luck sucker

Dead Rat on K St.

2012-02-05T20:02:00.000-08:00

Housing Inequality in North East Portland: King Neighborhood as a Case Study

2012-02-03T18:14:00.001-08:00

CLICK BELOW...

Andy Fraser

HousingInequality in NE Portland.

A Case Study in Housing Inequality: TheKing Neighborhood of North East Portland, OR. 1990-2000.

Introduction

Oregon within a historical frame has often been qualified as one of the most racist state outside of theJim Crow south. Trends in state-wide, institutionalized discrimination extendfrom the deportation of freed-slaves and the annual taxation of ethnicminorities (approximately five dollars a year) in the late 19^thcentury (Steinberg, 2005); the apartheid-like policies imposed on NativeAmericans; the internment of Japanese Americans; to laws prohibitinginterracial marriage and “minority” homeownership—both of which weren’t amendeduntil 1952 and 1972 respectively (Steinberg, 2005).

Discriminatoryhousing and bank policies are some of the most destructive and pervasiveaspects of Oregon’s racist past. For example, Black residents working withinthe Portland-Metro area were prohibited from renting or owning homes outside ofthe segregationist housing projects of Vanport and Albina. Similar to HurricaneKatrina, the flooding of Vanport in 1948—equally caused by the failure oflevees—disproportionately affected Black residents, leaving thousands homeless.The only option for these former Vanport residents—due to the Oregon’sinstitutionalized racism—was to move to Albina and othersegregationist housing developments in North East Portland (or to leave Oregon).

Redlining,the process by which banks and mortgage companies actively neglected andrefused services to Black and lower income residents wasn’t officially madeillegal until 1972 under the “Home Mortgage Disclosure Act” and “the Community Reinvestment Act”, but itunofficially persisted well into the 1990s.

Today,North East Portland is still considered one of the only “predominantly Black”regions of Portland—and Oregon more generally. The disproportionate number ofBlack residents living in NE Portland is a direct vestige of segregationist anddiscriminatory housing policies. Similarly the insidious homeownership gapwithin Oregon’s Black community is a consequence of redlining and lawsforbidding Black homeownership in the Portland-Metro area. In other words,redlining had two devastating effects that are visible today: it activelydenied Black residents the freedom to purchase and own homes (thereby forcingthem to pay typically white “landlords”) and it continuously prevented Blackcitizens from investing into their own communities whilst establishing equityand savings.

Due tothe homeownership gap, Black residents of Portland are disproportionatelyvulnerable to the effects of increased rental costs typically associated withefforts of urban renewal, “beautification” and gentrification. Using GIS, thisresearch project aims to begin visualizing trends in housing inequality and thehistorical landscapes of racism and discrimination within North East Portland.

As anintroduction however, the frame of this study is extremely small: it focuses exclusivelyon the King Neighborhood of NE Portland, a region historically at the center ofthe city of Albina—the only region Black citizens could reliably find housingafter the flooding of Vanport (Albina was annexed/appropriated by the City ofPortland in 1981).

TheKing Neighborhood is partitioned within this study in terms of block groups andthese groups are related to census data for “gross rent as a percentage ofincome” and “race/ethnicity” respective of block groups for 1990 and 2000.Given these factors, the hypothesis of this project is this: Black residents of the King Neighborhood aredisproportionately vulnerable to the effects of increased rent—between 1990 and2000 the percentage of Black residents living within this neighborhood willdecrease in response to increased rent costs as a percentage of income.

Methods

Accuracy: Thecensus data provided by the US Census Bureau has a 90% confidence interval/marginof error. Regarding the 1990 “rent as a percentage of income” data, human errormay have been introduced—I had to add all the rent-payers who paid 30% or morefor housing across 10,000 dollar increments of income and create a percentageof this summation based on the total. I additionally added fields into all thedata sets and used the “field calculator” in order to quickly create sums andpercentages—this could be the source of additional human error.

1990 “Rent as a Percentage of Income”	US Census Bureau: americanfactfinder.gov	X	X	90% confidence interval	Data Set provides gross rent as a percentage of income for Multnomah County in 1990.
2000 “Rent as a Percentage of Income”	US Census Bureau: americanfactfinder2.gov	X	X	90% confidence interval	Data Set provides gross rent as a percentage of income for Multnomah County in 2000.
1990 “Race”	US Census Bureau: americanfactfinder.gov	X	X	90% confidence interval	Data provides the racial composition of selected census tracts and block groups
2000 “Race”	US Census Bureau: Americanfactfinder2.gov	X	X	90% confidence interval	Data provides the racial composition of selected census tracts and block groups
1990 Block Group Shape File	US Census Bureau: Americanfactfinder	NAD_1983_HARN _Stateplane_oregon _North_FIPS_3601	GCS_North_ American_ 1983_HARN	90% confidence interval.	Provides block groups for Multnomah county.
2000 Block Group Shape File	US Census Bureau Americanfactfinder2	NAD_1983_HARN _Stateplane_oregon _North_FIPS_3601	GCS_North_ American_ 1983_HARN	90% confidence interval.	Provides block groups for Multnomah county.
2005 Oregon County Outline Map	Oregon Geospatial Database	NAD_1984_HARN _Stateplane_oregon	GCS_WGS_ 1984	95% confidence interval	Provides outline shape file for the state of Oregon.

