If you’ve been visiting Rust Belt Girl a while, you know I have a thing for urban photography, especially of the kind that shows the patina of age–and soul. In a recent post, Michelle Cole, photographer and blogger over at Intensity Without Mastery, has captured the spirit of her Rust Belt place of Lima, Ohio, in the year 2000. I hope you’ll check out her post, and blog–where she also features nature photography, along with thoughts on “…family, faith…and life after depression.” If you follow her page on Facebook, you’ll find even more wonderful photography. Want to learn more about Michelle? Search by her name or under “Photography” on my blog for the 2-part photographic interview I did with her in 2017. Happy viewing, all! ~Rebecca
My photo archiving project continues. I decided to make albums of some of the photos on my Facebook page. The images for this blog posts are screen shots of an album that features photos I took in Lima in the year 2000. Back then I used one of the Sony Mavica cameras that recorded images onto floppy discs. I could fit just 10 images per disc, so I had to carry a baggy full of a dozen discs to make it through a photo walk.
Alas, I don’t have the originals files of these photos. All I have now are online copies, and the website where I uploaded them 19 years ago only has 500×375 or smaller versions of the images. I know that some of the photos had an original resolution of 1024×768 (if I felt bold enough to just take five pics per disc!). Lesson learned: back up…
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Rust Belt Girl 
Thank you so much for reblogging my post. I consider it a great privilege that you have chosen to spotlight my work. I’m grateful that you dug deep enough into the Rust Belt to find my photos.
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The privilege is mine, Michelle! Wish I had such an eye–or talent behind the lens. There is great soul in your photos and in the “deep” Rust Belt. Glad you captured that period of your town. Best wishes and happy summer to you!
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These photos are excellent Michelle. Have you ever dabbled in film photography? I think certain film stocks could really compliment your style. Also, when you have negatives, you never need to suffer the pain of losing photos due to evolving technology.
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That is an excellent suggestion. I did just a tiny bit of film photography in the late 90s but didn’t know much about the fundamentals of composition and light yet. Thus I was disappointed in the results. It may be time for me to consider doing a little bit of film again.
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I just got back into film about a year ago, after shooting it through the 80’s and 90’s. It’s currently experiencing a nice little Renaissance, and you can find SLR’s and lenses for relatively cheap. That and companies are becoming invested in it again and producing more film stocks. There’s some cool stuff out there.
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A Rust Belt Girl post about photography? Man, this is relevant to my interests! Michelle’s photos are fantastic. I’ve been trying to get more into taking photos that capture the essence of New England, and these are really inspirational in that they expose the soul of the place and time.
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Photography may stretch the definition of “reading” the Rust Belt–but since I’m no longer there on the ground, except for vacations back home, photography can help take me back. I love that Michelle managed to capture these iconic places in her town in fresh ways. I think they really encapsulate the place in the year 2000. I wish I’d done such a thing in 2000–it’d be a nice gift to pass on to my kids. Ah well, I did graduate from college that year, so that was something. I’m so glad Michelle’s photos speak to you! And that they can inspire your photographic interest. If you visit your site, in some posts she talks quite a bit about the cameras she uses and all the nitty gritty that is Greek to someone like me! Also, she has many more pics out on her FB site. Looking forward to checking out your latest posts. (I’ve been so swamped with work, lately, I’ve been a terrible blogger!)
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I’m going to dig more into her site for sure. I recently found some old photo albums, and it just reinforced my love of film photography, because I also scrounged up a few pictures off an old digital camera from right around the turn of the millennium, and god were they awful! Film is kind of like books in a way. I think of it as a “perfected technology”. Obviously it isn’t perfect, but its mature enough to understand its flaws and character. Digital has a number of benefits but also a bunch of drawbacks that I don’t think people take the time to investigate unless they are invested into the hobby/artform. No judgement on the blogging. When summer rolls around I get terrible with writing and blogging too.
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