DAVID MICHAEL KENNEDY BLOG :: Photographer El Rito, New Mexico

August 14, 2005 Sal’s Camp Warba, Minnesota

August 14, 2005 – 3:03 PM

August 14, 2005
Sal’s Camp
Warba, Minnesota

When you change the way you look at things, things change – Paul Harvey

Left Red Cliff behind and headed east to go west. Ran through the Bad River Reservation and had to stop at their casino to pay our respects. Again a five dollar limit on the 1 dollar slots- bet two dollars pull- zip- bet one dollar pull- zip bet the last two dollars pull- jackpot $800.00. cool! Cashed it out and took $100.00 to play. Pulled 49 times- zip last two dollars pull- $200.00. Cashed it out and took $100.00 to play. Pulled 49 times- zip last two dollars pull- zip time to leave the Bad River Res. Cool up $900.00 plus the $100.00 from last night. Drove down the road with $1,000.00 in our pockets feelen rather pleased with ourselves.

Stopped along the way and harvested some birch bark for Heather to paint on. Did it in a good way offering tobacco and only cutting the downed trees. Should make interesting canvases for her. I’m thinking I might be able to print on it as well…..

Crossed over into Minnesota again at Duluth and headed west on Hwy 2. Landscape changed from deep forests back into wetlands. Seems like the wetlands are growing. Many dead trees standing in the mashes as a reminder to the forests than once where.

Arrived at Sal’s Camp 12 miles east of Grand Rapids around 6 pm. Looked good from the road, small campground lots of trees and sitting on the edge of Sand Lake ( a small private lake- read no fishing license required!). Water, septic, electricity, showers, boat rental, looks like a good place to spend my birthday! Pulled in and met Ike the man in charge and after a bit of chatting we set about setting up our camp. Across the street is The Lake Market, where we met Dan, the owner, and talked about –40 degree winters,, what bait was best in the lake for the Northern Pike that get up to 43 lbs. and spent a good while inspecting all the live bait behind the beer coolers in the back room. Selected about 2 dozen Northern Minnows, a few movies on cd and headed home. The minnows are in the bait bucket floating in the lake by the boat and we’ve high hopes for tomorrows fishing.

Bridge to Duluth

Show me the money!!

Sal”s sign

Heather Sand Lake

Sal’s Camp

Bathrooms at Sal’s

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

August 13, 2005 Buffalo Bay Camp Red Cliff Res Wisconsin

August 13, 2005 – 2:28 PM

August 13, 2005
Buffalo Bay Camp
Red Cliff Chippewa Reservation
Red Cliff, Wisconsin

Great little semi-modern camp on the shore of Lake Superior. It is run by the reservation and has all that one would expect from Reservation Life…. Yep the hot water is in the right knob position. It’s right on the lake and Henry just has to climb down a hill to swim. Our site is an isolated one, away from other rigs and we can not see anyone. Feels like we just pulled off on a dirt road and happened to find an electric hook up, fire pit and picnic table.

Excellent time here. Last night we won $100.00 at the casino so tonight we had a treat- dinner out at the Greunkes Inn. Heather dined on the local white fish boil and I had to go for the prime rib. Both quite good. Then a stroll down by the marina and good fun watching the local wedding photographer at work. Very reminiscent of Maine but no lobsters to be found anywhere!

Today was spent at the Apostle Islands National Park under the extremely helpful and watch full eyes of Volunteer Ranger Jeff Dickey. Jeff is another full time RV’er who has landed here for the summer working for the Parks Service. The Head Ranger at the Park was kind enough to have Jeff open the building for us and with Jeff in tow we spent a good part of the day exploring and photographing the Hokenson Brothers Fishery, which is part of the Apostle Islands Park. The three Hokenson Brothers operated a family owned commercial fishery at Little Sand Bay for over 30 years closing it in 60’s after the Sea lamprey invaded Lake Superior in the mid 50’s.

Made some strong images in Twine Shed as well as in The Herring Shed. The building have been left as the Brothers left them, many tools in place. It feels as if they are just having a shift change and at any moment they will return to begin work. Quite amazing to see the tools they used, many homemade, to cut ice and catch fish.

All the while Jeff was filling me in on the history and life that the Hokenson Brothers lived. They started out as dairy farmers but could not support three family that was so they move into fishing and dairy farming.

Enjoy staying in one place for more that a night and we hope to be doing it a good deal more.

Bufffalo Camp

this glass ain’t half full

Dinner out!

