Ochava Shadow - Campo Salles & Arribeños

For now I'm still focusing on the 1960s era apartment buildings. If I run out of those, however, I'll have a deep well of other building types to draw from.

Ochava Shadow - Montañeses & Quesada

One of the many pre-conditions for there being there being an ochava shadow is the absence of a building kitty-corner which would otherwise cast the whole building in shadow. Here the offending shadow is just far enough away to let the shadow emerge at the magic hour. In the first photo you see the Peugeot 206 who illegally parked on the corner at exactly the wrong time. This is always one of my fears, and one of the many things that can go wrong.

Sunday Singles - Winter Sun

Circulo Catolico de Obreros on Sucre in Belgrano Bajo


I like how the shadow of the tree merges with the tar

Skiny Building in Villa Crespo

Corrientes & Scalabrini Ortiz. That's a giant hamburger over there on the right, with nacho chips.

Medianera Casa in Flores

One less chalet for Buenos Aires.

Naturally there's a flickr group for this kind of urban situation. It's called The Unconscious Art of Demolition. There's some pretty amazing examples in the group.

Art Deco House

Great art deco style house on Los Pirineos and Juan B. Justo in Villa Santa Rita.

Also, the site BsAs4U is featuring some of my graffiti photos.

Barrio Norte Rooftop

From the 12th floor roof of a friends place in Barrio Norte, Arenales & Laprida:










Another sheer vertical drop just on the other side.

Ochava Shadow - Thames & Padilla

Sunday Singles

San Telmo market


Sunset in Barrio Norte


Plant in lobby

Ochava Shadow - Nuñez & Arcos

I found this building on a partially cloudy day and made a note to return:



Fortunately the OCA delivery guy left before the time came for me to take the picture, altho it would've been cute if he'd stayed.

Vocho Porteño

A Mexico City taxi parked on a street in Nuñez:

I wonder what's the fare from Nezahuacóyotl to Berazategui.

Dogs!

I wrapped my camera in bacon.

Not really

Ochava Shadows in Saavedra

Certain areas of the city have more ochava shadows than others. I tend to find them in mixed density neighborhoods like Colegiales, Flores or Saavedra where there is a mix of both houses and buildings. When I set out to photograph one, I usually arrive about an hour early, which gives me time to scout out other locations.

Also, the colors are great. I started shooting this series only in black and white and now I'm making a second exposure with color film.

Ochava Shadow - Vidt & Mansilla

There is no shortage of buildings in Buenos Aires of this vintage. In theory they could all cast a shadow like this. Usually, however, the buildings are in dense neighborhoods where they are forever in shadow. This corner is in Palermo near Plaza Guemes and is unusual in that it's a very dense neighborhood. An old school attached to a church, sits diagonally from this corner and lets in the light.

Ochava Shadow - Zapiola & Olaguer

So I had this idea to photograph a certain type of building at a certain time of day. About a hundred years ago they passed a law here requiring all buildings to have a beveled corner. I believe it was to improve visibility for automobiles at intersections. The law only applies to the ground floor, however. There are a lot of these functional apartment buildings from the 1960s where losing those few square meters was simply economically unacceptable. The result is a sharp corner above the diagonal. If the building faces the sun and if there's no opposite building casting a shadow [VERY big ifs], then you get this triangular shadow. I've been noticing this for awhile. My first photo of an ochava shadows dates from August 2008. Finally a few months ago I decided to make a project out of it. With a list of corners I'd already scouted out, I went on sunny days and photographed them with my 4x5 camera. The timing can be tricky. This corner here was the very first one I did. I arrived about 2 hours early, as you can see from the progression below:


When the moment comes I have to hope nobody parks illegally on the corner or that some cloud appears from nowhere to block the sun.

Recoleta Cemetery in the Late Afternoon

This one personal project recently had me going to the heart of photographic cliche in Buenos Aires; Recoleta Cemetery. Here's a few snapshots from that cold afternoon:













See also Recoleta Cemetery August 2008.

I'm gonna label this post with 'tourist trap,' as I did the other post because, well, I still think Recoleta is nothing special as cemeteries go [unless you have a particular interest in Argentina's 19th century ruling class]. I anticipate objections from a some readers. Discuss! :)

Jardin Botanico at Twilight

[it never looks that blurry on the LCD screen]

Sunday Singles

Medianera shadow in San Telmo


Pedraza in Caballito does a little bit of everything. Evidencing this is the fact that this jpeg is 200k and the other two in this post are 100k each.


Pasaje Ariel

Martinez in the Morning

A couple of weeks ago I set out early on a Saturday morning to meet up with some friends in the northern suburb of Martinez. It was oddly warm for winter and a light layer of clouds gently diffused the low sun.