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Frozen Film Shoot 17-19 Jan 2014 Cleveland Ohio

daleeman

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Frozen Film Shoot 17-19 Jan 2014
Getting out for a weekend in the January cold weather; facing the ice, snow, wind to capture winter images is a great time to produce amazing images. So we are doing things a little different for the 2014 Frozen Film Shoot. Instead of the photo hikes into great natural areas, we thought we would take on Cleveland in January.

Sue and I are heading up to Cleveland in January to look for over winter birds and do some photography. We have several stops planned along the lake and Cuyahoga River. A comprehensive list will follow. So not only will we be seeing iced over nautical locations like light houses, docks, the old Coast Guard station, but frozen rusting old iron and steel in the flats as well.

We are collecting a list of “warm up spots” like the Botanical Gardens and such to get inside and thaw out, before venturing out again. I will contact them and see how tripod friendly they are. (A separate camera is advisable for warm indoor shots and one for cold outdoor shots, too much condensation and temperature shifts keep one from getting any photos)

We will be staying at the Residence Inn - Cleveland Westlake, 30100 Clemens Road • Westlake, Ohio 44145.
https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/clewl-residence-inn-cleveland-westlake/

We will arrive Friday the 17th of Jan and depart on Sunday the 19th. Breakfast is included with your stay in this hotel, and there is ample room in the lobby, eating area to sit and share prints and Jaw-Awhile after dinner out on the town.

We hope you will join us,
Sue and Lee
 
Sounds like chilly fun. Let us know how we can help.

We got a surprise the other day. Looking out our den window, there was a woodpecker beating away at a near by tree. Suddenly a Pileated Woodpecker swooped in. We were not sure it was that until we realized it was so big the tree was leaning over.

John & Dolly
 
January?... We get hit with snow especially hard in February, lol. Hmm, Westlake is next to me - I may attend. Since you will be staying in the Westlake area, you may consider some west-side sites.

Huntington Beach is in Bay Village (very close to Westlake). Not as "interesting" as Cleveland beaches, but perhaps more suburban and picturesque. Lake Erie is also cleaner the further you are from Cleveland proper.

The Rocky River Reservation in Cuyahoga County may also be interesting. Not as large as the Cuyahoga, but closer to Westlake. You can drive the parkway from Lakewood to North Royalton (and further, though it stops being a parkway at one point).

Westlake borders Lorain County, where some good "picturesque" parks can be found in Elyria, probably 20-30 minutes away (though areas of Lorain County do get more rural and pretty, you would be traveling even further away). They have the Black River with a number of parks, but no connecting parkway. The more interesting areas in those parks require some walking off the beaten-path (or should I say, official path), so it might not be easy if there is snow.
 
Sounds cool, Lee! I can't be certain of my schedule at this point but I will keep an eye on this thread and will attend if possible.

John, those Pileated monsters are beautiful!!!
 
The Flats are interesting all year. If the lake is not frozen there may be freighters coming in and out of the Cuyahoga River. Do go there with a friend though. It is not a good place to be alone with expensive gear hanging out.

"John, those Pileated monsters are beautiful!!!" I had never seen one before. HUGE.

John Powers
 
jp80874 said:
"John, those Pileated monsters are beautiful!!!" I had never seen one before. HUGE.

John Powers
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Indeed! When someone asks me how they will know if a woodpecker is a Pileated or not I always just smile and say, "oh, you'll know...". =)
 

The Flats are not a good place to be in general, lol. Definitely have more than one person with you. Certain areas are okay, but others can be quite rough (as in gangs chasing cars with baseball bats, shootings, etc. - all near the power house).

However, it is very scenic. Try going to Sokolowski's University Inn, great food, and from the parking area you can look down on a section of the flats next to the river. Huge piles of gravel, some ships. Very nice. Sokolowski's is safe, though the area is "iffy," so be careful; but it's not terrible.
 
Truzi,
Sockolowski's looks amazing. Nice placement too and every bit of advice about being on yuor guard in the area is important. I found they had a web site too: http://www.sokolowskis.com/index.php
I'm excited you have some first hand knoweledge of the area and that input is helpful. Sue is drawing up some of the areas on her list and we will compile them.

John and Shawn, a Pileated is a sight to see. Looks like they could lift a cat off the ground and fly off it it. Then again, before I met Sue all I knew about Pileated wood peckers or other birds can be summed up at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeldv48RGv8

Lee
 
View from Sockolowski
 
You timed that just right John. Nice! Lee I also will try and make it to Cleveland for the outing.
 
Shawn Dougherty said:
awesome, John!
Click to expand...

Thank you. Peter Spangenberg took an 8x10 to my right as the ship continued up river. It is a great shot because the aft end of the ship is surrounded with little white specks that if enlarged turn out to be seagulls. Maybe he will get involved in the thread and post it.

John
 
The food is really good at Sokolowskis. It's a family-owned Polish restaurant, but they offer a variety of foods. It is cafeteria style, and the food is great. If you go, make sure you get the pirogi's and some cabbage and noodles.

My parents once used the recipe for stuffed cabbage from their website, but did not cut the ingredients - it was very good, but we ate it forever. I'm not sure if they allow photography inside, but I'm sure you'd find something that deserves to be on film.

Lets see - Cleveland's Public Square used to be quite nicely decorated for Christmas. However, since I've been working downtown (at Cleveland State University), I rarely go to the square. There is a monument there if you are into photographing those sorts of things.

There is also the giant "Free" stamp:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2183
and what I call the monstrosity:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/2182

Don't forget Cleveland has a great zoo, art museum, and natural history museum.
Somewhere in Lorain County (I think) is a Great Lakes Nautical museum, though I've never been there.
 
