Photography Archives - Page 5 of 23 - Books by Eric Douglas

How Christ of the Abyss made it to Florida

May 20, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Update: This story was picked up by the Miami Herald. They used my photos to illustrate the story. You can see Page 1 here. and Page 2 here.

Last week I was in Key Largo, Florida working on a new project when my friend Jim Elliot called and said he had an amazing opportunity for me. Jim is the founder and president of Diveheart, a non-profit organization that takes people with disabilities scuba diving. I know when Jim calls with an opening like that, it is going to be interesting. I was right.

Gabriel Spataro was going to dive on the Christ of the Abyss statue in John Pennekamp State Park. There were two unusual things about this: Spataro is 81 years old and legally blind. He began diving in 1956 with a group of friends who formed the Illinois Council of Skin and Scuba Diving. Reportedly, John Cronin and Ralph Erickson also came together in his restaurant when they were founding the Professional Association of Scuba Diving (PADI), but that’s a different story. A Korean war veteran, he is now suffering from macular degeneration so he needs the assistance of adaptive buddy divers to dive safely. That is where Diveheart comes in.

The second interesting part of the story was Gabe was instrumental in bringing the Christ of the Abyss statue to Florida in 1962, but never had the chance to dive on it. Now, 51 years later, he was going to dive on the statue for the first time. You can hear Gabe tell the story himself in the video Gabe’s Story.

In early 1962 he was asked to be the chairman of the Underwater Society of America’sconvention in Chicago. He found out that the Cressi family was making the statue, the third copy of the 9-foot-tall bronze statue, to send to the United States. Spataro was heading to Italy on a wine trip for his restaurant and met with the Cressis. They told him they were donating the statue, but it was up to him to get it to the United States. Through friends in the shipping industry, Spataro was able to bring it to Chicago from Italy for the convention and then eventually he was able to transport it to Florida. The statue finally found its home in August of 1965. This all happened with no budget, solely on the efforts of volunteers and divers.

To make the dive happen, DJ Wood, owner of Rainbow Reef Dive Centers donated six spots on one of his dive boats. Chuck Baldwin, owner of US 1 Scuba in Pompano Beach, Florida and a Diveheart volunteer, also happened to be a Cressi Dealer so he joined Spataro on the dive and outfitted him in Cressi gear so he could experience the result of his efforts. Baldwin and Wilhelmina Stanton of the Scuba Sirens lead Spataro on the dive and it was an emotional day for him. He spent about 20 minutes touching the statue, feeling the head and holding its hands.

The Christ of the Abyss is often referred to as the most photographed underwater attraction in the world. Every diver who has been to the statue owes Gabe Spataro a debt of gratitude for getting the statue to Florida from Italy.

Taking a creative break

April 29, 2013 By Eric Douglas

The original under glass in the sun.

I love digital photography. Really, I do. You just can’t beat the flexibility you get with digital photography and the ability to edit on the fly saves so much time. I worry about us deleting photos in-camera and losing some of those out-takes, but that’s a conversation for a different time.

There are times, though, when I miss my black and white darkroom. I miss the smell of the fixer and the red light and literally getting lost in the process of printing images. It seemed like I could go in the darkroom in the morning and emerge exhausted eight hours later. Now, I can still spend hours tweaking photographs, but I do it sitting with my computer in my lap and it just isn’t the same.

Every once in a while though, I realize I need that creative fix (no pun intended), camera or not. That’s when I go full-on old-school. Cyanotype is called blueprint printing and it’s the oldest non-silver photographic printing technique. And the coolest part, once you’ve prepared the paper, all it takes is sunlight and water. To prepare the paper, you need a solution of potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate that you just can’t buy off the shelf, but the concoction is available from specialty photography places.

You can use it to make blue prints of photographs by first creating a digital negative, printing it out on acetate and then placing the negative on the paper in the sun. Or, if you don’t want to go to all of that trouble, you can make paper negatives in the cyanotype itself by lying opaque items on the paper and exposing them that way. Whatever the sun touches will end up blue after the wash wherever the sun is blocked will turn white. It’s pretty cool and a great way to take a break from sitting at the computer.

The print developing in a tray of water.

This is often referred to as sun printing. I keep some treated paper around and every once-in-a-while I pull out a few sheets and see what I can find in the yard or the house. Big flowers don’t really work…they end up looking like blobs on the paper. But items with fine details work great. I also like to print with crystals or glass to catch the way the sun reflects onto the paper. The great thing about this process and technique is you can preserve the nature you see around you, capture patterns and discover details you might have never seen before.

That’s probably enough of a break for one day. Time to get back to work.

The final image.