The Wedding Shot

Heather and Jeff

Pound Net Detail

Windows Twine Shed

Junior Ranger Heather

Blacksmith tools Twine Shed

More Blacksmith stuff

Fish (herring) Cleaning Station

Herring House Barrels

Hether and Jeff in Herring House

Detail of old Glasses

Henry Swimming Lake Superior

Cloverdale Community Center and King School

Henry at King School Cloverland WI

DMK shooting outhouse

Cloverdale Hayrolls

Fishing Boat Bayfield WI

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

August 11, 2005 Northern Exposure Camp Silver Bay Mi

August 11, 2005 – 7:02 PM

August 11, 2005
Northern Exposure Camp
Silver Bay
Minnesota

Finally made a photograph! It’s been a bit over 3 weeks since my last image and I was beginning to feel that perhaps I’d lost “it”. But an old church in Dairyland, Wisconsin caught my fancy and it all came back. Was a bit worried there for awhile.

Pull through a grey rainy morning passing through rolling dairy and farmland, by mid afternoon crossed over the Mississippi into Minnesota again as the farm land slowly changed to wetland forests half expecting a moose to step out into the highway we continued down the highway. Though Duluth, Dylan’s home town, then North again up HWY 61 along the north shore of Lake Superior. Feels like being back in Maine the landscape is the same and somehow the lake is more oceanesque than lakeish.

The Church

Henry and the Church

Drive in Church Stillwater Wi

Church Sign

Preachen to the Choir

The Choir

another lost New Mexico Storm….

Gooseberry Falls

Gooseberry Falls 2

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005 Old Frontenac State Park Minnesota

August 10, 2005 – 6:51 PM

August 10, 2005
Old Frontenac State Park
On the banks of the Mississippi River
Minnesota

On the road again. Three weeks in Omaha working on prints for the gallery. It’s difficult to print the old work right now. As much as I love it my heart is in the new work and I need to be out shooting it. Did get to do one enlarged print of Two Saguaros from my time in Arizona and love it. Truly enjoy the quality of the 4×5 negatives and the creamy tones. Although I still get the same feelings from the new images and see my “style” in the work the new work is so different technically and it fascinates me. There is always so much to discover in photography, both introspectively and technically Helps to keep the juices flowing.
Spent a lot of time playing with bus ideas between prints so as soon as all the work was done Monday, it was another mad dash to go see a bus again. I had seen the bus in Minnesota on my pass through with Jesse and we both loved it so now it was time for Heather to see it and do some serious thinking as I believe this is the one. She loves it as well and we spent last night and today going over it measuring designing and trying to fit our lives into her.
Discovered a few things- most interesting is that a 35 ft. flx bus and a 26 ft airstream have almost the exact same living space. All of the pervious thoughts on bus vs travel trailer proved to be true and in the end we both realize that a bus would be the ideal vehicle for us. But the actual living space issue took us both by surprise. So at the end of the day we’ve come to realize that although the bus is the ideal vehicle and would allow us much more freedom, security and allow me to create a better working/living environment the amount of cash needed to actually buy and redesign the inside of the bus to meet our needs far surpasses the funds available. Additionally we will never find a bus in this condition- new motor and transmission, clean body with relativity good paint and all the amenities we need- for this price so it stands to reason that we stop looking and continue down the road. A bit pissed that I’ve spent maybe six months on the bus kick driving all over the country looking at busses instead of wandering and have come to the conclusion that we can not afford to make that change, but then I’ve always been a slow learner.
Last night as we left the bus and went home to the Airstream I stuck the key in the door lock and the lock fell out? Last night I thought it was perhaps an omen, today I think it’s just a broken lock. Anyway just before 5pm we made the decision and headed out, hopefully the locksmith in town was still open so we could get it fixed before we hit the road. He was, but just closing to go make some house calls but he said he would come back around 7:30 tonight to fix it. We looked at each other, smiled and both knew it was time to hit the road. Thanking him we left, got to the edge of town and stopped.
Where are we going? We have no place to go…. Smiling again we turn north and headed off now only thinking about and looking for the next photograph or peaceful camp to spend the night. After all the other lock is working fine and somewhere down the road there is sure to be another locksmith.

a possible large print…

another found image from New Mexico

Henery and his root beer

and the road goes on forever and the party never ends…..

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

August 6, 2005 OMAHA ZOO PHOTOS

August 6, 2005 – 6:25 PM

Omaha Zoo

A warm polar bear

Heather makes a new friend:

Let’s go see who else is here…..

a meerkat

a caracal

a klipspringer

a sun bear

a cat and some pigs

a praira dog

The Eagles

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005 Somewhere in america LOST PHOTOS FOUND

July 14, 2005 – 12:24 AM

July 14, 2005
Somewhere in america
LOST PHOTOS FOUND

In the digital world or at least in my digital world photos seem to disapear and then reapear ….

Heather at Santa Fe Skies

DMK HCD and Davids Marks at Santa Fe Skies

Me and Henry

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005 Somewhere in america

July 14, 2005 – 12:06 AM

July 14,2005
Somewhere in America

Overheard in a small rural gas station in Nebraska

Attendant as I pay $50.00 for a half tank of diesel:
Have fun (as he looks out at the airstream and the bike)

Me: can’t have too much fun when ½ a tank of diesel costs 50.00 bucks

On looker: at least beers still cheep

Attendant: yep but we’d really be screwed if Bush owner the breweries

Heading to Omaha to get the printing done then over to Minnesota to look at the bus a bit more then north and west hopefully back into the trip.

