Fort Tildon

Last weekend Chris and I rode towards the water in search of Fort Tildon. Chris had been before, I hadn't. Either way, neither of use really knew how to get there. Once we arrived, it was well worth it. Beautiful beaches that aren't full of trash (at least some of them) and a very limited number of people made the 1.5 hour ride well worth it.

Polaroid scans from the trip to come at a later date.

Amusement park at Floyd Bennet Field had some pretty sweet looking rides.

"You mean I touched that death machine for nothing?!" Not for nothing Chris, not for nothing.




Welcome to the world of the plastic beach
The first of the abandoned structures we explored. These are my favorite types, minimal/no security and not too sketchy gives plenty of time to set up lights and take time with the photos.




I love this photo except for that half-assed spray painted Quagmire some little 15 year old gutter snipe threw up.
Branch sculpture
Chris on top of the pill box at Fort Tildon. Security drove by while we were up here, Chris waved at them, they waved back and went on their merry way!


Inside the pill box.
Out of the pill box and into sunlight.
The name sake fort. Looks like something out of THX-1138


Ghosts! This place was seriously creepy all those rooms on the left were completely pitch black. The only way to see what was inside was to shoot a photo with flash and check the results. I kept expecting the old horror movie trick of checking the photo and seeing some zombie coming towards the camera.

Apocalypse Please

So this is a first (and hopefully a last) for To Dull to a Pause. That is, this is the first time I've posted someone else's content. I'm not sure if anyone reading this has been as disturbed by the Deepwater Horizon oil hemorrhage as I have, but what's equally disturbing to me is the lack of media coverage of this event. Sure, the first week the rig exploded, it was the only thing we were hearing about. Now with car bombs in Times Square and new supreme court justices, I can't even find a mention of it on the front page of nytimes.com.

Aside from the lack of coverage, the fact that assholes like Rush Limbaugh are calling this "natural" is extremely disturbing. I'm not sure people in this country grasp what a problem this is. 42,000 gallons of oil are emptying into the Gulf of Mexico EVERY DAY with no end in site. What's important to understand is that not only will much of an important ecosystem be wiped out, but every organism that depends on that ecosystem (the fishers in New Orleans, migrating birds that feed on species in the Gulf, etc) are all going to be affected. There's really no telling what this disaster is going to ruin or for how many years.

I feel less and less every day that I care about the continuation of the human race and instead am hoping we wipe ourselves out quick enough to at least leave some life intact on this Earth when we're done destroying it.


The picture above is totally normal. Things like this happen all the time. There are no consequences to our actions, continue business as normal please, the show must go on.

Not totally sure who deserves credit for the photo, but I have seen it posted here.

Life After Death

So apparently I jumped the gun a bit on proclaiming Spectra film dead. Not only did I take one of my favorite Polaroids ever, but I also discovered Adorama has 700 boxes of it in their warehouse for quite a bit cheaper than what I paid.

The cyan still isn't working though and I'm not going to pretend these aren't heavily color-corrected after scanning. But the information was there, I didn't add colors or anything. My favorite image however, the last one, is pretty much straight out of the camera.


I was imitating a Polaroid I took years ago in Rome with my friend Michael. I pretty much nailed it, the original can be found under "Beautiful and Useless" here.










Madison Square Park in full bloom.
Flatiron.
"In a dream we are connected, Siamese twins at the wrist. And I knew we'd been forsaken, expelled from paradise"

Rest In Peace

I guess I was just in denial. I knew Polaroid had stopped making film, but Fuji started making certain types...

I guess I figured that even if Fuji didn't make Spectra film, there are enough things laying around in warehouses that Spectra film would still be plentiful. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

My grandmother sent me $100 for my birthday and said to spend it on something I normally wouldn't buy. I thought about it, and decided to trot out the Spectra camera. To my surprise, there was relatively little Spectra film left on Ebay and what was there was both expired and over double the old price.

I decided to try it anyway. The film still works, it just seems like maybe the Cyan dye is defunct. Unless Fuji picks up this type, Spectra is going the way of the dinosaur within the next year or two. So please guys, raise your glasses and pour one out for a fallen comrade.

R.I.P Spectra
Balsa glider flying double exposure on the water.
You can tell he's got aviation in his blood. Look at the shades and that proper glider launching stance.
Since the film was busted, I just decided to shoot mostly double exposures since I didn't have much to lose.