A Sense of Place: Rochester Icons

I’m really enjoying Kat’s class “A Sense of Place.” We’ve completed three weeks now, and all of it has provided lots of food for thought. The first week was on preparation. The key question was “Do you travel to photograph?” or “Do you photograph while traveling?” I definitely do the latter, but often I do a lot of preparation and thinking about the images I’d like to capture on a trip. Other times it’s more, “Oh, look at that!” — a much more spontaneous process. She also asked us to think about how we travel with our cameras and equipment. Lots of times I travel only with my Canon S95. It fits into my purse, and takes awesome photographs. Other times, I want the advantage of my zoom lens or my 50mm 1.4 lens so I travel with the SLR. I’ve yet to find a camera bag I love, but through this process think I have found a solution. When we were in Washington, D.C. I used a backpack for my camera and my tabletop tripod. It was so much easier to carry, but I worried about the lack of padding around the camera. I’ve since ordered this bag from Photojojo which slips into the backpack easily, and adds very little weight. I’ll be giving this a try on our trip next week.

The second week of class focused on Aspects of Place and we created a list of the things we might photograph while trying to capture the essence of a place. It was a great exercise, and I’ve typed it up to keep with me.

This week was about capturing icons. Initially I wished I had seen this lesson before our trip to Washington, but once I read the lesson carefully, I discovered that I did use many of the ways to capture icons after all. (Those photos are coming, I promise.) The homework assignment for this week was to capture some icons of the place where you live. I had exactly one really nice day (though windy) in which to do the assignment, and I captured several of the ones on my list. I thought I’d share them here.

If there’s just one icon for Rochester (and I think there are several) this would probably be it. Rochester is known for Kodak and its founder, George Eastman. His home is another Rochester icon as is the beautiful Eastman Theater downtown. Sadly, Kodak has suffered a serious decline in recent years.

Two views of High Falls. Rochester was originally known as The Flour City. Pioneers settled here on the Genesee River because of the falls and the water power they could provide.

Now Rochester is known as The Flower City, and hosts an annual Lilac Festival that brings thousands of tourists every spring. Luckily, we live a short walk from Highland Park so we get to enjoy them before and after the festival. This year many are already blooming though the festival does not start until May 11. Our recent cold weather means there will still be lilacs blooming during the festival as well.

Genesee Brewery has been producing brews for over 100 years. I love the colors in this photograph.

And, finally, a view of the Broad Street Bridge which was built over the original aqueduct which was built in 1840. The Genesee River is one of a few that flows north, in this case into Lake Ontario.