St Regis Pulp Mill, Commencement Bay Back In The Day, Winter 1979 Today's Coolphoto 01/19/2024
“Time and tide wait for no man.“ - Geoffrey Chaucer
Early on I became enamored of the photographic panorama, those long thin wide views of places, inside and out. They came into use nearly as soon as photography itself, and in the early twentieth century Cirkut invented a special camera that would rotate 360 degrees while the film inside would advance, producing a seemless image, up to twenty feet long.
I went on a tear with them in the winter of ‘79, making exposures day and night around Commencement Bay, using my small format Canon Ftb. I shot these photos on film. This meant that I shot one exposure, then rotated the camera on the lens center axis a few degrees for the next exposure, and so on. Since the finished image was a paste-up of many photographs, this made the making of a readable image a long arduous darkroom printing session, followed by a long arduous session of cutting and pasting prints to form those wide views. Now of course you can do the same in a few seconds on your smart phone.
Commencement Bay is a deep and wide ocean port that until recently was the heart of the Petrich family’s business interests, starting with a successful ship building business, and concluding with my cousin’s 20 year tenure as a port commisioner. This image was taken at night in winter, just before the city began demolishing the huge warehouse on the right.
The centerpiece of the panorama is the pulp mill owned at that time by St Regis. By 1979 there had been a pulp mill on that site for fifty years. Since then, the mill has passed through many owners, the last of which, West Rock, ceased operations this past year. The mill had been known as the source of the so-called Tacoma Aroma, an obnoxious odor of the sulfide compounds used to make wood pulp. In the seventies they put scrubbers on the stacks which went a long way cleaning up that bad smell. With the closure, demand for city water ceased, and it was an enormous demand (about a third of the daily volume.) To make up for the lost revenue, to the tune of twenty five million a year, Tacoma Water is charging everyone, big and small alike with a 9 percent rate increase.
I have not before now printed this. (If you click on the image you’ll see it bigger on your screen.)
(While looking around for material to post I learned that Jeff Bridges has been shooting wide format pictures with the Widelux panorama camera. I’m a big fan of his, and I used to sell the Widelux while working the counter in Barney Elliott’s Camera Shop. I scrolled through Jeff’s pictures on his fanciful website. He has some nice stuff.)
Commencement Bay Back In The Day, Winter 1979 Today's Coolphoto 01/19/2024
©2024 Christopher Petrich
Thanks to you my good friends for fifty years of professional photography and twenty five years of online success with Coolphoto.com! I am at the end of my retail sales career and am closing up shop by the end of this year. I will continue to post new work on Coolphoto, in the form of members-only galleries and Today’s Coolphoto blog posts such as this.
I am sending selected original photographs to the Christopher Petrich Collection at the Northwest Room of the Tacoma Public Library, and I am creating new bound volumes of selected pieces under my Coolphoto imprint. I have four titles in the pipeline to add to the three volumes already published: A Complete Guide To The Lighthouses on Puget Sound Including Admiralty Inlet (ISBN: 978‐0‐9744775-0-8), Dreams (ISBN: 978-0-9744775-1-0) and The Beach At Fox Island (ISBN: 978‐0‐9744775‐2‐7). Each new title will be issued in very small editions of 100 or fewer copies.
For those with questions about my original works, or anything else for that matter, please send me a message. I’d love to hear from you!
NEW PHOTOGRAPHY, BEAUTIFUL AND ORIGINAL
Most Editions are small, 5 and under. I’ve been at this a very long time and I have hundreds of vintage silver collectibles. I’m always taking pictures in Tacoma, of Tacoma people. The best images, on the best paper, in small editions, from a Tacoma photographer, of Tacoma.
Vintage prints are made within a year of the photographs create date. My usual practice is to print within a few days or weeks of exposure. What you see is a scan of the actual print that is for sale. Price does not include shipping or taxes.
Please note that vintage prints are imperfect. They’re old, after all. If you’re worried about it, bring it up. I’ll do my best to answer your questions.
Vintage - When I print the photograph within a year of the original exposure, that becomes a Vintage Print.
Archival Pigment - When I print in my studio using computer technology with pigmented inks on acid and lignin free paper, I call that an Archival Pigment Print.
Silver - When I print in my darkroom on gelatin silver paper, that is a Silver Print. These prints are double weight on a cotton fiber base.
For a private viewing of my current work, call 253 961 7147 to reserve your place on my calendar.