Analysis Methods andGeoprocessing: fromamericanfactfinder.gov and americanfactfinder2.gov the Multnomah County censusdata for “rent as a percentage of income” and “race” for the years of 1990 and2000 were downloaded. Census block-group shape files for 1990 and 2000 weresimilarly downloaded from rlismetro.gov (Portland-Metro data discovery site).Because the data sets are from the “American Community Survey”, the fieldtitles therefore differ from decennial census shape files. A unique field wassubsequently created within the data-sets called “FIPS”, which included blockgroup identifiers that were similar in all the data-sets and shape-files (theonly thing that differed was the field title). FIPS was then used as the fieldto join the block group shape files with the census data. The census tracts33.01, 33.02, 34.01, 34.02 (which include the 12 block groups) were thenselected using the “select by attribute” function within the attribute table ofthe joined shape file and a new layer was created using the “create layer fromselection” feature. This process was similar in all four data-sets.

Withineach data set’s attribute table a new series of fields were created in order tocreate numeric values from the “string” values the census uses. In the case of “race”,all counts of Black residents were summed using the field calculator. Anotherfield was then created and again, the field calculator used to determinepercent of residents within King Neighborhood who are Black. This was repeatedfor both 2000 and 1990 data.

For rent,unique fields were again created to summate the percent of residents withinKing Neighborhood who pay 30% or more of their income towards rent. The 30% ormore qualification is the accepted percentage for measuring inhibitiverent/housing burdens—this value prevents the establishment of savings andpreventative health measures. Additional unique fields were then created tocalculate percentages.

The 1990rent data-set required a preliminary step. The rent as a percentage of incomewas broken down by 10,000 dollar increments (for example the number ofresidents paying 30 percent or more towards rent who make between 20,000 and30,0000 dollars)—so it therefore had to be added across income and percentageincrements as well.

Thereclassification operation was then used to create common or similar classbreaks between respective shape file/data-sets. The annotation of block grouplabels was used to reposition labels if they interfered with other symbology(such as the graduated symbols of “Rent vs. Race”). The state context maputilized the “clipping” operation. Part of the “Portland-metro block group”shapefile extends into Vancouver, WA. This portion was clipped in order toavoid confusion.

Results

Between 1990 and 2000 thepercentage of Black residents living within the King Neighborhood block groupsdropped dramatically. Similarly between 1990 and 2000 the percentage of incomepaid towards rent dropped precipitously—or in other words the burden of rent inrelation to income dropped as well.

This map indicates that the King Neighborhood saw a sharpdecrease in the number of Black residents between 1990 and 2000. In 1990 manyof the block groups associated with this neighborhood had a majority Blackpopulation. By 2000 nearly all the block groups constitute a minoritypopulation of Black residents. The final map in this results section willillustrate the “percent change” in percent of black residents in conjunctionwith the percent change in rent. It is important to note that theclassification breaks don’t match perfectly in this map due to a very largeswing in the range of percentages between these two data sources.

This map illustrates thepercentage of residents who pay 30% or more of their income towards rent. Forinstance, “red” indicates a range of 60-80% of residents pay 30% or more oftheir annual income towards rent. The “30% or more”, isn’t an arbitraryquantity as the methods section also indicated. These values are used tounderstand housing burdens—excessive housing costs equate to poorsavings-habits and other variables associated with economic wellbeing. Whenlooking at both the 1990 and 2000 values it is interesting to note the decreasein rent burdens over time (few people seem to be paying inhibitive rent pricesin relation to income).

This map differs from theother maps in that it indicates the percentchange in rent as a percentage of income and the percent change in the percent of Black residents living in King.Here the “red” indicates the greatest absolutevalue percent change (it actually is a negative value, meaning that rentburden decreased from 1990 to 2000). And similar with the graduated bluesymbols: the largest circles represent the greatest percent change whichhappens to be a negative value (meaning that the percentage of black residentsliving in King decreased between 1990 and 2000). It is interesting to note whatappears to be a correlation: blocks with the greatest percent change in rentsimilarly have the greatest percent change in the percent of black residentsliving there (and vice versa).

Discussion

Thereare a couple of interpretations that can explain these results. Because thisstudy was only interested with residents who paid 30% or more of income towardsrent, the movement of Black residents away from this neighborhood seems tosimultaneously be marked by the introduction of residents who pay less towardsrent as a percentage of income. Irrespective of racial demography, this trendtowards decreased housing burden is consistent with notions of gentrification,where lower income residents are supplanted by wealthier ones. It is importantto note however, that gentrification is an extremely complicated phenomenon. Sowhile these findings are conducive to themes of gentrification, theynonetheless fall short of defining it. Similarly it is important to note thatgentrification exclusively speaks of class and wealth—it does not inherentlyaddress or incorporate race. Nonetheless gentrification can disproportionatelyaffect certain racial groups due to housing inequalities and histories ofdiscrimination—as seems to be the case with this study.

