Lightrail Begins

Today the light rail system began in Phoenix. The rides were free and it being so highly anticipated the trains were packed all day. I wasn't able to get on today because I didn't want to wait in line and I know that I will have the chance to ride it many times over the next few years. The opportunity to document and explore the impact that this new system has on this city particularly the way the everyone will interact with it, the reaction to it and the art work that was create around it. I hope to explore it some of these ideas in the coming months thorough my photography.

Nearby I have posted photos of the train cars as they past the stop on Encanto and Central; along with a photo that I took of the new bridge that crosses the Salt River near Tempe that was built as part of the system.

A Useful Website

This is just a quick acknowledgment to a website that I discovered a few months back that has been pretty helpful to me. I found the Yelp! website by running a Google search of course, but ever since I have found it I have been using it occasionally to find restaurants, bars and other interesting places to go in and around central Phoenix. Of course Yelp is not the first or biggest social networking site that allows users to review local attractions but it certainly has helped me find some nice places downtown. Of course it may depend on the reviewers that are taking part, so some locations may vary, but for my neighborhood it seems to point out the interesting independent and trendy spots. It seems to do a much better job than Citysearch, the local Newtimes, or local newspaper and is much more locally focused as compared to Trip Advisor, which is obviously geared towards travelers from out of town.

The latest place that I have found through Yelp was a restaurant/bar called Switch. The place is in an old bagel shop next to the legendary Durant's steak house on Central Avenue. I walked over there tonight to try it out after having lunch there the other day. After eating at Switch twice I would give it a solid 7 out of 10. I'll go a few more times and we'll see if it can be consistent. There is a bit of pretense about the place but they seem to keep it in check. For example, they serve classic comfort food such as chicken pot pie, but serve it in a pastry not at all like what I was expecting. The accompanying picture shows the exact presentation. It was good thought so I will quit complaining.

Why is it that so many of my blog post are about food? Anyway, if you haven't used Yelp you might give it a try to see if it will make good suggestions in your neighborhood.

Photoshoot with Devon

Devon, a model that I have worked with before was traveling through Phoenix and we had the opportunity to go out one afternoon and work on a photo shoot right before sunset. We went to the Rio Salado Habitat area that I mentioned in the previous post and I was happy at the decent variety of backdrop and locations that I was able to get. If you go to my flickr account you can see why I was frustrated with the "cloud" picture of her shown to the right, so I won't repeat it here. But, all in all, it was a fun time to be out shooting in the nice weather and with interesting backdrops.

A Tale of Two Cities

One of the sad realities of living in a southwestern desert is the necessary compromises that must be made to sustain life here. One such compromise is the destruction of the natural flowing rivers that flow through out most of the west. Over the past century several dams were built in the mountains north of the desert of Phoenix creating man-made reservoir or "lakes" as we call them here. These reservoir provide the Valley with most of its water but it has left the former rivers that were fed with the mountain run off dry. These rivers flow occasionally when there is unusually high rainfall and water needs to be released from the reservoirs. But for most of the time the river bottom are left dry and over the course of several decades they became eyesores as landfills, junkyards and cement quarries where built on the vacated land that was adjacent to there banks.

In the 1980s a major effort was put forward to raise public money to develop the entire span of dry river bed that ran through several Valley cities. It failed miserably and left the individual cities to determine ways to develop the river bottoms on there own.

The city of Tempe decided to covert their portion of the river bottom into a man-made lake by putting rubber bladders that can collapse when the water flows. They were able to do this because Tempe is a fairly compact city and the river bottom to be develop was a small portion that runs to the north of the city. Once the "Tempe Town Lake" was created the city was able to attract developers to build commercial office buildings and condos. I went down to the lake the other night to photograph it and I was impressed with what they have been able to create with the lake.

The city of Phoenix had a more difficult job because the portion of the dry river that runs through the city is much larger. Phoenix decided to take a much more low key approach by converting a portion of the river bottom into a park and wetland similar to the way the banks of the river would have been when the river flowed on a regular basis. The Rio Salado Habitat Restoration Area stretches along five miles of the Salt River just south of downtown Phoenix. Once a dump site, the area is now a lush riparian corridor with five miles of paved and dirt trails dotted with unique design and features. When I visited there recently I noticed a good variety of birds and interesting vegetation that has been planted. I was even able to photograph a blue heron which was cool to see up close. I wouldn't say that this is the most beautiful park in Phoenix, but it is a attempt to turn a wasted area into something that can be enjoyed again.

I actually like the Phoenix approach better because it is lower cost and a more natural approach; although some elements of the Tempe approach could help develop the surrounding banks faster.

A Tribute to Independent Businesses

I realized the other day, that most of the places where I shop are corporate owned. From the Safeway, where I get my groceries to the Starbuck's where I buy my morning coffee, to the Staples where I get my office supplies, all these stores are owned by large corporations. I'm not completely to blame for this situation since I was born in the second half of the twentieth century, which put me smack in the middle of the greatest franchising and corporate take over of main street in history.

In fact, the only places that I can think of that are not corporate owned would be, Vicki, the girl that cuts my hair, the occasional downtown restaurant that I might venture into (like Cibo), Tempe Camera, where I buy some photographic equipment and the dry cleaners that I bring my clothes each week. Well, the dry cleaners can now be scratched off the list. They have lost their lease and will close at the end of the month. The landlord turned down their offer to pay five years of rent...in advance! He is from California and plans on turning the entire building into a restaurant. If he goes as an independent restaurant I suppose it could be cool to have a new place nearby, although, don't try to explain the logic behind turning down five years of rent in cash from an long established business in turn for the risk involved in leasing to an unproven restaurant. God helps us if he ends up leasing to Friday's or Applebee's.

I will admit that I will miss the family that ran the cleaners. A terrific family from India. I spoke with the mother on a regular basis as I would pick up my clothes each week. Maybe because she came from another culture but she had interesting perspective on things; and overall she stayed out of controversy and was a hard worker, she seemed to be always there. She had three beautiful daughters (two of them engineers) who would help out on the weekends sometimes. Like I said, it was interesting to know the owners of the businesses that you frequent. Now I'm off to find a new cleaners.

An Omen

I think of myself as a realist. I've never been much for horror movies and don't have too many superstitions. For most of my life, good decisions and hard work have rewarded me with "good luck" and bad decisions and laziness have resulted in "bad luck". So I don't usually buy into signals from the great beyond.

I may have to modify this attitude somewhat after a recent encounter. I was in my kitchen yesterday, when I looked out the back window and immediately noticed an owl. For many people, seeing an owl may not be that big of a deal, but for someone in central Phoenix it is an unusual sight. I immediately grabbed my camera and got a few shots before he took off. By the way, this was no small bird, I estimated he had about a four foot wingspan. We have a surprising variety of birds that migrate through my neighborhood during the year, but this was fun to see.

I guess I am not such a realist as I thought, because I immediately came in and Googled "owl omen" and read up on the various susperstitions surrounding an encounter with an owl. The whole incident made me laugh because there is some sort of built in psychology regarding meetings with the unusual. In any event, I am going to take it as a positive sign and look forward to my good fortune in 2008.

Japanese Friendship Garden

My friend Chase, and I, went over to the Japanese Friendship Garden here in central Phoenix today. It is a surprisingly well laid out and maintained space that is part of the city park system. It is an oasis in the midst of all the development going on downtown, in fact you can see the central library building poking over the trees showing how close the garden is to central avenue. Anyway, I first visited a few years back when I went to a commitment ceremony there. Everyday after work I pass it on my way home, although it isn't open during the week this part of the year. Starting in January they plan on opening from 10-3pm.

I took a couple of photos of some of the various sculpture that they have in the garden, one in particular had some very interesting Japanese writing on it, and I got some photos with my 50MM prime lens. Earlier in the weekend I was checking out some information that I had download from a photographer name Joey Lawrence. I probably will have another post on him at a later date since his stuff is interesting, but in any event, I used some techniques of his on one of the sculpture photos just for fun. Basically it is the combination of two photos into one using Photoshop. I'm not sure I am satisfied with the result but since I spent time on it I thought that I would post it anyway.

Phoenix Mountain Hike

I went for a hike with my friend Greg today, although he didn't want to be mentioned in my blog so I will just refer to him as "Ice-G". Anyway, Ice told me that the best form of exercise was a moderate hike that included slight elevation changes with periods of flat terrain for heart rate recovery. Apparently, walking only helps circulation and digestion (even though I think anything that gets me off the couch has to be good for me), jogging is horrible on the joints (ankle, knees, hips) and strenuous hiking of the uphill variety isn't much better than jogging. So we went for a moderate hike of three miles and I have to admit it felt pretty good.

The photo above was taken while on the hike and shows that the weather this time of year is perfect. It is a panoramic of several shots stitched together. Click on it to see the larger size.