Doors

For some years now doors have been one of my favorite photographic subjects. I have shot them with 4x5, 645, 35mm and various digital cameras. The photo above is from the Topkapi palace in Istanbul. It was taken with a Sony a100, Carl Zeiss 16-80 lens. Below are a few of my favorites.



Detail from old door Miami, Az. Taken with Sony a900 and Zeiss 24-70 lens.



Amsterdam door. A100 with Zeiss 16-80.



Santorini door. a100, Zeiss 16-80.



Details on door at Hubbell Trading Post, Ganado, Arizona. Digital camera, unremembered model.



Doors at Aztec Ruins, New Mexico. A100 with Zeiss 16-80.

I am thinking of doing a book of doors. I have a whole bunch more photos of doors. What do you think? Please respond to the poll. Thanks much.

Mud, Mules, and Mountains

My father was called to active duty in January 1941 and remained on active duty until January 1 1946. He was overseas in combat for three and one half years(see blog entry of June 19, 2009). I was three and one half years old when he left and six years old when he returned. While he was gone I looked forward to every letter, photograph, etc that he sent home. One day a long wooden box arrived, which I opened, with help. I pulled out a long cavalry saber which he had acquired from a French army warehouse in North Africa. I was four years old at the time. I could barely get it off the floor with two hands and all my strength, but since it came from my dad, I was thrilled. I said “Oh boy, just what I've always wanted!”

Dad would send home postcards and pamphlets that he thought we might find interesting, and sometimes cartoons done by Bill Mauldin. Bill Mauldin was a young GI in the 45th Division who had joined the Army by way of the Arizona National Guard in 1940. Bill was a cartoonist who did some cartoons for the 45th Division newspaper and then later was picked up by Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. Eventually he was pulled out of line, given his own Jeep and did cartooning full time. He was a combat infantryman before being pulled out and after being pulled out spent three days out of 10 at the front. He was wounded by mortar rounds at Monte Casino in Italy. Since he covered much of the same ground as my father(Sicily, Italy, Southern France)I was very interested in his cartoons.

Bill Mauldin received the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 for his cartoons. Shortly after the war he published a book of his cartoons, along with his comments on the war. The book is called Up Front. As a kid I read and re-read that book so many times I practically wore it out. Mauldin became an editorial cartoonist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Chicago Sun Times and won a second Pulitzer in 1958 or 1959.
Below is a typical Bill Mauldin cartoon, with Willie and Joe, his usual GIs, dog faces, grunts,also known as combat infantry enlisted men, in a pile of rubble.


A few months ago we sold my dad's house and finished cleaning it out. As we were going through his books, there were two copies of Up Front, and in one of them was a 6 x 9 inch paper pamphlet entitled Mud, Mules, and Mountains by Bill Mauldin, with “Mike” written on the outside cover in my mother's hand writing. It's about 40 pages long, with cartoons from the Italian campaign, and an introduction by Ernie Pyle. Ernie Pyle was probably the most famous war correspondent of WWII. Like Bill Mauldin he went to the front with the infantry and told their story. Ernie went to the Pacific theatre before the war ended and was killed there.


I was quite pleased to find this and I do not remember seeing it before. I suspect that I saw it when we first got it and then my mother put it away for safe keeping. I had looked through it once when we found it, and was looking through it again at home when I noticed something bleeding through the fly leaf. The fly leaf was clinging to the front cover. I pulled it away and saw the inscription shown below.


I think that dad got this at an Italian naval base. His outfit was in line near Florence and was pulled out and sent back to refit for the invasion of Southern France. The date on the inscription is August 5. D-day for Southern France was August 15, in which his outfit participated.


Thanks, Dad, from your little boy, Mike. And thanks, Mom, from your big boy.

