:09:17 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

The Louisiana film industry has taken off over the last few years. A number of my friends are involved with it in one-way or another. A few nights ago one of those friends borrowed my camera and flash to use in a scene where members of the press had shown up to report on some sort of crisis. I had left my manual focus Leica 35mm lens on the camera. When I got the camera back I looked through the shots the actor had taken while playing at being a journalist. As you might imagine, they were all out of focus but among the 200 or so shots there were a few that I thought were kind of abstractly interesting. I can’t claim to have taken these but I thought they were a nice study in abstraction and unintentional art making.

Bokeh Serendipity

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:08:46 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Bokeh Serendipity

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:08:38 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Bokeh Serendipity

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:08:58 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Happy Hour (98)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 07:33:19 -0700

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Follow the link below to see the time-lapse movie posted on vimeo. Flickr is great about a lot of things but you can only post movies that are under 1:30 and this one is 2 minutes and change. Have some fun, click it.

Forty Dollars the Hard Way from Frank McMains on Vimeo.

759 images shot over 6 hours and 19 minutes with a Canon 5D MKII and a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM. The camera was set up at the back of the bar I have owned and run for 11 years at around 12:30PM. It shot until the battery gave out a little shy of 7PM. The cleaning crew comes in and does their thing. The general manager, Jeffery, tends to business. I cut fruit, make orange juice, clean some bottles and serve a few drinks. It was a slow happy hour but it worked fine for the purposes of this time-lapse experiment. This is how to make $40 the maybe-not-so hard way. Thanks to the guy who gave me a $12 tip!

Shot using a Santechi intervalometer and edited in Aperture and iMovie. The camera was set on manual focus and took an exposure every 30 seconds. The ISO ranged from 100 to 400. The camera was in Av mode with the aperture fixed a f/2. The average exposure was 1/30 of a second.

Music from the amazing early 1970's Japanese band Happy End. The song is titled Ghosts of Flying Squirrels at Kuriyamizaka from the album Kazemachi Roman. Hard to find but definitely worth picking up.

NOTE: It has been brought to my attention that some of the text in the video is jumbled. I guess that is what happens when I edit late at night... who am I kidding; I am a terrible speller and grammarian. Anyway, I meant to say "Until the Camera Battery Died"

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and other ramblings. I appreciate any feedback but, please do not post graphic awards or invitations in your comments.

Mushrooms on France Street

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:08:22 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and more.

Edmore Cleans Mustard Greens (332)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:08:24 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

I have got to shoot more people in front of this blue fence.

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and more.

She Longs For Turnips (331)

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:08:21 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and more.

Tiny Flowers

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:08:23 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Check out more at my blog, Lemons and Beans, for lots of photos, recipes, travel writing and more.

Sixteen

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:06:48 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

I own a bar. Over the span of my nine years there I have seen some great bands (The Brian Jonestown Massacre are not nearly as wild as you might have heard), I have met a lot of people and, I like to think anyway, learned a few things. Most of the things I have learned are of marginal worth, including the observation that everyone looks good in front of a jukebox.

Bokeh Serendipity

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 08:09:37 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

Cory Branan at Red Star

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 09:07:34 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo:

The drummers view of the world, if Cory played with a drummer, anyway.

Lizzie and Adrienne

nobody@flickr.com (frank3.0) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:28:02 -0800

frank3.0 posted a photo: