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Tuesday 14 January 2014

Express


.


Forest Lawn Cemetery, Los Angeles: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted November 2006


It's being put about
there's a secret vault
beneath the lifetime care unit

What got lost in the cracks
when "we" didn't quite
come together

"as a people"
must be down
there somewhere





Copps Grocery, Madison, Wisconsin: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 4 August 2005
 


Businessmen, Wall Street: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted April 2005
 

Jean Harlow (Adams Morgan, Washington, D.C.): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted 2005



Streetcar, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 2005
 

Millionaires' Club, Chicago: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1975, posted April 2005
 



Domestic tranquility (Madison, Wisconsin): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1978
 


Intersection of Whitney and Odana, Madison, Wisconsin: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1974, posted March 2005
 

National (National Airport, Washington, D.C., seen from Arlingtpn, Virginia, with Washington Monument in the distance): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1983
 

New York City: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1975, posted April 2005


Mary Kay girls, French Quarter, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted November 2005
 

French Quarter, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 22 January 2007
 

Canal Street, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), April 2005
 

Hispanic Parade, New York City: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1982
 


Lunchtime, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 2005, posted March 2007
 


Mardi Gras tourists, Bourbon Street, French Quarter, New Orleans: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted 10 August 2007




Bunnies at the Mall (Playboy Bunnies at East Towne Mall, Madison, Wisconsin): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), n.d., posted 2008


Progressive Labor Party rally, Milwaukee: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1977
 

Lunchtime, Philadelphia: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 2005, posted September 2006
 

Patty's Wedding (Wisconsin): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), June 1982



Wisconsin 74: photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), 1974, posted 2007
 

Exercise (Baltimore): photo by Chuck Patch (chuckp), January 2011

6 comments:

ACravan said...

In a word association frame of mind, "Express" immediately makes me think of "implied," but I'm not sure whether the secret vault containing the answers lies at one those poles, between them, or anywhere at all for that matter. It's difficult to be optimistic; easy to be pessimistic. I just hope I don't run into the guy buying groceries in the express line. Curtis

Nin Andrews said...

Yes, it must be down there somewhere.
Great photos. I am not sure what exercise is going on in the last one . . .

TC said...

Chuck Patch is a past master of the art of urban street photography, having been at it since back in the days of what he calls "silver"" -- that is, real film, pre-digital. He says he has always loved walking round and taking pictures. There are "silver"-era shots here, from the 70s and 80s, which Patch began scanning and posting online c. 2005. Around that time he took up picture-taking again, so there is now the growing (and impressive) harvest of the later "renaissance" images, also represented here.

An intrepid trekker after the Great Capture, this photographer has caught some of the most telling "candid" images I believe I have ever seen.

His tales of the persistent enterprise involved in the "get" stage of the process are fascinating.

The two women on the New York City Street wearing coats made of skins plundered from different animals native to the same faraway continent, for instance -- a moment of territorial recognition?

And the classic shot of the charming Chicago Millionaires' Club bouncers: a story goes with it, as Damon Runyon, also a student of the street, used to say... in short, not the sort of picture any fool with a handheld plastic slab could walk up and grab (more likely outcome would be an opportunity to face-grab some pavement, fast).

Over the years Patch has lived in several of the cities that are his locations here -- Madison, Washington, New Orleans. He now lives in Baltimore. These are places he knows, and we know that from his way of looking.

Nin, in that magnificent bottom shot (representative of Patch's later colour work), the "exercise" is being performed by the photographer's 89-year-old mother-in-law, walking through the rooms of her house once every day, doctor's orders.

vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras) said...

After reading the poem, let us scroll down and take in each photograph slowly, especially the one with the gawking Mardi Gras tourists as they crane their necks, gesticulate and/or shout (what?)to someone above them who may be on the edge of a window sill deciding whether or not to take a swan dive into their outstretched arms—surely something to write the folks back home about.

TC said...

And should the swan diver on the window ledge turn out (by some odd chance) to be as large as they are -- look out below!!

Mose23 said...

I don't want to think about that Mardi Gras photo anymore; it's giving me the shivers - in a bad way.

What got lost in the cracks/ when "we" didn't quite come together "as a people"

I read this line and can't help but think about Amiri Baraka again.