Theseresults don’t prove or disprove the hypothesis. The data sets don’t show anincrease in rent burdens which—according to the hypothesis—causes this movementof Black residents away from the neighborhood. This study is therefore missingthe driver for this change indemographics. While Black residents certainly did leave between 1990 and 2000,it is still uncertain whether rent burden inspired this shift. It’s possiblethat the 1980s were marked by steep rent increases (or income decreases) andtherefore the study is too narrow in terms of a historical perspective; ormaybe the study is simply too course and it needs yearly census data toresolutely identify the conflict between rent and racial composition ofneighborhoods; or it could be that the two variables simple don’t correlate,but this tentatively doesn’t seem likely given the initial correlation indicatedin the “percent change in rent vs. percent change in race” map.

Furthermore,because this study only looks at twelve block groups, it’s possible that the“conflict” between Black residents and rent prices (as the hypothesis predicts)happened outside the borders of the King neighborhood. So while rent pricesmight not have increased in King, perhaps they did in an adjoining region whichcaused a decrease in percent of black residents in that respective area, therebycausing cultural reverberations and more qualitative motives for this shift inracial composition within King.

Lastlyit is possible that Black residents are leaving the King neighborhood, not outof duress or due to the homeownership gap, but instead for other reasons. Itcould be equally plausible that black residents are becoming more affluent andare in turn buying or renting homes in other regions. While broadly thisdoesn’t coincide with other research addressing issues of housing inequality inPortland, it nonetheless could be true for this particular segment of NorthEast Portland. Ultimately, as one might expect with such a narrow study, thisresearch provides many more questions than it does answers. It is nonethelessvery interesting to see the initial hints of a correlation within the KingNeighborhood between the change in percent of rent paid in terms of income andthe change in percent of black residents. This study most certainly should beextended to include many more regions within NE Portland and it should focus onannual survey data in order to have a more detailed perspective on rent prices.

Clemmer,Gina, 2000. Quantitative and Spatial Analysis Techniques for Analyzing GentrificationPatterns Case Study: Portland, Oregon. Independent Research Project, PSU(Center for New Urban Research). http://www.newurbanresearch.com/

DeirdreSteinberg . 2008. Retired SupremeCourt chief justice's long fight to destroy racial discrimination in Oregon'slegal system., The Episcopal Diocese of Oregon. 14 October 2005. Accessed 3 Dec 2011.

Figueroa,Roberto. “A housing-based delineation of gentrification: a small area analysis ofRegina,Canada” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/001671859500021C

Nesbit,Adam. “A Model of Gentrification: Monitoring Community Change in Selected Neighborhoodsof St. Petersburg, Florida Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process”, Masters Thesis,University of Florida. http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0010582/nesbitt_a.pdf

ChungChang. How could GIS contribute to thegeographical imagination of gentrification? A case study of New York City,1990- present. The Association of American Geographers 2007 AnnualMeeting, 2007 http://training.esri.com/bibliography/index.cfm?event=general.recordDetail&ID=51290

Troy D. Abel, Jonah White. Gentrified Riskscapes and EnvironmentalInjustice in Seattle, WA, 2009 AAG Annual Meeting, 2009

http://training.esri.com/bibliography/index.cfm?event=general.recordDetail&ID=113523

“Gentrification and GIS”.

http://www.sfu.ca/geog452spring00/project3/m_gis.html

“Urban RevivalTrends in North Portland Neighborhoods City of Portland, Oregon”.http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/Archive/geog492w08/Projects/FrittsAshneyGire.pdf

2012-01-30T20:16:00.000-08:00

This morning I went to an informal discussion to listen to Agnes Kirabo, the National Coordinator for Food Rights Alliance in Uganda. The title of the talk was "Lasting Solutions to End Hunger: a Ugandan Perspective", but again, there wasn't any real structure to the talk. It was just a relaxed "questioning and answering". The round-table listeners dug into their catered cardboard box lunches with falafel-wraps and individually packaged cookies and baked pita-chips.

Each one of the sincerely concerned audience members sat listening--strategizing and synergizing for solutions to world hunger--with their own, hermetically sealed, mass produced, fair-trade certified, plastic entombed, organic, Mediterranean-Mexican infused sandwich wraps. An authoritative Ugandan activist was sitting across the table describing injustices that lead to inequalities that lead to poverty and hunger.

The good looking woman sitting next to me, with dark hair and an "ethnically" designed shoal wrapped over her shoulders was nodding her head rythmically as she listened to Ms. Kirabo--expressing heart-felt empathy and compassion as she slowly wrinkled through her pita-chips bag. Crinkling and crunching and eating loudly.

