2012 marks the third year I’ve visited the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival, only named the #2 Winter Carnival in the world by National Geographic. Beating out parties in Canada and Japan is pretty impressive considering the town’s population hovers around 5,000. Who knew we had a world-class event tucked away in the frigid Adirondacks? Answer: National Geographic, but now you know, too.

Each year has a theme, and this year’s was Alien Invaders. You can see a few of them above, abducting terrestrial life forms. As usual I accompanied my friends in the carnival group the Gimps, best known for never participating in the yearly theme. This time they were killer bees. As in the classic SNL skit, complete with sombreros, which raised concerns they would be interpreted as illegal aliens (they had been permanently banned from the carnival years ago for gratuitous use of “EAT ME” in an Alice on Wonderland theme). Bright yellow stripes and bee antics seemed to do the trick and there were no international incidents.

In 2010 and 2011 I went with something of a photojournalistic angle, focusing on the parade, the costumes, the ice castle and winter events. This time I decided to use the warm welcome my extended family of Gimps gives and come at carnival in a more documentary style. You may be asking, what’s the difference between photojournalism and documentation? Well, it’s quite simple: obviously I’m just using impressive words to sound like I know what I’m talking about.

Instead of staking out a spot on the parade route and shooting every float going by, I followed the swarm of killer bees to their staging area. Since they had the second to last float, this was perfect, passing by all the other groups on the mile or two walk out and making it back to the finish line about halfway through the end of the parade. Hanging out while the gimps were getting prepped was much more interesting than being roped onto the sidewalk and waiting for the parade to pass by. Maybe because they are pretty interesting. Bees on a frozen lake? Why not.

Walking back up the route, through the crowd, gave me a chance to shoot some of the other paraders and the spectators. I wanted to give a sense of what it’s like to be in the crowd, instead of the slightly antiseptic results I came back with in years prior. There’s a certain energy and enthusiasm we don’t get here in Albany at, say, Tulip or Lark Fest.

My impression of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival has been one of high alcohol consumption, which may just be a byproduct of the people I hang out with while I’m there. After the parade there was some hotel room drinking, some food and drinking at the Moose Club, some drinking and very noise-tolerant dogs at the Rusty Nail, and drunken bee bowling. I called it a night before the swarm invaded the Waterhole, a popular local establishment I had been forcefully ejected from last year.

By the time we were near the ice castle, with ice UFOs gorgeously lit up, I was looking forward to getting horizontal. So, no photos of the castle for me this year, but honestly, it will be hard to ever top Mark Kurtz’ shot from that Nat Geo link. If you’ve never been to the carnival, you owe it to yourself to check it out at least once, see the official website for details. Think about reserving a room sometime around right now. I highly recommend checking the slideshow for larger photos, more not shown here, and a better idea of what it’s like to hang out with the Gimps for a day.

Special thanks to all of the hospitable residents of Saranac Lake, especially the police and fire departments who maintain a semblance of order. Until next year, happy carnival!

Dyken Pond was a surprise. I’ve visited most of the environmental centers in the area but had no idea Dyken Pond existed or was as interesting as it is — and I sort of grew up in Rensselaer county. Totally my fault. I didn’t visit at the best time, but I’ll blame that on the weather, there should have been some snow already. It looks like a great place to snowshoe and I’m eager to visit again in the spring for the vernal pond and fall for what should be an impressive color show. Some stuff that didn’t make it into the AOA article:

This is a “pufball” mushroom, likely Morganella pyriformis. Pyriformis is one of the few puffballs that grow on wood, in fact decomposing the wood as part of their life cycle. I can’t be absolutely sure of the classification but it’s a safe bet. These are smaller than they seem, only about a centimeter across — I was using a 35mm lens on tubes for ninja macro performance.

This was by far more interesting to me, maybe because I’m easily amused. On the right you see a quartz vein, all over you see moss and some lichen. This tells a story, albeit a long, protracted, and uneventful one. Under all the moss to the left is likely granite, though I didn’t scrape it off to check. Lichen and moss are known as pioneer species and in cases like this one are successional. See, lichen is a symbiosis of algae and fungus — basically something you really do not want on your feet. The fungus gives the algae a hospitable place to live and in return the algae photosynthesizes and provides the fungus with some food. As someone way smarter than me once said, lichens are fungi who’ve developed agriculture.