Shooting for the stars

April 10, 2013 By Eric Douglas

My older brother and I agree that we had a good childhood in Cross Lanes. By today’s standards we were deprived, of course. We only had three or four channels on our television and didn’t have central air conditioning until we were 11 and 13.

What we did have was access to a lot of creativity and science. I remember erector sets, chemistry sets, microscopes, telescopes and just about every other “set” that let us challenge ourselves and our imagination. One of the more exciting summertime things we did was launch model rockets in the backyard.

We would build rockets and set them up on a stand. We would light a fuse by hand and run back a ways in time to watch the launch like a big bottle rocket. The thrill of the launch was only multiplied by the chase of the rocket’s return. We held our breath while we looked for the parachute to pop out and bring the rocket slowly back to earth. Or, as happened occasionally, watching it corkscrew back down, burying itself in the clay.

For the last several months, my oldest daughter Ashlin has been building rockets through the Starbase Academy Program at John Adams Middle School. The program is funded by the Department of Defense and offered through the school system. My younger daughter, Jamison, still in elementary school, has been able to be the “mascot” for the group and help out as well. They built smaller individual rockets and launched them. Then they worked together to build a larger rocket as a team. They recently completed a successful launch of the team rocket. The result of that launch, including altitude and other telemetry information, was sent off the national Starbase program. The great news is their rocket has been accepted into the national competition. They will be headed off to DC next month for more adventure.

When I was growing up, the space program was on everyone’s mind. The Apollo Missions were ending, but we had Skylab and the Mir Space Station along with the coming of the space shuttle to fire imaginations. Everyone wanted to be an astronaut and the possibility of space exploration got everyone excited about technology and the future. Back then, it seemed like technology fields were heavily dominated by men. As the father of two young girls, I’m excited to see that changing.

Ultimately, I don’t care if either girl ends up being an engineer or a scientist when they grow up. (I didn’t, but I’m still a space-junkie.) If they choose to, that’d be great and I’ll support that however I can. What I hope they both get from this is a sense of wonder and excitement for exploration.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go buy a rocket….

Stereo View of the Bridge Demolition

March 8, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Friday, March 1 and today (March 8) the WVDOT demolished the remaining portions of the Dick Henderson Bridge, spanning the Kanawha River between Nitro and St. Albans. You can read my thoughts and see pictures on the process following the St. Albans side demolition.

Since I was fortunate enough to have a unique perspective on the demolition, standing on a friend’s boat in the middle of the river, I decided to put together a side-by-side video of both demolitions. Click on the YouTube video below. Watch it full screen for the full effect.

And here are some select images from the sequence.

A bridge runs over it

March 1, 2013 By Eric Douglas

Depending on which side of the river you grew up on the steel span is known as the Nitro-St. Albans Bridge or the St. Albans-Nitro Bridge, but it has been (since 1934) a connection between two small towns.

Nitro and St. Albans High Schools have always been “rivals” because of their proximity. Can you say “cross-river rivals” as compared to cross-town? I remember, in high school, piling into a buddy’s car and going over the bridge (circa 1983/84) to go to one of the two Taco Bells in the valley for lunch. And then racing back quickly before the next period bell rang. I dated girls on the other side of that bridge, went to some of the nicer restaurants in the valley for special dinners over that bridge and worked at Husson’s Pizza’s St. Albans store from time to time over that bridge (I worked in the Cross Lanes store in high school, but went over there to fill in from time to time.)

I also remember driving over it 20 years ago thinking that it was too small and falling apart.

This morning I watched the St. Albans side of the bridge get blown up to make way for a new one. Next week, they will drop the Nitro side. And then a new bridge will go up in its place. I’m sure that new bridge will serve the two communities equally well, bringing them back together in the same way the old one did. And I fully understand the reason for tearing the old one down. Still, it’s sad to see that piece of history torn down.

The following is from the website Bridgemapper.com, with historical/design details for the bridge.
“The 1934 Dick Henderson Memorial Bridge is the oldest cantilever bridge over the entire Kanawha River. The structure is unusual for several different reasons. It is an extremely rare example of a cantilever in which the entire top chord is divided into only 9 sections. With most cantilevers, the top chord curves upwards to form pointed towers. With the Dick Henderson Bridge, the top chord has a linear upwards slope and towers with flat tops. It is the only cantilever bridge like it in the area. In the early 1930’s, virtually all steel bridges were comprised of built up v-laced compression members. The Dick Henderson Bridge only uses rolled H-section beams for all of its members. H-section rolled beams did not even begin to be used on bridges until around 1920. The beams are more often seen on bridges from around 1940 and beyond, making the Dick Henderson Bridge look much more modern than it is.”

Many thanks to JD Pauley and the Hobby III for the unique perspective of being in the middle of the river for the event.

The following includes seven images, out of 30, taken during the blast.