I receive Tweets from some photography news outlets that I follow such as NY Times and Magnum. Usually, I read them with a passing interest. However, today one of them kind of stuck with me. It was about a photographer that I’ve never heard of, Chris Hondros. He was a photojournalist, a war photographer, always in harms way. The article said that he mortally wounded not long after filing intensely close-up pictures.

In thinking about it, I think: Wow! What a passion, or bit of insanity, it must be to go out and take photos of people with guns, grenades, knifes, and all manner of weapons available at their disposal. Some may like Americans, some may hate Americans, some may be ambivalent and simply want to kill.

Well. I didn’t really have much to say, just my little piece of the blogosphere here wishing his family, wherever they are, a bit of piece in this troubling time. It’s sad that there are even such atrocities to photograph …

On saturday, Chris wanted to take me to The Strip. A place where locals frequent on the weekend and do shopping and get a bite to eat. We gave it a go, but faced nearly constant rain. We abandoned that idea after a short while.

On the way from the airport, Chris took me on a tour through the campuses of Carnegie Mellon and The University of Pittsburgh. During the drive he pointed out the towering edifice of The Cathedral of Learning on Pitt’s campus. He told me of how beautiful and ornate that it was inside.

After our rainout, he asked where I wanted to go. I immediately requested that we go to see the cathedral. As we arrived, it began to really rain earnest. Hard rain! We exited the car and made it into the building just as my water-resistant jacket gave up reisiting water. About another minute and I would have been soaked.

As we entered, just the sheer size of the placed seemed to invoke silence. The place was very quiet, much like a library. No one spoke and, if they did, the sound was swallowed among the thousands of cubic feet of airspace. The commons area, as it is called, is 3 stories tall.

The lights hanging from the ceiling made interesting spots of light and shadow, giving an aire of mystery to the place. I walked around shooting here and there, observing students studying, having quiet conversations, or just sitting.

Eventually, I made it to the second floor for a birds-eye view of the place. Impressive from any level. I could have stayed here for hours and observed this single area, but there were more areas to discover. Along the second floor were different rooms, each containing different cultures and periods. The remainder of the building contained classrooms, from what I understand, all the way up to the 32nd floor.

Yesterday, I was talking to Tim and told him that I wanted to go shoot a bit and was feeling kind of small-townish. I had passed through this small town, Fort Mill, SC and wanted to go back and shoot a bit. He said that he’d like to go. We arrived around 6:00 PM, just about the time that the light was getting nice.

We walked around, took some pictures of the old storefronts, most of which were closed permanently or closed for the evening, after all, it was after 5:30 PM. The most interesting shop that I found an antique shop, which was close, but the light was falling in just the right way to highlight an old, blue bicycle that they had out front. I’m pretty sure that the bicycle was painted to match the blue of the building as well as the blue of the lettering. As you can see, the bike has seen better days and could use a bit of love, but, no one’s going to make off with it. I wonder how long it’s been here. This used to be someone’s mode of transportation, now it’s just an icon of an era gone by.

I really liked the cool blues and the warmth of the last rays of sunlight falling on rear tire and just missing the front tire.