But fungi eat more than just algae poop, they can actually slowly decompose minerals, and being extremely hardy they can colonize and live on mineral deposits — what we usually call “rocks”. So lichen actually turn rocks into soil over a long period of time, and eventually mosses are happy to call that soil home. So long lichen, thanks for all the hard work. So, why did I find the above quartz and moss interesting? Lichens are able to colonize and break down certain rock types much more easily than others, and this is a perfect illustration. Lichens can live on quartz, but it’s much easier for them to live on the granite in which we often see quartz veins. The boundary you see is there because of the particular adaptability of the lichens paving the way, and if that doesn’t quite blow your mind, this colonization likely started hundreds of years ago. It takes a long, long time for lichens to turn rock into a suitable home for moss.

There’s lots of other geeky sciencey naturey stuff at Dyken Pond, like glacial erratics. These are massive boulders that ice sheets just decided they didn’t want anymore so they just kind of left them all over the Northeast. It’s glacier trash that gets in our way, which is kind of funny but not really seeing as our trash is sort of destroying what’s left of glaciers. Whoops.

The Snow Train, now that was fun. As the AOA editors mentioned at the end, this was a media junket, which I’m not completely comfortable with. You just can’t honestly evaluate something you’re not paying for, but I took the time to talk to the poor schmucks who did pay (okay, that’s unfair, they were really nice), to help get an idea if riding in the dome car was worth it or not. When the train stopped over a mist-covered river lit with the golden Adirondack sunrise and everyone jumped toward the windows to take photos, I had my answer.

As I mentioned in the piece, if you aren’t hitting the runs you aren’t getting your full money’s worth, but I enjoyed riding the gondola up and stomping around. Way in the past I took three snowboard lessons and decided careening down a mountain in winter was not for me, so I’m fascinated by ski/snowboard culture and particularly life at the top of the run.

I tried to get as many candid, street-style photos as I could, but even a breakfast Bloody Mary didn’t loosen the pressure of being on assignment, so stuck mainly to what I knew would run. We were also on something of a schedule, but I tried to get an honest look at life on slopes. It’s definitely something I want to go back and spend more time with.

I like North Creek more than it may have seemed in the AOA piece. It’s a small Adirondack town that’s kept its individuality in the face of being a tourist destination — Gore may not be nationally known but it’s one of the more popular mountains in the east. Compare that to somewhere like Lake Placid, which is a blatant tourist trap. The people are great and honestly happy to see you. We stopped at Marsha’s, advertising the best burger in town, for lunch. We were the only table, but the burger didn’t disappoint, especially for the price. Medium rare came out perfectly medium rare and it was not just a preformed Sysco patty. As we walked out, the staff were playing cards on the bar, and after leaving I knew I should have stopped and taken a few photos, even if it meant switching lenses and mounting a flash. But once the idea came to me, I felt too self conscious to go back and ask, so I filed it away in the endless folder of “things to remember for next time”.

After some shopping and sightseeing we whiled away another hour or so at the Barking Spider, which I absolutely, 100% recommend visiting if you’re in North Creek. This is the townie bar. We were mostly ignored — probably because I’m not the most outgoing person — which I respect. The pickled eggs were fantastic. PBR cans are $2, and there’s a giant fish with a clock hung at one end of the bar and a huge wooden spider with a couple hundred dollars of small bills signed by patrons behind it. I love that place.

Unfortunately, as you can read in the article, the trip didn’t end as well as it could have. The vast majority of my traveling companions, most of whom had paid for the thing, were still in good spirits. I used that as further anecdotal data (hah) that the trip is worth it, and had I spent $80 I would still feel that way. Riding in that dome car is great, giving a view of the Adirondacks that’s impossible otherwise. If we get some more snow I’ll probably take the $55 dome car round trip and just chill in North Creek. And if they continue the service year-round, it’ll be a great way to get up to to some rafting, hiking, and camping.

I know posts have been few and far between. I’ve got a few things up my sleeves, stay tuned. Thanks for reading.

Ever repeat a word so much it loses it’s meaning, becoming gibberish? That’s where I am with “occupy”, it’s only a lingual click and kiss, though I’m no less sympathetic than I was at the start. The last time I mentioned Occupy Albany was in October, politically that’s prehistory, so what’s happened since then?

