Jessica Cyders Archives

August 8, 2014April 17, 2021

Picturing the Past Workshop

I had to take my eye off Cape this evening to produce some promotional material for a Picturing the Past workshop I’m doing in Athens, Ohio, at the end of the month. Regular readers have seen most of these pictures, but I’ll be working with a fresh crop of viewers.

The workshop, something dreamed up by Curator Jessica at the Athens County Historical Society and Museum, is going to work with photographers to get them to see how pictures they shoot today may have historical significance in the future.

It’s a challenge for me

I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about this event. I’m used to taking photos, and I’m used to talking about MY photos, and I’ve gotten more comfortable about thinking how my news photos have grown enough whiskers they have become history, but I’m facing a big unknown here. I have no idea how many people are going to sign up (we capped the class at about two dozen), I don’t know what kind of equipment they are going to be using nor how experienced they are going to be.

It’s not a nuts ‘n’ bolts photo class where we’re going to talk about f/stops and shutter speeds, but it will be more about “seeing” a good story-telling photograph. Jessica will explain how the best photograph from an aesthetic standpoint may not be the most useful to a historian trying to ferret out little factoids about a community.

I’m sure you’ll hear more about this as I mull over different approaches during the next week.

Take a giant step backward

I used to tell reporters, amateurs and bureau folks that the best way to take a good photograph was to compose it until it looked perfect in the viewfinder, then take one giant step forward. In this workshop, I’m going to ask folks to take one giant step backward so they can capture the world around the subject in at least a few frames.

“And,” I’m going to say, “if you feel compelled to shoot 500 duck-face selfies, PLEASE turn the camera around at least once.”

Jessica said I had to provide at least minimal biographical information, so here it is. You can click on the photos to make them larger if you want to read the copy.

Thanks to Jessica for convincing the Ohio Humanities Council to give us a grant that will cover part of my travel and lodging expenses, and to the Athens Public Library for providing a space for the programs.

July 18, 2014January 19, 2020

Rush Limbaugh’s House

Back in 2011, I picked up a Tour of Rush brochure from the Cape Convention Bureau in the H&H building. Using its guidance, I photographed Rush Limbaugh’s house, his church, the hospital where he was born, the chair where he shined shoes and the radio station where he launched his career. Then I forgot all about it.

Before I let Curator Jessica come to Cape ( she wanted to see if ANY of the stories I had told her about the area were true), I sent her a stack of reading material. It included a book on Louis Houck, a book on the Flood of 1927 and some other things. As an afterthought, I stuck in the Tour of Rush brochure.

Where’s Rush?

When I rediscovered the photos, I went digging for my Rush Tour pamphlet and couldn’t find it. Miz Jessica returned my other materials, but she must have been so enamored with Cape’s conservative megaphone that she couldn’t part with it.

So, it looks like I’ll have to make do with running Rush’s house at 412 North Sunset Blvd. until I can replace my reference material.

So far, I think I’ve only posted two Rush Limbaugh stories:

Rush and Koran-burner Terry Jones were both members of Central High School’s Class of 1969, and
Wife Lila’s uncle thought Rush was “a horse’s patootie” because he monopolized the CB radio after he got home from school every day.

July 14, 2014

Then and Kind of Now Exhibit

I mentioned in a couple of posts that Curator Jessica of the Athens County Historical Society & Museum had put in some hurry-up requests for photos she could exhibit. I started bugging her for photos to prove that she had actually put together exhibits using the pictures.

Cyrus Moore III shot a panorama of the panoramas of Athens, Ohio, I took from the Radio and TV building last fall to go along with some cityscapes I had taken in 1969. I was pleased with the way they played off each other. If I remember correctly, the panoramas were about four feet wide and were made up of five or six frames stitched together with Photoshop doing all the heavy lifting. Something that used to take hours in the darkroom is done in about a minute in the computer.

Athens train station

Jessica and company did a nice job pulling together my photos of the Athens train station to go with a couple of older shots. I spent quite a few hours at that station going to and from Cape by rail and waiting for boxes from Railway Express. The building is still there and is in good condition.

Train station today

I wish more of the old train stations could have been maintained this well.

Court Street

Court Street is one of two main streets in uptown Athens. Jessica’s photos picked up some bad reflections from the plexiglass, but you can still get a sense that most of the buildings have stayed the same over the past 100+ years.

I posted the whole set of photos I sent her to consider if you’d like to see better examples of them.

That looks like the same spot

One of her interns said, “That looks like it was taken from the same spot,” referring to the photo at the bottom of Curator Jessica and Carol Towarnicky walking to lunch on a snowy day in October of last year. I didn’t take the top photo, but I bet the photographer was, like me, on that corner killing time waiting for the light to change.

A display with spirit

I mentioned the other day the hurry-up request for photos of the first beers being served at the student union back in 1969. She threw up this window display to help promote the Historic Tavern Tours the museum does as part of the 9th Annual Ohio Brew Week Festival.

You can see better examples of the photos here.

Passes the meter maid test

Jessica says she knows her displays works when the meter maid stops to check it out.

July 13, 2014

North Riverfront Park

Brother Mark and I rode our bikes from his house near the Botanical Gardens, past the Gateway Arch, and onto the St. Louis Riverfront Trail, over Chain of Rocks Bridge and into Illinois. You can read an account of our 2004 adventure on my bike blog.

Chain of Rocks Bridge

The blog has some neat photos and some interesting history of the Chain of Rocks Bridge, which used to be part of U.S. Route 66. The unusual bridge has a 22-degree bend in it to allow river traffic to have uninterrupted navigation of the river.

Quick tour for Curator Jessica

When I took Curator Jessica to the airport last November, we had some time to kill, so I took her to the North Riverfront Trail where we parked at the Union Electric Light and Power Company. Whenever I park at a trailhead, I scope out the lot for broken glass that indicates that cars have been broken into while their owners were away. Bad guys figure that you’re going to be gone for awhile.

The lot passed that sniff test, but I still felt uneasy for some reason. I’ve parked there before and ridden my bike in the area without my hackles going up, so I don’t know what I was picking up.

Floodwall Art Project

We passed the Floodwall Art Project, a seven-foot tall, 150-foot long tile mural designed by ceramic artist Catherine Magel and created with the assistance of at least 1,500 youth and adults from at least six St. Louis communities. The mural displays the history of the natural world beginning with microscopic life forms, moves into sea life, graduates to earth creatures, then ends with migrating birds.

Here’s where you can find out more about the Great Rivers Greenway. You can click on the photos to make them larger, too.

I felt uneasy

Curator Jessica was thoroughly enjoying herself, but my feeling of unease was growing. We were the only ones around, so there was no obvious reason why I was picking up bad vibes, but I suggested that we head back to the car.

This weird feature on a pedestrian overpass is unsettling, but I don’t think it was what was poking at my lizard brain.

I told Jessica that my misgivings were probably unfounded, but I had learned over the years to trust that instinct that something isn’t as it should be. She gave me her normal eye roll and “crazy guy” look, but didn’t object to moving on. I fully expected to see my car broken into when we got back to the parking lot, but everything was as we had left it.

I’ll have to see if I get the same feeling the next time I go there.