Winter Quarters

The Mormons were forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois beginning in February 1846. At first they crossed the Mississippi River to Montrose, Iowa on ice. The Mississippi was frozen solid enough to support teams and wagons. As the ice melted they crossed with the aid of ferries(see previous post of August 27 2010). You can follow their route across Iowa by car. Road maps show the highways closest to their route and the highways have Mormon trail signs on the side of the road. The route was very slow going, with deep mud, snow, cold, hills and streams to cross. It took them about 4 and 1/2 months to go from Nauvoo to what they called Winter Quarters, on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, at what is now Council Bluffs. It only took three months to go from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley, at least 3 times the distance.

Below is a photo of some original Mormon trail ruts still visible in the Iowa sod.



At Winter Quarters they gathered together, built shelters and outfitted themselves for the long trek to the Salt Lake valley. Some 600 people are buried in unmarked graves in what was the Winter Quarters cemetery.



This whole site is now known as the Mormon Trail Center and includes a visitors' center, a Temple, several memorials and the old Winter Quarters Cemetery.

There are no markers in what was the cemetery but a memorial is there, designed by the sculptor Avard Fairbanks.



The plaque at the bottom of the photo contains the names of the 600 pioneers who are buried here. Included on the plaque are a great aunt of mine and at least one of her babies.

There were many small settlements around Winter Quarters where the Mormons stayed while they outfitted themselves to go west. My great-great grandmother and four of her children stayed at a place called Pigeon Creek or Pigeon Hollow. She was 52 years old, had buried her husband in New York and came to Nauvoo only to be thrown out of there. Her brother, Warren Foote, and his family were also there. She told Warren she was too tired to go on and died a few days later, along with a son who was about 20, I believe. My great grandfather, Darius Salem Clement, was 12 years old and the oldest of the three remaining children. Betsy and Albert are buried in unmarked graves in what is now the Branson Cemetery on a hill overlooking the Missouri River. Darius and the two other younger children walked to Salt Lake in 1848.





There were at least 6000 Mormon pioneers who died on the trail to the Salt Lake valley between 1846 and 1869, which is when the transcontinental railroad was completed. Below is the Avard Fairbanks sculpture at the Winter Quarters Cemetery memorial. This shows a man and wife who have just finished digging a grave and laying their child in it. It is one of the most moving pieces of art I have ever seen.

Nauvoo, Part 2

In 1839 when the Mormons arrived at the place in Illinois they eventually named Nauvoo, it was a small town called Commerce. They bought the site in 1840 and renamed it Nauvoo. They Mormons cleared land between the Mississippi river and the hill or bluff upon which they built a Temple. The land east of the bluff was very flat. In 1844 there were 15,000 people in Nauvoo, making it the second largest city in Illinois. It was not a typical frontier settlement. There were many craftsmen, tradesmen, etc. in Nauvoo. Many converts to Mormonism from England, Canada and the eastern United States settled there and plied their trade. Consequently there was not much need for outside goods which was one of the sore points with others in the area. The other Illinois residents were also afraid of them voting as a block.

The photograph below shows a section of prairie in Nauvoo that has been restored to its original state. The woman in the photo is about five feet two in height.



Below is a photograph of the Mansion House. It was used at various times as a home for Joseph and Emma Smith and as a hotel.



The handsome red brick home below is Brigham Young's home. The red brick is typical of locally made brick and is sometimes known as "Nauvoo red brick."



The small building below is a boot and shoe shop owned by a man from Germany named Riser. It also served as the family home.



This is inside the shop and shows a number of lasts on the wall along with other items related to the shoemaker's trade.



This photo shows a tool used to cut heels from leather. The cut pieces were then stacked together until the correct heel height was obtained. You can also see a bin of wooden pegs used to attach the sole, as well as a bin of small brads.



Below is a view of the Smith family cemetery, literally on the bank of the Mississippi. Joseph's father and mother, his wife Emma and his brother Hyrum are all buried here.



Blacksmith at work.



This is a stock used to support an ox while it is being shod. Unlike horses, oxen cannot support themselves on three legs, so the stock is necessary to keep them upright while the farrier shoes them.



