Island Med Student

Micah introduced me to the Holga camera a while back. Wikipedia sums up the Holga by saying it’s “an inexpensive, medium format 120 film toy camera, made in China, appreciated for its low-fidelity aesthetic.”

I encourage you to read more about it. I found it pretty fascinating.

Anyway, Micah has been taking pics of Baltimore with his Holga for a few weeks now and just recently got them developed and scanned. I stole today’s pic from him. He took it on the corner of North Charles and West Eager Street in Baltimore. I’ll probably be stealing more pics in the future for this series. Thanks Micah…I know how much you love it when I steal your stuff!

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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For one reason or another, lots of folks in my neighborhood like to throw their clothes and other items onto the street for others to take. Sometimes, they even spray paint a piece of wood, or a door that says “free.” Anyway, I saw this spread of clothes from my window, and took a pic for today.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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I haven’t been able to post any Baltimore pics, as I’ve been on the West Coast for a week. But today I saw this sign in Baltimore, and couldn’t resist taking a photo. Baltimore has the coolest liquor stores, indeed.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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Baltimore is certainly famous for its crabs. There are restaurants serving crabs on just about every corner, and the crab even makes an appearance on the Maryland state driver’s licenses. There are also crab sculptures throughout the city. I’m not sure if they are all related, or if they were randomly created. I’ll have to do some more research on that. Anyway, I captured a photo of this one last night on our way to eat at an Indian restaurant. Enjoy.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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I know Paris is actually “The City of Lights,” but this photo reminded me of that tagline. Today’s pic was taken by Micah out of our living room window a few nights ago. I had the idea of taking a long exposure pic to have a light blur effect from the cars going by. It didn’t come out exactly as I had planned, but it looks pretty cool anyway.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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Yes, I have fallen dreadfully behind in posting a Baltimore pic every day. But anyway, here is a pic I took a few days ago. It’s a poster that was plastered to a bridge. I have no idea what it’s intended purpose is, but I like it, so there you go!

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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I took today’s pic while driving by in my Del Sol, so I didn’t catch the whole thing, but you get the gist. It’s a pretty church somewhere on Greenmount Avenue. There are so many fabulous churches here in Baltimore, I can’t wait to get some more photos. Sorry I don’t know any of the details of the church. Anyhoo, enjoy!

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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Today’s pic was inspired by a reader of my blog, John. He mentioned wanting to put together a collection of photos of the lone shoes you always see scattered about in places. I took this photo of a lonely shoe on the sidewalk right outside my building. I really like his idea, and I’m especially interested in the stories behind these lonely shoes. How were they lost? Where is the owner? I’ve lost many things while galavanting around, and I’ve even lost a shoe once. It’s actually is a great story. I was involved in a spontaneous mud wrestling contest in the middle-of-nowhere-West-Virginia and I was wearing flip flops. By the end of the fight, I realized that I had lost one of my shoes. We looked for that flip flop for hours, while listening to Black Eyed Peas, dancing, eating hummus, melting chocolate bars, doing the robot, making video recordings, and drinking cheap beer.

Maybe someone finally found that lonely flip flop years later. I wonder what kind of story they made up for it.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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Baltimore seems to have an excess of smokestacks. I’m interested in finding out how all of them are currently being used, if at all. In particular, I’ve always been curious about the one that you see as you’re coming into the city on I-95, that has “Baltimore” written on it. I managed to snap a picture of it as Micah was driving, which is hard to do! After some searching, I managed to find this out from a virtualtourist website:

“This is the smoke stack that greets you when you come into Baltimore from the south on the BW Parkway (I-295). On the south side of the stack it says BALTIMORE and this picture is the north side. It is a waste to energy plant (AKA a Large Municipal Waste Combustors or MWC) with a Multicomponent Infrared Gas Analyzer in the stack to analyze the exhaust. The Baltimore Resco plant has a total capacity of 2,250 TPD (tons per day), consisting of three 750 TPD units each with emissions controlled by an electrostatic precipitator.”

I also found this neat kids website with more information.

I don’t know much about how the trash-to-energy plants work. I’m always very excited about sources of renewable energy, so I’m very fascinated by this approach. As far as I can tell from doing a very quick search online, it’s an environmentally friendly way of creating power. The gases are re-used instead of being released into the air, so I think the pollution is almost zilch. Why isn’t everyone doing this? I’m obviously very ignorant on this topic, so if you’re reading this, and you know more about it, please do share!

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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Okay, so I promised to post one pic a day in my photo series, but alas I have already failed. I will try and not miss anymore days, though. Anyway, today’s pic was taken while driving past a building yesterday afternoon. It’s not that great of a pic, but I took it because I just thought the building was really neat.

Baltimore is a city with a very rich history, and it also has a lot of great architecture. I enjoy history a lot, and especially the history of buildings. I like learning about how certain buildings were used in the past, and what kind of people lived in them. It’s kind of like thinking, “If these walls could talk…I wonder what they would say.” I know that the walls of places that I’ve lived in before would probably have a lot to say, so I know there are some other walls out there with a lot to talk about!

The building is on the corner of Broadway and Eastern Avenue, near Fells Point. I tried looking up the history online, but couldn’t find anything (I didn’t look all that hard, though). If any of you out there happen to know the dillio with the building, please do share!

Also, on the topic of taking a picture a day, I recently discovered this blog post about Jamie Livingston. Apparently, he took a polaroid every single day for 20 years until he died. There’s some pretty amazing stuff on this site, so check it out. I’m actually thinking about doing the same thing. Not for the Baltimore series, but perhaps another one. It just sounds like a lot of fun.

“Baltimore - The Greatest City in America” photo series

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