River City Manatee

Friday, October 30, 2009

The James River is brimming with aquatic life (including a giant catfish we wrote about a while back) but when a manatee was spotted last week swimming near downtown Richmond, we could have been on our way to having a revised contender for the new baseball team name.
 
Sgt. Joe Owen spotted the mammal while he was off duty and enjoying a bass fishing trip near the I-95 interstate bridge, just a ways up from Rocketts Landing. According to reports, he estimated that the manatee was approximately 8-feet long and weighed between 700 and 1000 pounds. In total, the manatee was spotted on three different occasions. Richmond’s last visiting manatee swam by in 2002.
 
Native to Florida, manatees are endangered species that live in freshwater, though they can also travel in salt and brackish waters. In the summer months, the highest north they are commonly found is Georgia. The manatee sightings in Richmond, then, make the visit not only in unusual territory, but also an out-of-season adventure.
 
To better understand why a manatee would make an appearance so far away from home, I talked with Chuck Underwood, a Public Information Officer with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Jacksonville, Florida, which also serves as the lead office for Florida Manatee Recovery and Conservation.
 
Underwood confirmed that since the sightings on Oct. 21, no other manatees have been seen in the Richmond area, and the animal was certainly not a pet released into the river, which some people were suggesting.
 
“What we’re seeing is an increasing number of animals moving up the East Coast,” Underwood says. “We don’t know for certain why these animals are doing this. We do know that recent reports counted [a total of] 3800 manatees in the population. That’s well over double what the minimum population was in 1973. So, when you have a population that’s expanding, it’s not uncommon for animals to move further and further out.”
 
Underwood pointed out that manatees live in water with temperatures of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and above. Perhaps with the recent warm weather “the animal may have gone up river, hung out in the water and since started moving south.”
 
Curious to know the exact location of the sighting, I asked Underwood if he could tell me. Due to the animal’s federal protection, however, he quickly informed me that though they are aware of the manatee’s precise location, they are not able to provide that information.
 
Good news for the manatee who hopefully is safely swimming home to warmer waters.

More Like Jog to the River

Friday, October 23, 2009

The coldest day of the fall so far turned out to be a real help on Saturday when I and 150 other bundled-up joggers ran through Fulton Hill and Church Hill for the Rocketts Landing Run to the River.

Even though it was 10:00 a.m., residents in those neighborhoods who came out on their porches to pick up a newspaper or get a breath of fresh air looked perplexed. Perhaps they were wondering if something or someone was chasing us — indeed no, we were trailed only by helpful encouragement from volunteers.

The race raised around $35,000 for the Neighborhood Resource Center, which is a wonderful community center on Williamsburg Road in the Fulton Hill section of Richmond. It was also a warm home base for after the race, where we all gathered to sip hot tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

As for the race, I was warned the hills would be a challenge. But they weren’t that bad. Coming up Church Hill on slippery grass somewhere around the fifth-mile mark was probably the toughest part.

I try to get out and jog twice a week, usually along the trails next to the James River. But jogging with a crowd provided some much-needed encouragement as we discussed the local restaurant scene. Perhaps I should have been running faster instead of talking. The winner, MacGregor Lennarz, came in after 40 minutes. It took me 55 minutes.

Perhaps I’ll do better next year.

A Reason to Rumba

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Let’s get ready to rumba.

One step into the Richmond Folk Festival, and your feet want to start moving to the music.

The 2nd annual three-day, free music festival — one of Virginia’s largest events — took place last weekend around Tredegar Iron Works and Brown’s Island, along the banks of the James River. The event originally came to town from 2005 through 2007 as the National Folk Festival, the nation’s longest-running and most diverse festival of traditional arts. Put on by the National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA), one of the traveling event’s goals is to help communities start their own local festivals, and with Richmond they certainly succeeded.

Over 185,000 people attended last year when Richmond held the festival on its own for the first time. And while Saturday’s gloomy weather led to a slightly smaller crowd than normal, the weekend-long event entertained thousands, from Richmond and beyond.