In October, it did in fact snow, something most of us in Albany forgot about because we didn’t see it again until just a few days ago.

November brought little in the way of inclement weather, easing the occupation’s namesake. As I understand, most of the tents were actually not occupied at night; the vast majority of occupiers, having jobs, families, and other responsibilities, erected them both as a statement of solidarity and to provide shelter for those who needed it and did want to stay the night.

The daily protests and regular meetings continued, and I stopped by when I could to see how things were going. One popular anti-occupy narrative claimed the camp was attracting the homeless who were causing problems. When I visited on the 5th, I saw some people I would knee-jerk classify as homeless, which I can’t confirm, but everyone was friendly and I didn’t hear of any reported issues. The man on the right, below, was nice to me and everyone else, and tried to get his reluctant friend into the photo.

November 11 is Veterans Day. I visited during the parade expecting some clashes; the occupy movement has been branded by the right-wing media as a leftist movement to rival the Tea Party, and the nationalism associated with Veterans Day should be likely to stir tensions, I thought. Aside from some dismissive comments overheard at the parade itself, the occupiers were left to respectfully express themselves, and they were even represented by marching with the Veterans for Peace.

On November 15, a splinter group led by Bradley Russell began challenging the invisible city/state boundary between Lafayette and Academy parks. This repeated nightly several times including arrests. On the 17th, Occupy Albany organized a rally and daytime march to the capitol building, with representatives from across the state including New York City joining.

By the 23rd, all arrest charges had been dropped and the protesters agreed to stop encroaching on Lafayette Park.

December brought unseasonably mild weather to Albany. Occupy Albany had an easy go of continuing their stay in Academy Park. But on December 2nd, the city inspected the camp levying 15 heath and safety violations, giving until December 22 to vacate. The protesters accepted a permit that lasted until the 22nd, but worked to improve conditions toward allowing them to stay beyond.

Many of these violations were on sanitary grounds which the occupiers previously responded to.

(from November 17)

On December 5, Occupy Albany removed unoccupied tents and other items in response to the inspection. This didn’t help and the December 22nd vacation (as in “vacate now”, not “go on a holiday”) proceeded. The protesters had a surprise for the Albany Police Department, physically lifting their large last remaining tent off the ground and parading it around the streets of downtown Albany for over an hour.

The APD were extremely lenient and helpful during this march, blocking traffic and escorting the protesters along their several mile path during rush hour. The occupiers attempted to set their tent back down in the park at the end, resulting in our very own pepper spray incident, over which both sides are still arguing. The Capitol Confidential blog has good coverage, I’ll give a shout out here to Jimmy Vielkind who’s been on top of this story from the start, he’s the hardest working person Albany.

In the meantime, on December 20, Occupy Albany released a demand, which did nothing to quiet critics who railed against the occupy movement for having no demand.

So, without a camp, where is Occupy Albany now? They have solidified their message and organization and are continuing to speak out in furtherance of their stated goals. In the early days I said give them time to learn how to effectively protest and organize, which they seem to be doing, yet this is not the endgame. I hesitate to inflate the importance of the occupy movement nationally, but with the GOP presidential nomination race in full swing I find some dots to connect between Occupy and, say, the attack on Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. Has the message of the 99% penetrated even the staunchly pro-1% Republican Party?

Most recently, Occupy Albany protested the Citizens United ruling by marching at the U.S. District Court on Broadway, complete with a “democracy funeral march”. One of their chants is “the people united will never be defeated” giving an Orwellian doublethink to “Citizens United”. It was 22 degrees and breezy, I didn’t want to stay for more than ten minutes.

You can view my Occupy Albany Photos in slideshows, I’ve broken them down by month: October 2011, November 2011, December 2011, January 2012. Many others have been covering the protest photographically too; Dylan Boyce, Sebastien, Happy Accidents, Tim Raab, dwlcx, MikeCNY; Sotto Voce at Daily Kos has some good photos too. If I missed you, leave a comment with a good link to your Occupy Albany Photos.

I’ll keep documenting Occupy Albany as well as I can.

Ben K-N

Sticking with two stages instead of three makes it a lot easier to catch more of the music, but I did like the extra smaller stage for local acts in 2009. The organizers focused more on local music overall this time, which I would like to see continue, the area has a lot to offer. The only hiccup I saw was when Severe Severe stone cold stopped playing in the middle of a song because they didn’t like the sound setup. The most notable change this year was a revised beer policy; bars were not allowed to sell alcohol directly on the sidewalk. People got drunk as usual but to my knowledge there weren’t any major incidents. The ghost of Kegs & Eggs haunts.

