Joel Dinda's photos

Leelanau State Park, Michigan's little finger. Although this one's my photo, Joan spent the entire hike taking fungus pictures, many of which came out quite well. Mebbe I'll sort through 'em and post a few.

Another Martin Sernstinger photo of my father, Roger Dinda, in Engine 16 of the Kalamazoo Fire Department. This time Dad's actually driving it. 1955 or thereabouts. That's the Kalamazoo State Theater in the background. Still standing; just as wonderful today as it was new, in the late 20s. It's grown kinda raggedy, though.

Three views of our back yard, on Palmer Avenue, in Kalamazoo. Virginia Brown built that redwood fence to keep our baseballs out of her yard. This pic's obviously a DOF play. Came out fairly well, methinks. January 1972 or thereabouts; shot with my Minolta SR-T 101.

Three views of our back yard, on Palmer Avenue, in Kalamazoo. Virginia Brown built that redwood fence to keep our baseballs out of her yard. The bushes are forsythias.... January 1972 or thereabouts; shot with my Minolta SR-T 101.

Three views of our back yard, on Palmer Avenue, in Kalamazoo. Virginia Brown built that redwood fence to keep our baseballs out of her yard. The tree's a butternut. Notice the picnic table in the background. January 1972 or thereabouts; shot with my Minolta SR-T 101.

Where I lived in Vietnam: Ward 1 of the 71st Evacuation Hospital, in Pleiku. By 1971 the 71st was but a pale ghost of itself, and most of the hospital complex had been either ceded to the local Signal Corps folks (that would include me) or completely abandoned. So I spent my Vietnam year living in a hospital ward. This was the social area, between the wards. If I'm not totally disoriented, the building to the left was the latrine (better than the word implies, but...) and that on the right was Ward 1. Beyond the fences, and up the hill, you can see a corner of one of the large tropospheric antennas which apparently mean Pleiku to everyone who was stationed in the Central Highlands. Camera: Minolta SR-T 101

More old snow. The back of our house on Palmer Avenue in Kalamazoo, late in 1971 or early 1972. Camera: Minolta SR-T 101.

Cyclists gather at Kalamazoo Valley Community College before the opening event of the 1978 National Convention of the League of American Wheelmen ( LoA Bicyclists , now), hosted by the Kalamazoo Bicycle Club. We called the convention Escape '78, and this ride was The Great Escape-In . That's me holding the bike (wearing a KBC jersey), and my brother Richard is in the foreground (wearing the convention "jersey.") Photo by Roger Dinda

The replica of Oliver Hazard Perry's relief flagship, Niagara , at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1991. "Relief" because Perry's original flagship, Lawrence , was rendered inoperable during the Battle of Lake Erie . The replica Niagara , which apparently incorporates some pieces of the original ship, was quite new at the time I took this photo. Shot this one by holding the camera up over a fairly tall fence, then pressing the shutter release. One of the neat things about the Chinon camera is that you've usually got an excellent idea where the thing is pointed, even when you can't look through the viewfinder.

This is the farm behind the houses across the road . Photo taken on my Mulliken walkabout on Thanksgiving weekend.

Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point--soon to be sold to Oglebay Norton and rechristened Buckeye --at Sault Ste. Marie in 1990. I seem to be far more likely to take this sort of picture than most ship photographers. Not sure why that would be. Camera: Minolta Freedom 100

One of my neighbors....

This old barn's still fighting the good fight, but is clearly doomed. Better large.

The Steel Corp's gorgeous Cason J. Callaway takes on coal in 1991. This is what I like about Conneaut.

My favorite harbor: Conneaut, Ohio, as it looked in 1991. This was one of the busiest harbors in the world for much of the twentieth century (it's Lake Erie's nearest port to Pittsburgh), and remains busy enough to be interesting. All packed into a remarkably small area . The harbor's not very wide, and less than a half mile long. The black mechanical thingies are Hulett Unloaders --wonderful and improbable contraptions whose mission in life was unloading iron ore from large ships. They'd already been retired when this photo was taken and have since been removed. Self-unloading ships are doubtless more efficient, and are clearly more versatile, but they're far less interesting to watch.

My route back to the pharmacy took me past Ledges Craft Lane one last time....

One last look up Bridge Street, before returning to the pharmacy. The backs of those buildings ....

Back across the bridge to photograph the Grand Ledge Opera House . The building's been there since 1884; it was restored in the 1980s to its original appearance.