The other woman in front and to the left of me was doing the same. Rummaging though her waxed-carboard box with hygenic, food-grade tissue paper wrappings to see if any chip or sandwich trailings had escaped her vigilant eye-balls. The more she tried to be quiet, the louder and more awkward and more drawn-out it became. She turned her head, scrunched her shoulders, and pursed her lips saying "sorry" with embarrassment. But she didn't stop.

It was more amusing then annoying. And besides the context is this: today was an absolutely amazing opportunity to sit with representatives from some of the largest humanitarian organizations on earth. Each one of them more knowledgable and experienced than me--by orders of magnitude and light-years and whatnot. Each one of them has sincerely and absolutely dedicated their careers, if not their lives, to help people in dire-straits.

But the irony or contradiction was there nonetheless. And for me, it couldn't be ignored.
My schedule for the next four months largely consists of going to awesomely interesting panel discussions and lectures on the topic of global hunger and food security. Yet it's strange to be in such a wealthy area, speaking with very influential people and receiving free promotional material and lunches, all in the name of hunger. And it's not guilt or misplaced pity or confused teen-aged angst. The other day I spoke with an older woman who worked for a company promoting technological literacy amongst the elderly. She told me her company needed a blog and so they hired a college-intern...The same itch of irony or contradiction or what-have-you... If I can cross-pollinate: these two instances are similar in that they exemplify or embody a central disconnect that's symptomatic of a larger more noxious problem.

We sat today in the conference room by choice with a passion to make a profound difference. Yet does any of it matter considering the fundamental rift between myself and--say--a poor, hungry person living in Uganda? How much of my theorizing about land rights and private property laws and climate change mitigation policies and eco-colonialism and community resilience really translates to a more equitable good; to more understanding? And how much of it is just a verbosely veiled acknowledgment that there's an inseperable divide between cultures and human experience--and we can never mind the gap... A profound chasm that can't be crossed, and so on...

We sat today talking about hunger while we were gorging ourselves with food that has been machine-constructed to taste so unnaturally incredible and jam-packed with nutrients that it's actually offensive. My felafel and my coke on ice is a sign of egregious excess. How can we even have a simple conversation with other cultures when our most cursory behaviors are dowsed with obliviousness and arrogance? How can we talk about equality when even my sandwich is contributing to disparity?

Late at night, I typically massage my muscles that are sore from sitting in an ergonomic chair for too long. I wipe my brow of internet-sweat and caress my ego with thoughts of suffering and how it's totally relative. And how we all experience happiness and hardship and how that's the tie that binds humanity. But it's not.

When we talk of world hunger, with droopy eyes, and shaking heads while unabashedly inhaling chips and Cokes, it's clear that even the best of us are the problem. My life, no matter how much I devote it to saving children in Zimbabwe, or helping old blind ladies in Sri Lanka, will always be an impediment for others. And my good deeds won't be marked as altruism but instead as propaganda and aggrandizement. I have this sinister feeling that modern manifestations of hunger and poverty aren't problems on the margins. That is to say, they can't be fixed with minor tweaks to the current system. And so any attempt to address hunger and poverty without acknowledging the systemic and structural inequalities our own lives create is wholly insincere. Without sounding too melodramatic: the central issue is my waking breath and how success and wealth seems to demand subjugation and sorrow.

2012-01-28T22:58:00.000-08:00

I wanted to quickly write some impressions from tonight's Occupy "protest" in DC. For context: Obama attended this year's "Alfalfa Club" banquet accompanied by other extremely influential/wealthy people. Additionally, the McPherson Square camp is facing eviction this coming Monday. The protest was directed at the Alfalfa Club, but the ire of looming eviction had to play a role as well...

I walked into the demonstration about an hour after it began to photograph and put my make-believe journalist hat on. It was surprising to see how few people (~50-60 people) were protesting, especially given the number of police officers responding via cars, trucks, horses, bikes, motorcycles. Secondly what was immediately startling was the handful of topless ladies and the few dudes walking with pants around their ankles. The entire block was barricaded and I counted at least 30 police cars, but I'd speculate there was at least 60 in order to adequately close all of the streets and alley-ways, but I can't confirm this. The crowd periodically taunted the human fence of police officers and at one point they tried to break past the officers towards the Hilton where the banquet was held. The situation became extremely tense as the mounted police used their horses to move and deter the crowd. It seemed inevitable that somebody would be tased and/or arrested. And then a woman I hadn't previously seen carted--via a dolly-- a full-blown stereo system and amplifier and proceeded to blast KRS-ONE. The mix of naked people and stereo-speakers blaring hip-hop, pointed at the cops-- along with many other observers--I was astonished. "I can't believe they haven't been arrested yet".

I moved next to the light pole across the street and took down some notes. An older woman was standing behind me holding a cardboard sign encouraging the Occupy movement and I couldn't help but wonder how this crowd spoke for her. Why was this woman supporting the protest yet standing so far away? This mosh-pit of young adults-- supposedly fighting for equality and justice--how could a 60-something year old Black woman fit in?