Instead of spending most of my time trying to shoot the bands, I did a lot more candid work in the crowd, which I have talked about already; it’s a fun way to work at a big event like this.

Okay, enough, just some more photos. There’s a slideshow, and Sebastien has a few photos too.

We are Jeneric

Severe Severe

]]> http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/17/lark-fest-2011/feed/ 2 http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/06/rock-n-relief-at-valentines-angry-firemen-at-red-square/ http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/06/rock-n-relief-at-valentines-angry-firemen-at-red-square/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 03:03:12 +0000 B http://www.bvcphoto.com/?p=1869 Been too busy to keep up with this blogging thing. Following are some photos from a few local shows where I saw many friends, on and off stage. After a Google Reader conversation I vowed to see more live music in Albany; a way of putting my money where my mouth is. Can’t complain about the state of local music if you don’t contribute, right?

Rock n Relief was a benefit show at Valentines on September 9. Organized by Eric Halder, of Charmboy, several hours of music hit both stages with all funds going to local hurricane relief efforts. It was amazing. There’s a good review by Ed Conway over at Nippertown. The Angry Firemen played at Red Square on August 22, and that was just pure fun. Red Square is an impressive local venue, mainly because the bar area is well separated from the stage/floor, and there is some sidewalk patio space, so it’s easy to take a break from the music. If anything showing there sounds remotely interesting, go check it out — they also have a good selection of draught beer.

More photos from Rock n Relief and Angry Firemen.

]]> http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/10/06/rock-n-relief-at-valentines-angry-firemen-at-red-square/feed/ 1 http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/09/21/2011-restoration-festival/ http://www.bvcphoto.com/2011/09/21/2011-restoration-festival/#comments Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:00:44 +0000 B http://www.bvcphoto.com/?p=1858
Deer Tick

Sometimes people get a chance to put up or shut up. Through the work of a capricious universe — call it fate, a higher power, or whatever — the folks behind this year’s Restoration Festival got that chance, and put up like you’ve probably never seen it putted upped before.

RestFest (or as it is alternately called, Restoration Funstival, Restoration Funkstival, Wristoration Fistival, etc.) is an annual two-day concert begun in 2010 to help fund the rehabilitation of St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Albany’s Arbor Hill neighborhood. completed in 1856, “[t]he walls of this Gothic Revival building are bluestone, and the trim was orginially buff stone from the Caen quarries of France. [. . .] The steeple, designed by Albany architects M.L. and H.G. Emery, was added around 1910. The interior is embellished with a hammerbeam roof structure with angels’ heads and a polychrome ceiling” (Albany Architecture. Edited by Diana S. Waite. Mount Ida Press, via the RestFest website). You can see some great views of the interior architecture from Sebastien’s coverage of Heavy, an arts fundraiser last year. It’s easy to see why this is a monument worth saving.

Held on August 27th & 28th, the music included many local acts plus some notable nationals; I was interested in catching Titus Andronicus on Saturday and Hawk & and a Hacksaw on Sunday. You can review the full schedule but Sunday didn’t quite turn out as planned.

Titus Andronicus

Arriving late on saturday, I missed all of the early performers but made it for most of Titus Andronicus’ set. They’ve been on my radar for a couple years now and were awesome to see live, even if the space didn’t necessarily cater to their sound. The play from whence the name comes from has been described as “an extraordinary fusion of the savage and the sublime”, which aptly describes the music. They have a great brash “wall of sound” punk thing going on and brought some awesome energy to the stage, which is always appreciated in a live show.

Deer Tick

Deer Tick was mostly unknown to me but did an amazing job of capping off the night with their own take on alt-country and some really good covers. Launching into Bastards of Young put a huge grin on my face. Theirs is not a genre I instinctively head toward, but maybe that’s because the live experience is way more satisfying than a recording.

