Dead Reckoning

Since California is broke and can no longer pay me to help rehabilitate prison inmates and their families, I create photographic images with some of my newly available time. I believe photographs are important. That’s why this is the only other page on a writer’s Web log.

I’ve loved photography most of my life. The sense of power I feel at stopping time in a particular instant provides some antidote for my ever-present feeling of powerlessness as a prisoner of time. Like water rushing to the sea, the world cascades on and nothing we do can stop it or even much slow it down. A picture, for me, at least provides a tiny time out, an all too brief respite from onrushing time. Last summer I took a picture of a married couple, and the picture tells me things I am too slow to see through this rush of time. The husband stands behind his wife (and is out of focus) watching as she interacts with a vendor at a farmer’s market. The love he has for his wife just pours forth in this image, and yet in our “real world,” it was too fast and fleeting to be seen — at least by me. Weeks later I showed them the image, and the wife cried. Emotions!

As photographers go, I’m not a great one and never will be. I have a solid grounding in the technologies and the art, but greatness is not in me. My pictures, in my opinion, are utilitarian and technically competent renditions of time standing still. If I can capture some small irony or an emotion or a good contradiction, that’s great, but it’s not always there. I guess my general goal is evidence of things not seen.

While I will point a lens at anyone or anything, (within legal constraints) my emerging first love is the candid portrait.  Movie director John Cassavetes said: “The greatest location in the world is the human face.” There is an old proverb, “The eyes are the windows of the soul.” I don’t know where it originated, but I believe it absolutely. I also think this is the essence of so-called primitive peoples believing the camera steals your spirit. It doesn’t take away your spirit, but the picture may bare the soul, at least for an instant. That intimacy is overwhelming for some people. The camera is a tool I can use to perhaps illustrate that intimacy. For me, it’s that pursuit of happiness we claim title to in this country.

Rather than cycling pictures through this page I’m going to use it as a link to my photo site. There I archive thousands of pictures. Many are old family pictures that are not publicly viewable. Older pictures are all scans of prints or slides. The newest pictures are the work of digital cameras, for the most part. I am playing with some old film cameras just for the historical perspective — and maybe to keep in practice with a fading technology.

In no particular order, here is a listing of public galleries (and links to them) at Tracy’s Shooting Gallery:

Portrait — pictures of people, mostly candid portraits

Public Places — mostly people in public places, generally “street photography”

Bay Area — San Francisco and environs, some from 1967

Calaveras County — images of Calaveras County, CA.

Angels Camp — the city of Angels Camp, CA. 

Frogs of Calaveras — the frog is iconic of Calaveras County, CA 

Schoolhouse — the historic Altaville Schoolhouse in Angels Camp, CA

Amador — Amador County, CA

Gold Country — probably redundant coverage of the 1849 “Gold Rush” area.

Socal — a few scenes from southern CA.

Alone — a gray or digger pine sits atop a 1700-foot hill near Paloma, CA. I’m somewhat obsessed with it. 

Philly — Pennsylvania images in and around Philadelphia 

ESP — Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, now a penology museum 

Shore — Jersey shore, generally Manasquan to Cape May, NJ 

Not Shore — New Jersey, excluding the coast

Utah — scenic Utah

Midwest — scenes around the U.S. Midwest

DC — Washington, DC

Arizona — hot images of a beautiful state

Virginia — where I lived nearly 10 years 

North West — U. S. Pacific Northwest area 

Maryland — the state where I was born 

New England — mostly Walden Pond 

Southeast — the U.S. South 

Plant Life — mostly flowers and their attending insects

Trees — the larger plants

Scapes —  traditional landscape shots 

Ferries — I like taking ferry rides 

Cruise Mexico — a cruise I once took along the “Mexican Riviera” 

Perfect Storm — the so called “Perfect Storm” of 1991

Stormy — weather worth looking at

Skies — sometimes it’s good to look up

Winter — mostly snow

Two Wheels — motorcycles & bicycles

Trucking — trucks and a few of the people I encountered in that world

Vehicles — mostly cars I’ve owned or had something to do with

Interiors — not a Woody Allen movie. I’m fascinated by what people have inside their cars

Auto Miscellany — interesting automotive-related things I come across

Shows — pictures from car & truck shows (vehicles and people)

Tracy Mary — the Mary L. Tracy school in Orange, CT (named for my Great Aunt)

Chilton — the company and people I worked with 1977-84

Churches — pictures of churches

CW — the Catholic Worker experience

FONO — pictures of a Friends Outside training meeting at the Queen Mary Hotel, Long Beach, CA 

Gethsemane — the Trappist Monastery in Kentucky where Thomas Merton did his thing 

TEA Party — an event I witnessed in Angels Camp, CA, April 15, 2010 

TEA Faces — portraits of people attending the TEA Party event in Angels Camp, CA

Events — people and activities at public events

Cemeteries — cemetery images of all sorts

Halloween — the best fall holiday, at least visually

Winter Holidays — Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.

Specials — intended for the best pictures although not very effective so far

New Improved — intended for the newest pictures, not well done so far

Odd — mostly a miscellaneous, catch all gallery

What The — things that make you wonder

Concours Ironstone — scenes of the Ironstone Concours d’Elegance

Ironstone — the winery at Murphys, CA

Sierras — a quick dash through Yosemite and California Sierra country, November 2010, just before the snows descended

The Pets — mostly dogs, a cat wandered in, a couple of horses

Artsy Crafty — not quite Art, but on that path, I guess 

Games — game related, but I do like baseball

Preston — the “Preston Castle,” centerpiece of Preston School of Industry, where youthful offenders learned to be good California citizens

Runnemede — the little southern New Jersey town where I grew up

Air Show — aircraft and other technology at air shows

Not Air Show — aircraft-related not at air shows 

Working — candids, people at their work

Father Child — fathers interacting with their children

Delaware — state of Delaware

Not Philly — Pennsylvania beyond the Philadelphia area

Margate — Margate, NJ at the Jersey shore

Mount Holly — Mount Holly, NJ

Camden — The once-thriving seat of Camden County, NJ

Mount Ephraim — a little hilltop community in South Jersey

Music Things — the musical contraptions

Honfest — Baltimore’s premier street gala, 2013 edition