And it leads to a central question the Occupy movement faces in general: as an amorphous, autonomous "collective", how can Occupy be truly inclusive and integrative? After all, this is the crux of Occupy: to give a voice to the voiceless (which happens to be the majority or 99% if you will). Watching the woman on the shoulders of a man, with her boobs jostling as they awkwardly danced to a now Tupac track and another young dude doing a solo and lonesome rave dance over in the corner--I couldn't help but feel like I was at a music festival infused with adolescent angst.

And I wondered how many people, driving by in their cars, had their media-induced suspicions confirmed tonight: that the Occupy movement is just a bunch of pretentious and confused kids.

The Occupy phenomenon is faceless and nameless and that could be its greatest strength or curse. The more Occupy is exclusively co-opted like it was tonight, the easier it will be for the "99%" to dismiss it. If a movement that represents the disenfranchised "majority" can't demonstrate consensus and solidarity then why take it seriously?

The woman standing alone with her cardboard sign was confident that "these people" were from out of town and that they were just being provocative for provocation's sake--in other words they were "just kids being kids", and were likely to catch a cold if they didn't put on something warm to wear.

I asked her if nights like tonight--where downtown DC resembles a Phish concert not a protest--will dissuade people from joining and becoming socially proactive. I couldn't here her answer so I smiled and said "well, that's encouraging". I hope that was an appropriate response.

Move Beyond “Water Wars” to Fulfill Water’s Peacebuilding Potential, Says NCSE Panel

2012-01-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

Move Beyond “Water Wars” to Fulfill Water’s Peacebuilding Potential, Says NCSE Panel

I took a course from Dr. Aaron Wolf which highlighted the socially-transformative properties of water and its ability to nurture cooperation between communities... It's a bit frustrating and perplexing when analysts and media-persons recklessly throw around unfounded claims of looming water-wars and conflict. So, this article--which references Dr. Wolf's work-- does a good job expelling the "water-war myth". That is to say: wars haven't been waged over water and Dr. Wolf indicates this in his Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database.

Instead, water--as a basic and fundamental component of life--has a unique capacity for facilitating constructive change within and between communities--not for inducing conflict. In other words, water is something everyone can agree is important...

But there's a danger of unnecessarily creating a binary where water either does or doesn't cause war and violent conflict... The obvious nuance is that each situation is dynamic and unique-- it's important to consider that while water doesn't innately provoke violence, it can--when governed inproperly-- exaccerabate and inflame already tenuous sociopolitical situations.

An example: post-earthquake Haiti and access to clean drinking water (another: Ethiopia and Egypt). Water can't be singled out as the causative force for political instability in Haiti following the earthquake but poor access to clean drinking water and the subsequent cholera epidemic (and high prevelence of other water-borne diseases) did directly lead to hostility towards non-profit organizations and international peace keepers (UN troops from Nepal allegedly and unintentionally "brought" the cholera into the country).

When I was in Haiti in 2011 (a year after the quake) we were strictly advised to stay far away from water-wells and other water sources: many Haitians believed blancs intentionally "poisoned the wells". Did water and cholera cause this mistrust of the international community (particularly the white portion)? No, history and a nauseating legacy of injustice did that. Poor water governance just made a chronically-bad situation worse...

So it's easy to see how a situation like this can lead to conflict. The knee-jerk reaction when confronted with the innacurate, fear inducing claims of "water wars" might be reflexively met by overstating the polar opposite: water is a diffusor of violence and a builder-of-peace. The truth is that transboundary water issues are vastly complicated and dynamic, presenting immense opportunities for capacity-building between communities--but transborder water issues also have the potential, if mismanaged and poorly governed (as Dr. Bruch points out), to insight and instill less constructive sentiments too...

2012-01-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T01:01:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T00:49:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T00:46:00.000-08:00

2012-01-01T00:33:00.000-08:00

2011-06-14T01:33:00.000-07:00

2011-06-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

2011-06-07T23:03:00.000-07:00

Regarding digital unsharp masks: I talked to my friend Mike a couple months ago. He told me about the Fourier Transform, and how its, like, one of the holy grails of advanced mathematics (he studies math...). Aside from describing esoteric principles within quantum mechanics and non-euclidean geometry, it has lots of practical applications-- for example: its equations are used in photoshop to "sharpen" a blurry image...
So thanks to the Fourier transform and Gauss, I was able to -kind of- compensate for my shitty negative/slide scanner.

2011-06-07T02:05:00.000-07:00

Blodgett

Camera: Shenhoa 5x7

Print: Kallitype + split toned with Gold and Selenium.

~2008/9

Regarding thumbtack holes: This is an old kallitype print-- one of the first legitimate silver/iron-prints I made. To increasee dmax, I experimented with coating the paper with sensitizer (AgNO3 and Ferric-Oxalate) then exposing, developing, drying... then re-sensitizing (hence the registration marks/holes). The prints ended up looking exactly the same as those I had just initially double coated with sensitizer (pre-exposure). But they had the added bonus of thumb-tack marks + blurriness. This print was initially double-coated, but used the thumbtacks just in case. Like an appendix or gall bladder or some other vestigial thing-- if you will. Should I keep talking?