I may be wrong but I believe that below is a photo of the only ceramic defecatorium I have ever seen, although they are fabled in song and story.



Below is John Browning's house and shop. John Browning was a gunsmith as well as blacksmith.At this time(1844) he was making regular guns as well as slide guns, which were a repeating rifle in which a clip fed in rounds from the side as opposed to vertically. The clip held up to 25 rounds. John and his family traveled to Utah with the rest of the saints and established the Browning gun works in the Ogden--Morgan area. His son, John Moses Browning, was a firearms genius. He developed the Browning light machine gun, still used by armies around the world, the US Army .45 pistol(sold the rights to Colt), most if not all the machine guns used on US aircraft in WWII, the Browning Automatic Rifle(BAR)used extensively by US infantry in WWII and Korea, and many other innovations. Browning Arms are still associated with quality and innovation.



This rocking horse was the prized possession of John Taylor's small boy at the time they were forced out of Nauvoo. With a limited ability to take necessities, the rocking horse was left behind when they crossed the Mississippi. The boy was inconsolable, and his father returned to Nauvoo and brought the rocking horse to the boy. It made it all the way to Salt Lake City, and was eventually returned to Nauvoo by the Taylor family.



This is the landing at the foot of Parley Street. It was here that boats landed and from here that the Mormons crossed the Mississippi to Montrose, Iowa when they were forced to leave Nauvoo. They began leaving in February, 1846, driving teams and wagons across the river on the ice.



When the ice melted they crossed the river on ferries, such as the one shown below.



Nauvoo from Montrose, Iowa with the Temple prominent on the bluff. This is what the Mormons last view of Nauvoo would have been.

Nauvoo, Part 1

We recently visited Nauvoo, Illinois for the first time.My wife and I both have ancestors who came there and were driven out, first to Iowa and then to Utah. Nauvoo is a beautiful small city on the banks of the Mississippi, across the river from Montrose, Fort Madison and Keokuk , Iowa. It was established by the Mormons in about 1839. Following the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, in 1844, it was abandoned in 1846. One of the things they did before they left was build the first fully functional Mormon temple. They were only able to use it a short few months before they had to leave, driven out by mobs in February 1846. Some time after leaving Nauvoo, the Temple caught fire and was destroyed. In 2002 it was rebuilt on the original site as closely as possible to the original building plans and is now in use.

The photo below is the cornerstone

The photo below is from the back, southeast corner.



Below is some detail from the back.



Below is detail at a corner, showing two sunstones, stars and star windows.



Statues of Joseph and Hyrum Smith on horseback, depicted as riding to Carthage. They are located just west of the Temple on the bluff.



Detail





View from back.



A patch of prairie as it was with the Temple visible in the background.


Ox in a pasture with the Temple in the background.


Sunset over the Mississippi


gave the Temple this beautiful glow.

Christmas in July

I don't know how the weather is where you are, but here its miserable. Highs 108 to 117 and our monsoon has started, which means increased humidity. I was looking at some photos and decided I would try to fool myself into feeling cooler by displaying some photos of Christmas Lights.

The LDS Mesa Temple decorates the gardens, grounds and visitors center every Christmas season. It usually runs from about the Saturday after Thanksgiving to January 1. They also have community choirs perform every night during this time.


You have to have camels and Wise Men.



You also need a star, a stable, and a baby.

Below are a series of photos of some of the decorative lights.
















Below is my personal favorite, with dawn just breaking and the crescent moon rising.



A note on the photographs--These were all taken Dec 12th and 19th, 2009. They were taken with a Sony a100 dslr, tripod mounted, using a cable release. The lens was a Carl Zeiss 16-80mm. By the meter reading these are all significantly underexposed. One of the great things about digital is that you can see a histogram of your exposure and you can see the actual photo on your screen. They are copyright by
The Old Cowboy.