Been thinking lately that this all is the trip. I’d like it to be this idyllic slow paced, nothing goes wrong journey through out america with perfect light and perfect subjects around every corner. I’d also like the perfect vehicle that during the day could grow real small and fit between the lines when I want to pull off and photograph. But at night it would grow into this great and magical work/living space with everything in it’s place and ready for me to go to work. I’m beginning to think I won’t find it. But then I’d also like to have the same recognition in America that I got in Poland.

This discontent with the space issue had begun to interfere with the purpose of the trip and it needs to be put back into perspective. Just started re reading Walden to try and regain some insights into that search for simplicity that started this whole journey. After all wanting – needing more space is what started all the problems to begin with.

Real or Imagined disadvantages to the Airstream
1. need more room to print and run film so I do not take over the entire space
2. need grey water holding tank
3. need generator to make electricity when we boondock
4. security would be much greater when I leave the bus in out of the way places.
And at the present time I do not leave the trailer if I do not feel it is totally secure which interferes with image making. It is way too easy to break into or just hook up a pickup to it and drive it away. Ain’t paranoia a powerful thing.
5. Easier to deal with the bus as a one unit deal- you live and drive in the same
vehicle which allows you access and the ability to monitor your living space as you drive down the road. As in “Honey please get me a cup of coffee”. Or “damn, did that bump just knock all the shelves open and is everything starting to fall out?!”.

A flash from Poland
Shirt look familiar? Yep, it’s just like mine. While in Poland Andrzej took a liken to mine so we sent him one and he set us a photo of him wearing it.

Andrzej Roslonski and his new shirt.
aho!

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

July 10, 2005 Mom and Dad’s Easton Connecticut

July 10, 2005 – 11:30 PM

July 10,2005
Mom and Dads’
Easton Connecticut

Arrived here July 6th and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. Between trying to finish the airstream “remodel” spending time with Jesse and the family it’s been quite busy. As usual not much time to see friends or do much except have time with the family.

Talk about irony the whole time I was in Santa Fe (dry and hot) I was working with amber varnish that dries way too quick and it caused me much grief. Now I’m in the east where it is way humid and I’m working with polyurethane which dries way too slow and needs heat and dry to work. But this 3 day remodel that has now been in my life for almost 4 months will be over soon and it’s starting to look quite good.

The family party for Barnaby and his bride to be, Tsugumi was quite interesting. Their wedding is to be held in Japan next year. They are off for an extended journey through out Europe and the middle east then plan to settle down in Japan.

Did get to have dinner with Jeffrey and Tondra Lynford and their son Drew. Went to a great little eatery in Katonah(see below). Had hoped to make a portrait of the owners but time didn’t work out. Next pass through.

Sad to drop Jesse off at the airport. Had a good time with him and hate to see him go. It’s hard to let the birds fly off from the nest….

Back on the road in the morning….

Barney and Tsugumi

Our Extended Family

Henry the Party Dog

The Lynfords and Jesse and I

Good Eats in Kathoah

The old Apple Pucker Drink

After a few Apple Puckers….

And after a few more…..

Saying goodbye at Westchester Airport

By Desert Elements | Posted in On the Road March 2004 to October 2006 70,000 mile 2 year road trip across America living in and working out of a 1960 Airstream Travel Trailer | Comments (0)

July 4, 2005 KOA Kampground Granger Indiana

July 4, 2005 – 9:37 AM

July 4,2005
KOA Kampground
Granger Indiana

Happy independence day!
Drove the most awesome FLX Bus yesterday in Minnesota. Power steering and automatic transmission. Must be getting old cause those two things really impressed me. Spent a wonderful afternoon with Rick and his wife in Jenifer They own the bus and really don’t want to sell her but…. I would of liked to have stayed a day or two and worked out the detail of the bus but I’m running down the road to Connecticut and Mom and Dads so it will have to wait.
After a peaceful day in the Minnesota hills we hit Chicago and the world went to hell. Do not run I-90 through Chicago, just about the time you get a bit use to the traffic and totally rude people the tolls start. Seemed like every two miles another $2.50. Must of cost us close to $25.00 to do about 30 miles of the poorest slowest roads in the country.
Someone asked me about my doing urban landscapes. I don’t think so, fer sure not in Chicago!
Had planned to stop and see Scott and his friends in a small town outside Detroit but due to the bus stop will not be able to do that. Spoke to him this am and his friend Stephan is in a rock-a-billy band and they are on their way to play at the local country fair. Sounds like a great day and a great photo op.
And I opened the computer this morning to the message
“Continuing Failure”
“hit any key to continue”
Happy independence day.

DMK Henry Rick Jenifer and Jesse