Streets of Barcelona

The streets of Barcelona are fascinating, particularly those of the Medieval Quarter and Rambleas. Rambleas is a broad primarily pedestrian thorofare that runs up from the waterfront. Supposedly you can find anything you want along it. A photo of Rambleas(or Ramble Ass, as you prefer) is shown below.



The streets of the Medieval Quarter are narrow, sometimes crowded, primarily with pedestrians and an occasional bicycle or motorcycle. The photo shows the entrance to one such street.



The photo below is typical of one of the wider streets with a lot of shops along it.



Below is a small narrow street off one of the more main streets.



As I remember this street is between two buildings associated with the Cathedral. I think the passageway over the street connects the Bishop's residence with another Church building.



This is an intersection of two narrow streets. Much of the Medieval Quarter is like a rabbit warren, and one could get lost very easily. We had a good map and didn't go too far astray.



One of the wider streets crowded with pedestrians.



During your wandering refreshment may be indicated.



Narrow, narrow and narrower.



Got my bicycle outside my door, I'm ready to go!



I love these arches over the streets.



Another narrow street.



Crowded shopping street in the Medieval Quarter.



The woman in red--my favorite photograph from the streets of Barcelona.

Pinal Pioneer Desert Graveyard

Pinal was an old silver mining town just west of Superior, Arizona about 45 minutes drive east of Mesa. Founded in 1875 following a silver strike, it was abandoned in 1888 when the mine played out. There may be a few foundations left from the old town, which I haven't found, but the old graveyard is still there. ( See blog of June 12, 2010, “ Superior, Arizona.”) It is not demarcated by a fence or any entrance marker or any apparent regular layout. Graves are scattered in the hills.

The graveyard is reached by taking a Forest Service road north off US 60, directly across from the entrance to the Superior airport, about 1 mile west of Superior. You have to wind around in the hills 1-2 miles, generally staying to the left. Some other folks have put directions on the internet, which may be better than mine. Four wheel drive isn't necessary, but high clearance is recommended.

The graves are old, sometimes outlined with rocks, sometimes with rocks piled on top. Some have crosses made with what appears to be re-bar, some with wooden crosses. There are a few genuine headstones and one elaborate grave outlined with vertical pipes. Apparently no burials have taken place since 1916.

Many of the graves have small decorations, mainly artificial flowers.

The photo below shows a few scattered graves looking south with Picket Post Mountain in the background. The grave in the foreground is one of the few with a headstone. I believe it is from 1885.



The next photo shows an old grave overgrown with desert grass and weeds with a re-bar cross and artificial flower.



The grave below has a white wooden cross, what appears to be a momento and an artificial flower. Rocks are piled on top of the grave.



Another photo looking south towards Picket Post Mountain. I believe I can count at least six graves in this photo.



Re-bar cross with decoration.



Below is a wooden cross with a rock outlined grave.



In this photo there are three re-bar crosses close together with a fourth in the top left background.



I believe this grouping contains at least six graves. It is probably a family group.



Below is the middle portion of this group. As you can see there are toy animal and dinosaur figures,a stuffed animal and other toys. The metal marker reads "Charlie Harkey 1900-1914, Nellie Harkey 1907-08, and Reuben Harkey 1911-1911."



Below is the grave with the vertical pipes.



Finally, here is a grave with a white wooden cross and rocks piled on top.

"Mama, Don't Take My Kodachrome Away"

I began my photographic life as a boy with a Brownie of some kind; the exact model I don't remember. I know my Grandmother Clement gave me a camera kit for my birthday or for Christmas. Of course all I shot was black and white and had the drugstore process and print the results. Later I did my own processing but that's another story.

My father liberated a fine camera during WWII and brought it home. When the Allies entered a town in enemy territory they required the civilians to turn in all weapons and cameras. A soldier in his outfit had been a professional photographer in civilian life and my Dad asked him to pick out a good camera for him. He chose a Kodak Retina II, which I still have.

In 1931 Kodak purchased the Dr. August Nagel Camerawerk factory in Stuttgart, Germany. They began manufacturing Kodak Retina cameras there in 1934. Over the years there were different models and types, with the last of the Retinas being produced in 1969.

The model that my father acquired was a Retina II, type 142. It is a folding range finder camera. It has a 50mm Schneider f2.8 lens in a Compur shutter, 1-500 plus bulb. There is no light meter, hot shoe or pc socket for flash. It is a good quality lens and camera. It was the first camera to use the 135 film cartridge which all 35mm cameras subsequently used. This camera was manufactured sometime between 1937 and 1939.





The introduction of this camera coincided with the introduction of the first practical color transparency film, Kodachrome. It was invented by two musicians, Leopold Godowsky, Jr and Leopold Mannes. Kodachrome lovers, who are legion, say Kodachrome was invented by “God and Man”. It was made available in many different formats, including movie and large format. Unfortunately for me Kodak stopped manufacturing 4x5 Kodachrome in 1951. Thus all my large format color was done on Ektachrome, Fujichrome, Velvia or print film.. Oh, well.