Day two was when fate stepped in. You may remember something else noteworthy that happened on August 27th & 28th — tropical storm (née hurricane) Irene swept through, bringing record flood levels for upstate New York. While Albany was spared some of the worst, water inundating the cathedral and threats of power outages caused frantic scrambling to let the show go on. But go on it did, and I have to give serious props the staff and volunteers who made it happen, especially the B3nson collective behind the show’s organization. Less dedicated people would have literally called it a wash, especially with the meager trickle of concertgoers in attendance when I showed up around 3pm. Didn’t stay that way though, turns out you can’t stop dedicated fans either.

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We are Jeneric

Let’s break for a second because I know you’re wondering why some of these photos are black and white and some are in color. Or let’s just pretend you are. The answer is that I don’t always see what’s staring me in the face. The camera/lens/software combination I used was simply not up to the task of photos in a very dark, very big space, and I pushed a little too hard ending up with lots and lots of noise. I went to some great lengths to clear it up as much as possible to deliver a few to All Over Albany, with limited success. Returning to the photos later, I realized that in black and white I like the noise, so I went through the not much simpler conversion. Do I wish these were cleaner and that I took more advantage of the sweet colored LED panels on stage? Sure, but not every photo needs to be glossy-magazine-ad slick, it’s a good lesson to remember that technical perfection doesn’t make a photo good.

Swamp Baby

The storm did more than deluge the building, it led to a major shuffling of Sunday’s lineup with the news that Hawk & and a Hacksaw and The Music Tapes couldn’t fly in. The organizers made the day “pay what you will”, and the rest of the acts stepped up in a big way. Slender Shoulders and Swamp Baby did a great job warming things up, but a big surprise, and one of the best performances of the weekend, came from We are Jeneric. They brought some big sound and the dam broke, pulling the audience to their feet in dancing, shouting, cheering defiance of the weather.

Matthew Carefully Undone Ensemble

But I was truly waiting for Matthew Carefully’s Undone Ensemble. I’d heard rumblings of this project months before but had no idea how completely awesome it would be on stage. Matthew brought together over a dozen singers and instrumentalists in a group that breaks with his traditional style. “No Looping. No electronic instruments.” The opening timpanis gave me a Radiohead In Rainbows shudder, and the full force of the entire group elevating Matthew’s vocals was something to behold. I hope he’s lied to us and that this will happen again.

There was more than just the music though. Of course a limited bar was on hand, and Ommegang and live music go together for me like money and problems. The merch table had t-shirts, CDs, stickers, art, and free candy, and did very well, contrary to some early reports I’d heard. A copy of Fletcher and the Hendersons was available to read and listen to (and it’s a really good idea), a robot wandered the crowd dispensing custom stickers, some participatory art was continually being added to, and solo acts played in an alcove in between sets on the stage.

Nick Wallas

It was one of the best local shows in my memory, and now that we know nothing can stop it I can’t wait to see what happens next year.

That guy waving his arms was awesome and there is bonus Matthew (and Laura!) content here.

As usual there’s a slideshow with a few more photos, and plenty of other reports to read: Nippertown, Metroland, Keep Albany Boring, Kevin Marshall, and probably more I didn’t catch. Special thanks to the RestFest sponsors, all of the bands, and especially the show staff and volunteers who really made it happen.

Thankfully we didn’t have much direct damage in Albany from Hurricane Irene (Tropical Storm Irene by the time it got to us), unfortunately many other areas in upstate New York and greater New England weren’t so lucky and are still cleaning up. Because I’m dumb I did not bring a camera to work yesterday, but I did later take a walk down to the Hudson River where we’ve had serious levels of flooding. Up top is Water Street, and you thought they named it that because it was near the water.

Beneath I-787

Lexington Avenue Bridge

Corning Preserve

Albany Central Warehouse

The river crested around 4:00pm yesterday so the water was already receding by the time I got there. The geese were pretty pleased with themselves for finally conquering the Corning Preserve. It will crest again at 6:49pm today, but I don’t know if it will be quite as bad. Wishing the best for all who have been affected.

Lots of other views on flickr:
- a409will has some photos from Troy
- BrainNY08 with a before/after and some great images from the Mohawk River
- dbphoto has photos from Cohoes, including an impromptu trailer-dam
- ruperthemoose took two gorgeous night shots in Troy.
- chocolatepoint shows just how bad it is in Scotia, including an interior shot.
- carljohnson has the view across the river from Albany.
- fixlr gives us more of downtown Albany.
- All Over Albany has great collections of photos: Schenectady, Troy.

Stay dry and stay safe.