2011-06-06T01:24:00.000-07:00

I bought a new 5x7 film holder yesterday. I went for a bike ride and brought the big camera along to test out the new holder and make sure it's light tight. Set the camera up in a field by the free way. After 15 or so minutes a dude came out from the bushes besides me. It wasn't very startling because it was the kinda backdrop you'd expect something like that to happen-- that's to say: it's a waste land. We talked for a while. Talked about cameras, and talked about that one cop that was murdered a few months ago... and the big funeral... and how he never saw anything like it. I couldn't tell if this guy was homeless, or just wasted, or both. He said he was a contractor-- laying down pipes, driving heavy machinery, building stuff. He told me everyone on the job-site called him "Kunta Kinte", the character from Roots. I was confused and he explained-- "that means I am a white nigger". I have no idea what he meant. At that moment I was just a little, roving bug in a field-- chancing upon some dude's ramblings-- he didn't need me in order to have a conversation, so I just stood there nodding and listening.

All this has nothing to do with the picture above...

2011-06-04T21:25:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between Nevada and Oregon there's a dog eating a headless deer carcass...

I hope you're lucky enough to see it.

On another note: in the chance that there's somebody that reads this... I want to spread the word about a friend's work. He's doing radical things and is a radical dude. Check out his new ipad-magazine release: http://www.lettertojane.com/2011/watch-the-first-five-minutes-of-moral-tales

2011-05-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

Camera: 4x5 LF

Lens: 90mm schneider

Film: Kodak 320txp

Print: Albumen, double coated silver nitrate and gold chloride+borax toner.

This is my first viable albumen print. My first attempts, before I left for Haiti, were terrible. The images were too faint no matter how long the exposure-- the tonal scales falling between white and light-grey. I decided to revisit albumen a few days ago and tried double coating the silver nitrate. It made a huge difference. I am surprised alternative process books and websites don't mention double coating the sensitizer...The process is finicky, but I like it so far. I hope to get about 20-30 of these prints done in the next few months, which should be the culmination of my work at the Oregon State Arthropod Collection (I don't know if they'll all be albumen, or a mix of bromoil and other processes as well). Albumen seems to require an even denser negative then kallitypes or centennial P.O.P. (R.I.P.) does and I think a good strategy is to soak negatives in selenium toner for a handful of minutes (mixed with hypo-clear) to help bring out highlights (along with longer develop times). The albumen itself is difficult to size with, it tends to bubble (especially with two coats) which subsequently allows the silver nitrate to pool up in the little craters, which causes spots on the print. A dedicated work space, and access to legitimate equipment would definitely make the process easier...but so it goes...

2011-05-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

Dark Room is finally in action...

1. Albumen prints coming...

2. Normal prints coming...

3. Bromoil prints coming...

4. Carbon prints coming (hopefully)...

2011-05-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

2011-04-15T11:00:00.000-07:00

2011-04-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

2011-04-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

2011-03-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

CULTS

2011-01-27T00:59:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts as I watch the National Geographic channel: Right now a show is on about cults. It's a documentary trying to make sense of some puritanical community somewhere in New Mexico or Idaho. A new-age, fire and brimstone, "the world's going to hell", kind of place-- gated entrances, trailers, over-all's, beards and bonnets; and vacant stares.

While I watch, I find three things interesting about cults. Two of these things take the form of questions: one with a simple answer, the other more complicated. The third thing is just an observation.

One: why does someone become a cult leader? This is the question that I think has a simple answer. As far as i can tell, someone becomes a cult leader because they are crazy. This is an important point to make only because it hooks into the more complicated, following question.

Two: how do "normal" people end up following an insane person? Why would they abandon their personal freedoms-- sacrificing themselves for a lunatic? There's the typical response: something about people being vulnerable when girlfriends break up with them, or when someone dies, etc, etc. I do believe change and crisis causes people to act irrationally-- most however, don't join cults when a spouse leaves or when they find a strange mole. Instead they read Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul, watch the Secret and take a Zoloft-- they do stuff that's ridiculous but nontheless benign. The only thing I can come up with is this: rationality is learned and humans are innately nonsensical and reflexive... And, as in the case of cults, some of us return to our old habits harder and more quickly then others.
Now the question is: how does someone decide to join a cult as a opposed to, say, learning the healing power of magnets or crystals? In short, I suppose we're all susceptible. Each one of us has immense, cavernous vulnerabilities somewhere in our brains just waiting to be manipulated. And so perhaps it's just the luck of the draw. The flip of the coin or roll of a dice. Maybe when the moon lines up just so and the right sermon is spoken, any one of us could glaze over and start following a sociopath. In other words, we'll all bow and bend to a zealous idiot given the right circumstances-- the right social alchemy.

