A Memory Of Washington, DC

Two French women admire a third by Renoir at the National Gallery.

Un Peu d'Histoire

Dear Annapolis Publishing,

It was my privilege to spend some formative years in your lovely city before our family settled in Virginia. With us came a copy of Marion Warren's "Annapolis Adventure" and those images must have started something since I find myself today working on the Eastern Shore for the Gannett newspapers in Ocean City and Salisbury as a news photographer.

I was recently able through ebay to acquire my very own copy of "Annapolis Adventure" and would like to explore the idea of asking Mr.Warren to sign it for me. How might this be done?

Yours truly,

Cameron Adams

Marion will be here Friday at 1:30 if you would like to stop by and meet him. He will be happy to sign your copy of Annapolis Adventure.

This email exchange took place in autumn of 2005. The reply was terse, and its notice, short. Such is life. I dropped everything and ran toward number 14, State Circle. In those days before cell phone selfies, one relied upon the kindness of strangers for photographs like this one of me with the late Marion Warren.
"It's always nice to meet a fan," the master told me. His career celebrating the Chesapeake Bay and its culture first showed me the expressive range of monochromatic imagery. This analogue (ie film) photo of us turned up today in an unrelated search of my archive. As we reflect on the year past with hope for the new one, I gratefully acknowledge my debt to the memory of the man whose photography inspired mine.

Un Peu d'Histoire

Not street fashion but Atlanta all the same, what we now know and love as the Eastside trail looked like this twenty years ago. My memories of that walk are a guest posting on BeltLine.net.

A Rainy Day Memory

from my first blog, The Chattanoogan

We had just finished making yesterday's portrait when the skies above Virginia-Highland opened. Within minutes, rain gutters were overflowing in the sunshine. Today promises more of the same, so home I stay to catch up on all the mundane chores that somehow accumulate during my searches for fashion outliers. This bit of fun recalls a soggy day from May of 2009.

Un Peu D'Histoire: La Lettre De La Photographie

Another nice surprise this morning! As they did for summer holidays, the editors of La Lettre De La Photographie are now filling weekends with readers' submissions, mine among them. Click on the image for more memorable moments.

Un Peu D'Histoire: Chattanooga

Before Atlanta Street Fashion, my first effort was The Chattanoogan. Those eighteen months offered a wonderful lesson in blogging street fashions. Its popularity endures to the tune of 100+ page views per month. Please join me in this retrospective of city cyclists, thrifted goodness, charming mash ups and old fashioned elegance from our neighbor city to the north.

A First Anniversary

Two visitors from Birmingham share the honor of
launching Atlanta Street Fashion. In the record-
breaking heatwave of 2010, when so many others
either remained indoors or wilted into shorts and
tees, these young ladies found the time to share their
original looks with a blogger in that quintessential
Atlanta thoroughfare, Peachtree Street.

Later that Saturday these fellows became its third and fourth subjects.

It Ain't Whatcha Do It's The Way Thatcha Do It
with thanks to Fun Boy Three and Bananarama

So began this blog one year ago today. Its 296 posts have captured the unique styles of more than 300 people and I am grateful that you would share them with me for a wider audience. Google counts 45,000 page views, proving your popularity. As Billy Crystal liked to say, "You look marvelous."

Un Peu d'Histoire

A recent visit to Chattanooga yielded the two previous postings and this diptych revival, courtesy of the AVA media lab scanner. Yes, the top bike was my daily transportation in the streets of Richmond and is shown to advantage here at the Virginia Museum after its spring cleaning of fresh bar tape and crank bearings, all done by me. Don't look for that setting today: the Lawrence Halprin-designed sculpture garden, believed to have been the only one in North America, is now a parking garage for the museum. Even the guys who looked after it were an extraordinary crew of scenesters and musicians known as the avant gardeners. 'Tis poingnant to think that their spiritual descendants could be carrying on that tradition in a town that so reveres its history. The second image of a derelict bicycle, imprisoned in foliage and rain drops, chimes nicely with the sweep of motion suggested by those exquisite lillies.