From Western cowboy yodeling to Jamaican reggae to traditional Korean dance, the Richmond Folk Festival caters to all kinds of musical tastes. I can think of very few events that so successfully bring the Richmond community together for a singular cause with such enthusiasm.

Five different stages are featured each year, including a designated family area, and with over 30 artists performing throughout the weekend, picking and choosing your festival experience can become an art in-and-of itself. After wandering my way from stage to stage, I was able to pinpoint my top three favorite performances from the weekend:

Debashish Bhattacharya, Indian slide guitarist, Kolkata, India
This Grammy-nominated artist plays a 22-string guitar (among many other guitars) he made himself, and is one of India’s leading pioneers of slide guitar music. His brother and master tabla player, Subhasis Bhattacharya, accompanied him, and together they jam music full of traditional yet experimental Indian flair with a sound reminiscent of the sitar. It’s hypnotic, and I went back on both Saturday and Sunday.

Workshop with Slide Guitar Masters
Where else can you see Grammy-winning dobro player Jerry Douglas, Grammy-nominated Debashish Bhattacharya, Sacred Steel player Aubrey Ghent and acclaimed blues guitarist Corey Harris all improv together on the same stage?

Samba Mapangala & Orchestre Virunga, East African rumba and soukous
Fill the stage with a fusion of Congonese rumba, East African sounds and synchronized dancers, and you have the makings of an energized dance party. The highlight of this band — aside from their catchy rhythms — came when a young girl from the audience jumped onstage and followed along with the troupe’s dancers, only to be joined by an ecstatic toddler and three other teenage boys.

If you’ve not yet attended the Richmond Folk Festival, I highly recommend scheduling your 2010 calendar for the event.

Photos courtesy of Richmond Folk Festival.

Confessions of a Cameratruck

Thursday, October 01, 2009

This Friday, Oct. 2, Rocketts Landing welcomes world-renowned and Richmond-based photographer Shaun Irving to 210 Rock for Landscapes in a Truck, an exclusive exhibit of photographs taken with his Cameratruck during a tour across Spain.

Turning a truck into a giant camera began as a joke in college. Irving ruminated on the concept for a few years, but the idea never left him. So in 2004, using all of his savings, Irving bought an old U.S. mail truck and built the vehicle into the world’s largest travelling camera.

“My original plan was to go around the whole Southeast,” Irving says. “I wanted to teach kids about photography, and take great photos along the way.”

Unfortunately, the original tour fell through. The idea received great publicity, however, and it wasn’t long before an ad agency in Spain learned about Irving’s Cameratruck and invited him to tour the country in 2006.

The three-week long, 4000-mile trip resulted in 70 photos, all in black and white, and approximately 8-feet in length. Irving’s theme was nature, but he adds that the concept of “urban decay” also found its way into the photos. “There’s a little bit of man’s touch in the natural world. Some ways good, some ways bad,” he says. “There are a lot of pretty vistas [in the collection], but also interesting abandoned factories and such.”

Taking a single picture is certainly no quick point and click. In fact, each photo takes anywhere from one to three hours to create.

The truck’s camera is designed as a light-tight box with a hole on the driver’s side. The hole projects every image upside down and backwards onto giant 4’x8’ photographic paper hung inside the truck. To take a photo, Irving drives to his desired destination and parks. He then climbs into the truck, exposes the paper to light and develops the image using standard chemicals and hand tools.

The result?

Stunning, light-infused images that feel caught between a century-old photograph and a modern work of art. And because of Irving’s approach, every print is truly unique.

“It’s an uneven developing [process],” says Irving, “and you end up with crazy images around the edge. It gives the negative a very interesting and different look each time.”

Because of the photographic paper’s size, Irving’s negatives are about seven- to eight-feet wide, approximately 3000 times larger than a typical 35mm negative. "Consequently, you end up with really fine detail that you wouldn’t have otherwise,” he says.

Landscapes in a Truck will show for one night only. Residents and other guests are invited to attend the opening reception from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. featuring food and wine from The Boathouse, and music by a flamenco guitarist. The show is open to the public from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m.

To learn more about Shaun Irving’s work, please visit Cameratruck.net.