To this point: history is littered with cults and morons following them. History is littered with murder, racism, rape and genocide-- every form of violence and oppression imaginable-- these things are the rule of humanity, not the exception. Why do we suffer and hurt others? We, as humans, will sooner manufacture mystical meanings and answers in tea leaves then utilize deduction and reasoning. As a collective, we choose to remain conceptually powerless-- decidedly unable to understand our actions and therefore helpless to stop our innate violence-- "terrible things are just God's will", we tell ourselves as we rape and plunder. The ability to think analytically-- we abandon that complex mechanism the very instant we encounter scariness-- any time things become a little less predictable. And just like it's unrealistic to expect a monkey to juggle without being taught, perhaps too, it's unfair and unrealistic to expect people to behave with any sort of rational compassion. If it's not inherent then it needs to be taught. So, on second thought, this answer is simple too. I am naturally stupid but so are you.

Three (it might be redundant): uncertainty and momentary crisis is so reprehensible and repugnant that, as history shows, we'd rather follow a snake-oil salesman-- chaining ourselves to someone's crazy, cockeyed confidence. Abandoning sensibility to feel no fear. That's strange and interesting. Btw, yes I know most of my sentences are incomplete.

cell fone pix from RENO

2011-01-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

visiting reno. went to the largest sporting goods store in the world. they had a huge collection of beautiful dead animals. they were displayed in natual poses: "lynx catching a bird in mid-flight", "deer foraging", "bear roaring whilst defending its young, dead, cubs". wolverines, mountain goats, badgers, deers, elks, wolves, coyotes, prairie dogs, chipmunks, moose, birds-- they were all comingling right there at the heart of the sporting goods mall, next to the ferris wheel, ontop of a mountain tableaux. not sure where you'd get a stuffed wolverine and wolf (aren't they endangered?)-- but this reno sporting goods mall wreaked of legitimacy, so i am not worried... killing wolves, stuffing their bodies and then displaying them in a piss-poor re-creation of a hunt seems like a ton of hard work. and perhaps a bit unnecessary and missing a thousand points-- why not leave the wolves breathing and watch them hunt real deer? this mall just needs live versions of these animals. dear and coyotes foraging and feasting while customers look for discounted fleece sweatshirts and cross trainer running shoes. and an additional revenue stream: charge the patrons to shoot at the animals-- mid-hunt, or mid-breast-feed, or mid-whatever-- from their recliner chairs at the adjoined super-chain steakhouse. a one-stop-shop... also: there were wax molds of some of the more notable u.s. presidents like lincoln, truman, eisenhower, etc. the statues were relics just like the stuffed animals; equally covered in mildew and reemed full of bark chips. the presidents moved their arms in jerky movements and gave cassette-tape speeches. I counted the steps. lincoln was just 15 steps away from a flock of ducks in flight, a mountain lion and a grizzly bear. thats history for ya.

cell fone pix from HarrisBURG

2011-01-13T04:00:00.001-08:00

This is just a cell phone shot. It's across the street from a shell station, somewhere by Halsey. I pulled in here and set the tripod & 4x5 on top of my car to get a pic looking down on this empty lot. Standing ontop the roof, focusing the camera, my breath fogged the ground glass. It took longer then I'd expected. A semi honked while driving by. A couple people slowed down to see why i was standing on top of the car. The thought crossed my mind that it'd probably be more likely for someone in Halsey to climb on top their car to set up an assault rifle then an old 1940's press camera. Thankfully the citizen cops and NRA militiamen were too busy erecting a shoe-goo, railroad-tie, particle-board replica of George Wallace and Bull Connor holding hands, giving high fives in heaven....or something... Either that or I get paranoid. I hope the negatives turn out.

5x7 negative flat bed scans

2011-01-02T21:43:00.001-08:00

these are a couple of negatives that i scanned into my bammer flatbed scanner-- they'll have to do until i start making some albumen prints in a couple weeks.

2011-01-02T21:15:00.000-08:00

2010-12-27T04:01:00.001-08:00

Is Biology?
Kingdom. Phylum. Class. Order. Family. Genus. Species. In a text book, life is well defined-- an assemblage of discrete, static vessels-- stuffed, pinned and labeled.
An organism appears as a sum of its evolutionary parts. Its identity and natural history-- reduced and confined within a dichotomous key. Life, through this lens is rigid and known, and stale.
It's exciting to think however, that the titles assigned to specific organisms can equally be viewed as artificial constructs-- created by a scientist for reference and categorization but ineffective at conveying a deeper biological meaning. Perhaps names and definitions aren't inextricably linked-- inherent to an organism. If the taxonomic labels; the 'species' and 'sub-species' qualifications attached to an individual don't hold water genetically then what's to be said of our ontological understanding of what a species actually is?

. . . The team has been careful not to call Denisovans a new species, opting instead to label them as a Neanderthal "sister group." If modern humans and Denisovan humans were separate species, their hybrid children probably wouldn't have been able to reproduce. But the hybrids apparently were able to have babies, otherwise the Denisovan DNA couldn't have been passed down to today's Papua New Guineans. Therefore, study co-author Viola reasoned, Denisovans and modern humans probably weren't separate species.

Scientifically, though, it matters little whether Denisovan is ultimately recognized as a new species, said Terry Brown, a geneticist at the University of Manchester in the U.K., who wasn't involved in the study.