I'm going to try to be there. In August, Robert Bender and I were driving home, and we passed the old Warner and Swasey place on one of the streets parallel to Euclid. Looked pretty good in the morning. Not exactly West Side, but it's definitely Cleveland.

Thanks for organizing,

-- Mark
 
I just froze the old hind quarters off in Ann Arbor last weekend for the game so I am colded out. But, man, I would love to make it back to Ohio for a shooting weekend sometime this year. If I could swing Photostock I would. But that's a pipe dream on a Auto Parts' guy's salary.
 
jp80874 said:
Yes. We and Pittsburgh have been taking lessons from Detroit on urban decay.

John
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Pittsburgh is doing OK, John. Very vibrant city. Lots of software and medical industry. I think Pittsburgh is doing better than Cleveland, and much, much better than Detroit.

I'll have to think of a way to set up a Pittsburgh shoot. Unfortunately, hotels are expensive there.
 

Mark is right, Pittsburgh is and has been doing very well for quite some time now. Tech and med have are indeed the big $ makers. The USX (steel) building, the tallest in the city, actually has a UPMC sign on it now!

I am currently about an hour north of Pittsburgh and am moving 30/45 minutes east of the city very soon. I would be happy to help arrange something this spring or summer once I'm a little more settled.
 
We had a place in Treemont (Cleveland) called Aperture Photography. A small store selling film and cameras, and I believe they rented out a darkroom. They have closed, though I hear it's because the owner relocated. Haven't confirmed that yet. It was a short-lived store, not one that existed for decades.

There is another community darkroom in Cleveland. I'm not sure if they would welcome "outsiders," but it might be interesting to contact them before your trip. Here is their website:
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I like to use Fairview Photo, but they do not have one-hour service. They do mail-order, though. He uses a Phototherm or similar (not a Jobo), all negatives are scanned before printing on RA-4 digitally. They are very good.
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I hate to provide the next link, as I am very unhappy with this local chain of camera stores and I rarely patronize them anymore. However, it's your best bet to get film while you're out here if you run low (unless you want consumer Fuji - it's everywhere, and cheapest at Walmart). They do have a Westlake location, but the downtown one has a greater variety of everything, including film and chemistry (and sometimes a few packs of Impossible film at all locations). Actually, the Westlake location is not as good as the North Olmsted/Great Northern one as far as film stock, but the best service of the three locations I've mentioned. The downtown store has the best variety, but the satellite stores are far more helpful if you want film (though they are less well stocked with it).
http://doddcamera.com/
 
Great resources. Good to know there are some open stores in the area. We have a few Dod stores. I am shaken by the attitudes of the workers there, They always seem to steer you to what has their best makrup. Analog supplies are only stocked 3 weeks before and two weeks after the local community college has film classes starting up.

So are there any 1 hour labs open across the city?
 
That is what the downtown store is like. If you say you want to buy a $70 digicam they'll fall all over themselves to help you. If you wave several hundred-dollar bills and say you want film, they keep passing you to the next employee until, 20 minutes later, someone finally helps you. The Westlake store is small but very friendly. The North Olmsted store is larger, and friendly when you can find someone on the floor.
They even advertise camera repair. I stopped going there after they could not fix my SLR after three tries. I decided I could also not fix it after three tries, but was wrong - got it the first time. I learned their tech was basically clueless. That year (2010) I'd done over $300 of business with them for my vacation photography alone. I've probably spend $50 total since then (and I feel dirty about it, lol). This is actually when/why I decided to get back into doing my own developing/printing, and to learn to do color myself (unfortunately I'm a procrastinator).

No one-hour Pro labs in the area to my knowledge, but just about every Walgreen's, CVS, and Rite Aid will do one hour photos (well, it's more like 2 hours anymore). Quality is another issue, but typically fine for snapshots. I think Discount Drugmart also does processing, but I've never tried them. All of these can be found in Westlake, and every other city in the area. There is one Walgreen's I'd avoid as they messed up my friends negatives, but forget what city it was in (Fairview I think).

Dodd processes downtown, but I don't know if that is one-hour or not, nor do I know their weekend hours downtown. Dodd's processing and printing are good, and the last I used them (2010) they printed optically. They even offered internegs to print slides! I opted digital printing on that because of cost.
IMHO, Fairview Photo does a better job at processing, but they are both quite good.
 
Just west of the Flats, in Tremont, is a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church of multiple onion dome architecture. See http://sttheodosius.org/home_1.html.

Half a block away from that is a wonderful, but a bit expensive, Istanbul Turkish Grill, 2505 Professor Avenue, http://grillistanbul.com. Dolly and I think of it as our favorite restaurant. The Lumpkins, Dolly and I had dinner there the night that turned out to be Easter in the Russian Orthodox Church. After dinner we were looking at the building, tried the door to see if we could go inside, and were invited in to see and join the vigil. None of us were mistaken for He who they awaited.

John
 
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I moved to Cleveland in 1975, so I bow to the more recent knowledge of you two. First wife, Sarah, and I lived in Slickville, PA, just north of Greensburg. That has to be one of the worst sounding names for a salesman's residence. It is beautiful out that way and over toward Ligonier and then down to Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water. But that is another trip.

John
 
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I didn't know you lived in Slickville! You're right, bad name for a salesman. I'm moving to the Vandergrift area, not far at all from where you were. Lynn lives there now and works in Delmont.

You must have been all over Ohiopyle then, John. It's surrounds Fallingwater more or less... I've only been there a couple times thus far but plan on spending some serious time there this coming year.
 
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