Jessica Cyders Archives

July 30, 2013July 30, 2013

The Downard Sisters

I spent a most enjoyable day playing historic sleuth and running all over southern Ohio with Curator Jessica looking for (and finding) something I’ll write about when I don’t have white-line fever. I got a late start (what’s new?) and only made it just west of Covington, Ky.

I’ll tease you a bit with a quote: “I knew my grandfather about as well as any of his grandkids: I knew where he hid his whiskey.” When somebody tells you that over the phone, you HAVE to track him down.

One side trip was to the Athens Cemetery on West Union Street. Jessica challenged one of my ancient photos as not having been taken there. I, of course, had to prove I was right.

Erin and Jamie

While there, she took me to one of her favorite grave markers: one for two sisters, Erin Michelle and Jamie Leigh Downard. Erin was born in 1982 and died in April 1989. Her sister was born in 1984 and died in January 1989.

How did they die?

You have to wonder why two young sisters would be taken so close to each other. Was it a car accident? An illness? I guess that’s another one of those things I’ll have to look up the next time I get to Athens.

A sense of whimsy

This marker is unique, but not as heart-rending as the Downard sculpture. I’d love to hear the story behind the license tag etched on Kay Anne Blackburn’s stone.

July 27, 2013

Altenburg Full Moon

I spent the day roaming around in small coal mining towns I last saw in the early 1970s. It’s funny how I would catch a glimpse of the side of a building and recognize it immediately, then pass through a whole town without a flicker

Athens Historical Society Museum curator Jessica Cyders and I met with some members of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds to see what mutual interests we might have. I photographed the architecture in town of Shawnee in 1969 for an independent study course. It felt good to see so many buildings still standing. Some are a bit wobbly, but I don’t stand so straight these days, either.

Lutheran Heritage Center

The photo above isn’t from Shawnee. It is the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum in Altenburg taken under the full moon. I described all kinds of technical machinations for shooting Tower Rock the other night. This is decidedly low-tech. I shot it out my car window. The shutter speed was slow enough that I had to turn off the motor to get it anywhere near sharp.

The moon provided some nice backlighting, but the right side of the building was a trifle dark. I moved car slightly so the headlights hit it. It would have been a little more evenly lit if I had aimed the car a little more to the left. I used that technique when I was doing a story on an old homeless guy who sold pencils on the street. I spotted him asleep on a dark park bench. Once I got the angle I wanted, I radioed another photographer to drive over and light him up.

Trinity Lutheran Church

I was was headed to drop Gerard Fiehler off at his house when we decided to see how the moon looked on the Trinity Lutheran Church. I thought a street light made the building look ugly and was turning around when I shot the photo of the center. While I was doing that, Gerard got out of the car to see if he could find an angle where we could get the moon without seeing the street light.

His diligence paid off. It’s not a great shot, but it’s pretty good for a situation I was going to blow off.

April 17, 2013April 18, 2013

Drops of Rain

I had four situations on a roll of film: the St. Charles Hotel, the Indpendence traffic jam, the actual assignment (I’ll publish it later) and this random shot of rain drops.

I probably shot the assignment at the airport, then cruised around looking for stuff to burn up the rest of the roll.

There were four frames of the raindrops, but I like this one with a drop making its escape at the bottom the best.

The key to shooting something like this is to shoot so that only the important part of the photo is sharp. I probably used a 105mm or 200mm telephoto set at a wide aperture so there would be very little depth of field – in other words only a little of the frame would be sharp.

Through a screen fuzzily

This looks like it was shot though the screen on our side porch. It’s interesting, but not interesting enough that I was going to spend much time spotting out some ugly scratches at the bottom.

Nikon D7000

I got a box in the mail Tuesday with a shiny Nikon D7000 in it. I mentioned that my Nikon D3100 started hiccuping on my way back from Cape in March. I thought it might have gotten a bit sticky from experiencing cold weather. It turned out that a piece had been rattling around for almost a year after I crashed on my bike. It’s been out of service for a couple of weeks and a couple of hundred bucks.

(By the way, if you are interested in buying those cameras, click on the links and I’ll get a piece of the action to help pay for MY camera. Also BTW, the first link to the Nikon D7000 is for a body by itself. If you want the basic Nikkor 18-55mm lens with it, you’d go here.)

It dawned on me that had it crapped out at the beginning of the trip instead of the end, I’d have been in a lot of trouble. That gave me an excuse to buy a second, much improved camera body. That will also mean I don’t have to switch lenses when I use the 55-200mm lens birthday present the boys bought me.

The only thing is that I’ve had it almost 12 hours and I haven’t had the nerve to so much as put the camera strap on it. The operating manual is about as thick as War and Peace and just about as easy to understand as the Russian language version of the book.

I long for the days when I could eyeball the exposure, focus on what was important and change the shutter speeds and f/stops by feel. The camera shouldn’t be smarter than the photographer.

Wow, half a century

I was talking with the Athens County Historical Society Museum curator Jessica Cyders this morning. She was putting together a bio for an upcoming exhibit and wanted to know when I got into the newspaper business. “April 17 – HEY! That’s today – 1963. I was 16 and didn’t even have my driver’s license when my first picture appeared on the front page of The Missourian.” Today would have been my Dad’s birthday, too. He would have been 96, which puts him on the verge of being old.”

February 27, 2013March 29, 2021

Dawn of Mourning Exhibit in Athens

I was back in Athens, Ohio, on February 26, walking on rain-slicked cobblestones and helping set up my exhibit of photos of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Mourning taken in 1968.

“Dawn of Mourning” is presented by Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. in conjunction with the College of Arts and Sciences, the Athens Historical Society and Museum, the Foster and Helen Cornwell Lecture Series, University College, the Campus Involvement Center, The Athens Messenger and The Post.

Here is a radio interview the local NPR station, WOUB, did with me. (To be honest, I could only listen to about five minutes of it. I always cringe when I hear myself being interviewed.

Danielle Echols, who has been the Sigma Gamma Rho coordinator on the project, did a great job of keeping me more or less between the lines during the radio program. I could tell she had a basket of questions to ask if I was one of those laconic “Yes, Ma’am,” “No, Ma’am” subjects, but she need not have worried. Rambling is one of my better things.

Photo gallery of show catalog photos.

Here is a catalog of the key images showing a highly emotional day at Ohio University. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.