"This whole species thing is a red herring, something that makes a nice headline but does not in my view contribute much to the scientific debate," Brown said in an email. "We really don't know how to equate differences in genome sequences with the species concept," he said. "You could have two genuine species, whose members cannot interbreed, but whose genomes are very similar. "So really the nuclear DNA does not help us decide if Denisovans are a new species, though the evidence for interbreeding with modern humans suggests they are not.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101222-new-human-species-dna-nature-science-evolution-fossil-finger/

2010-02-10T00:39:00.001-08:00

1. "No Name"

Camera: Graphlex 4x5-- This was my very first picture taken with a large format camera. It's still one of my favorites.

Date: 2005

Print: Enlarged on Silver Gelatin paper with Selenium toner.

Prints/Photo by Andy Fraser

2010-02-08T22:31:00.000-08:00

CLICK UNDER this.

1&2. "Blood Bandit and Shit Fingers"
Camera: Holga
Date: Probably around 2004/05
Print: Silver Gelatin with Selenium.

Print/Photo by Andy Fraser

2010-01-19T14:37:00.001-08:00

1. "Reno"

Camera: 5x7 Shenhoa LF + Fujinon WA lens

Date: 2008

Print: Kallitype with gold chloride toner

Photos by Andy Fraser

2010-01-11T01:06:00.000-08:00

1. "Fred"

Camera: 5x7 Shinhoa LF + wide angle Fujinon

Date: 2009

Print: Contact print-- 5x7", Centennial Printing Out Paper (POP) with gold chloride & borax toner.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2010-01-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

1. "Dunbar"

Camera: 5x7 Shinhoa LF + wide angle Fujinon

Print: Contact print-- 5x7", Centennial Printing Out Paper (POP) with gold chloride & borax toner.

2. "Kimberly"

Camera: 5x7 Shinhoa LF + wide angle Fujinon

Print: Contact print-- 5x7", Centennial Printing Out Paper (POP) with gold chloride & borax toner.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2010-01-09T01:50:00.000-08:00

1. "Heath"

Camera: 5x7 Shinhoa LF + wide angle Fujinon

Print: Contact print-- 5x7", Centennial Printing Out Paper (POP) with gold chloride & borax toner.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2009-12-31T18:04:00.001-08:00

To Those Looking for a New Year.

At midnight with the silence of one billion feathers falling let us pray, upon a door’s opening we find a city burning. Buildings collapsed, cars abandoned, tribes of people powering on and off their cell phones-- to no avail. Hope that when we wake in the morning, nothing but the skeletons and rigid sinews of our society, of our loathsome culture, remain. Our fingers are crossed.

This mountain of burden, this paralyzing ball and chain; this modern society is so pervasive and crippling. Whilst tweeting and face booking and my spacing, I know that secretly and sadistically, we are all hoping our prayers will be answered. An islamo-fascist terrorist attack-- a dirty bomb over a city center-- a brutal but swift slaughter of our cancerous, driveling, mundane existence; we can only dream.

The Jekyll and hide of our being, the schizoid synapse in our brain is simultaneously anxious and ecstatic. We are obsessed with our fears to the point that we are nothing more than an amalgamation of them. And so let us rejoice that our half prayer half nightmare is fully realized this year. Lets hope that the thing we secretly, want will manifest in full bloom. That we can no longer be told what to fear and whom to trust and what we need. Let us hit rock bottom. We will have the chance to start over, to start a new. Let’s get reborn.

2009-12-30T21:01:00.001-08:00

1. "Podria Sacar tu Foto?"
Camera: Mamiya 7 + Wide angle
Print: Shitty silver gelatin
I forgot to set the new film speed on the camera. The exposure was all wrong but it was exciting approaching this woman and trying to speak spanish-- which I can't really, but she seemed to understand. So, despite the negative not turning out, I've included the print for sentimental reasons. Deal with it.

Photo by Andy Fraser

2009-12-27T20:16:00.001-08:00

1. "Rite Aid"

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Print: 8x10" silver gelatin w/ selenium toner.

2. "Albertson's and Hair Salon"

Camera: 6x7 Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Print: 8x10" Silver gelatin w/ selenium toner.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2009-12-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

1. "AKA LYRIK" (qty.3)

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Prints: 6x9" silver gelatin w/ selenium.

2. "Chocolate Milk"

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Prints: 8x10" silver gelatin w/ selenium.

3. "Bi-Mart"

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Prints: 8x10" silver gelatin w/ selenium.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2009-12-21T00:41:00.001-08:00

1. "La Rockita"

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Print: 8x10 silver gelatin w/ selenium.

Photo by Andy Fraser

2009-12-20T17:30:00.001-08:00

1. "Philomath"

Camera: Mamiya 7 + WA lens.

Print: 8x10 silver gelatin w/ selenium.

Photos by Andy Fraser

2009-08-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

1. "Shack"

Camera: 5x7 Shenhoa LF + 135mm Fujinon lens.

Print: Contact silver gelatin w/ selenium.

Photo by Andy Fraser