Kodachrome had wonderful color reproduction and was very stable, as you will soon see. The first Kodachrome that I used had an ISO of 12, and some years later an ISO of 25. They later made ISO 40, 64 and 200. I did not like these later additions to the family. The slow speeds of these films caused some problems in anything but nicely lit outdoor scenes, especially if you had no light meter or tripod. Both of these items were later additions to my photographic kit. My solution to the light meter problem was to follow the instructions that came with every roll of film: “In bright sunlight use f8 at 1/125” or something like that. Sort of like the photojournalists's motto”f8 and be there”. Kodak stopped manufacturing Kodachrome in 2009. The last Kodachrome processing lab closed 11 Jan 2011.

The first photos I know I took with this camera are shown below. The original Kodachrome slides have been scanned using a Minolta 35mm film scanner. There has been some post processing but it is minimal. The photos of Yellowstone Falls and the geyser were made on a family trip to Yellowstone in 1949 or 1950. My Dad handed me the camera and said “Take some pictures.” I know the Falls photos were mine because when we got the slides back he complimented me on what nice shots they were and what a good job I had done. From then on if I wanted to use the camera all I had to do was ask And buy film and pay for the processing, which limited my usage.







The photo below is Mt Timpanogas, east of Provo, Utah in the Wasatch Mountains. I believe it was taken in the early 1950's. A guess and by golly shot—no meter, no bright sun.




I graduated from high school in July 1956. For a celebration two of my friends and I borrowed a car from one of our fathers and went to the White Mountains for a few days. One of the things I like about the White Mountains are the big meadows, called cienegas. One of my friend's uncles had a cabin near Big Lake and let us use it. This cabin and another cienega are shown in the photos below.





Paul Simon wrote a song called “Kodachrome”, which appeared in 1973 on an album, “There Goes Rhymin Simon”. As a single this song topped out at #2 on the charts. For me the best line is
“Mama, Don't Take My Kodachrome Away.”
They took the new Kodachrome away, but Kodachrome still exists on my old slides. Thanks be to Stuttgart Camerawerk, God and Man.

Tumacacori

Founded in 1691 as San Cayetano de Tumacacori, this was the first Jesuit mission in Arizona. It was located on the east side of the Santa Cruz River, about 18 miles north of the Arizona-Mexico border. It was one of 24 missions founded by the Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino(1645-1711). The area of northern Mexico and southern Arizona that he worked in was known as the Pimera Alta, which means “place of the upper Pimas.” The Spanish referred to most of the Indians of this area as “Pima” Indians. They were also called Papago and TonoOdham. Apaches were also present nearby.

Father Kino was born in Italy and educated in Austria. In addition to trying to convert the natives to Christianity he introduced cattle and some European farming techniques and crops. Father Kino became the first rancher in Arizona. His initial herd of 20 cattle grew to 70,000. His cowboys were the natives. Among the missions he founded was San Xavier del Bac, just south of Tucson, still an active church.(See blog entry of 1/22/10).Father Kino has had many schools, roads, etc. named after him in Arizona. For example, our children went to Kino Junior High in Mesa. Arizona has two statues in the statuary hall in the capitol in Washington, D.C., one of which is Father Kino.

Following a Pima revolt in 1751 the mission was moved to the west side of the Santa Cruz. The Jesuits were expelled by the Spanish government in 1767, and the Franciscans came into the area. The mission was renamed San Jose de Tumacacori. Construction of the current church was begun in the late 1700's but was never completed. The mission was abandoned by 1848, because of predations by the Apaches. The roof was removed by settlers to use the timbers on other projects. It has been under National Park Service protection since 1908. The roof has been replaced three times-1921, 1947 and 1978.

The photo below shows a little more detail of the front of the mission. It was built of adobe bricks. The walls at the base of the belltower are five feet thick. There are Moorish and Spanish-Mexican renaissance elements in the facade.



The three photos below show detail of the facade and the bell tower. The bell tower was never finished before the mission was abandoned.





The two photos below are taken from the east side of the church, including one with some detail of the dome over the altar.




This cross of flowers is maintained on the wall behind where he altar would have been.


These graves are behind the church. The most recent grave is from 1916.



This is the remains of a storage building. These pots are like what the Indians and the Spanish would have stored such things as corn and beans in.



This photo shows the cupola of the church above the wall of the storage building.



The ruins of a building to the east(right) of the church are where mission priests and other workers lived. The roof is long gone. The second photo is a view through a window of this building.





This next photo is one of my all-time favorites. This was taken on a trip to Tumacacori in 1974, on Kodachrome, using my first 35mm SLR, a Mamiya Sekor 1000DTL with a 50 or 55mm lens. I have scanned it and done a little color correction. The photo shows a Franciscan(I think) priest approaching the door to the church. It's like I was thrown back in time 150+ years. He was there making himself available to people who were interested in getting the Catholic church's take on Tumacacori.



This last photo is a personal favorite of mine, taken on my most recent trip to southern Arizona. I hope you like it.