As promised, intersections. 5 pictures of intersections, plus 1 bonus.
Except I was wrong. I think they aren't pictures of intersections. They're pictures that include intersections, and in which the intersections are centered as if they are the subject of the photo for who-knows-why. But I'm pretty sure, in each case, that these pictures are "of" specific buildings that in any one of them look like background objects, but that in fact seem to be the defining feature that ties the photos together to tell the story of this day in... Pictures on My Phone. Here we go.
The first photo is of an intersection. There's a state road sign for "East 20", some green trees across the street, and what I assume is East 20 running diagonally away from us into the upper right of the photo. There's a bus and a gazebo with a down escalator that has a public transportation look to it. And, in the background as if incidental, there is a kind of handsome white tower with the letters "CSU" in signage relief on each of the 2 visible sides, looking out over the city and the scene. Our hero has moved to Cleveland to attend CSU, remember.
Far right on the photo, there is a sign for "Marino's Hair Cutting," with a little arrow pointing you there.
In the next photo it comes together. It's a photo of an intersection; our hero is not (yet) awesome at framing, maybe. BUT along the periphery of this photo we have several things. Foreground and 58% of the photo or so is a big spacious intersection in a big spacious American city: wide streets, street lights, scattered people crossing. Background, though: green and trees, and peaking up beyond them a handsome glass building that we recognize from earlier photos -- the handsome low-slung glass building that adjoined the courtyard our hero had photographed the day previous. Also off to the right, and it really looks incidental but subsequent photos knit it in as important, is another labeled CSU building, this one short and squat and tan, with signage along the top reading "Monte Ahuja College of Business," which is apparently currently undergoing a conversion from a 4-credit to 3-credit course system, with which I wish them godspeed it sounds like a nightmare. I couldn't find anything on its site for an abbrevation by which this long-named school prefers to be known, so we'll call it MACoB from here on out.
Centered in this photo -- perhaps this is the subject -- is a tall streetlamp pole with a banner on it, green background white letters running sideways: "Cleveland State University"; small font horizontal: "Engaged Learning".
Next is really just an adjustment of the previous. Our hero has repositioned to get a different angle on the intersection of what we can now see is Euclid Street. Incidentally, from the formal perspective of framing but probably not from the perspective of why this photo was taken, this also gives a straight-on (background) view of the MACoB building, foregrounded by street, intersection, ersatz red cable car tourist bus thing, park/courtyard from previous photo series, and trees. But it's there.
To give our hero credit, and put snark aside, these photos do a great job of conveying the physical context in which these buildings are placed. They'd be great illustrative photos to share with, for example, friends back home, or perhaps with parents whose pictures one carries in one's wallet.
The next two photos are even more of a duo, and they're what confirmed me in this "the background buildings are really the point" thing. You may disagree, reader, but you haven't seen the photos and you probably never will because once I post this I'm deleting them. (Not for reasons of narrative elegance. Because I'm compulsive and it's satisfying. Also to free them, or something. Whatever.) Anyway these two photos: guess what two intersections. A broad avenue, it looks maybe like a residential neighborhood with some city-ish multifamily houses on the left, and a kind of neat old fashioned neon "GREYHOUND" sign on a building across the street, a building with Art Deco curves and long Art Deco window channels inset. But the subject of these photos, now that we've learned to read our hero's work, is clear. It is the brown, rather unhandsome 1960s/'70s looking mid-rise residential building with one long flat side of smallish windows and one narrow side of concrete balconies facing us. It looms over the scene like an implication, which I wrote and I'm sticking with but I'm unsure an implication of what. The second photo just comes closer to this same building, with the remarkable achievement of still keeping it like a background fixture and taking the intersection one block closer as its centered subject. But there is the building again, emerging.
This is not the Statler Arms, which we'd earlier conjectured might be where our hero took up residence when he came to Cleveland. The Statler Arms looks, frankly, a lot nicer. So what is this other building? It's residential. Is it where he lives? Was he crashing at the Statler Arms? Has he not decided yet, so he is sharing the options with his parents/whomever back home was getting these photos?
Dunno. Dunno dunno dunno. Maybe subsequent photos will clarify.
The final photo of this day is different. It's a photo of a computer monitor, specifically of a web browser on a CSU Staff page: the photo features 5.5 thumbnail portraits of people with @csuohio.edu addresses and job titles. Centered -- and in this case I'm going to say I think the centered thing is the thing -- is a woman who works at the College of Business in a capacity I'd be curious about if I came to the U.S. to pursue an MBA and was looking to stay afterwards. Why take a photo of a screen with her information? My guess is just that people record important info all kinds of ways -- maybe that was easiest at the moment.
Except I was wrong. I think they aren't pictures of intersections. They're pictures that include intersections, and in which the intersections are centered as if they are the subject of the photo for who-knows-why. But I'm pretty sure, in each case, that these pictures are "of" specific buildings that in any one of them look like background objects, but that in fact seem to be the defining feature that ties the photos together to tell the story of this day in... Pictures on My Phone. Here we go.
The first photo is of an intersection. There's a state road sign for "East 20", some green trees across the street, and what I assume is East 20 running diagonally away from us into the upper right of the photo. There's a bus and a gazebo with a down escalator that has a public transportation look to it. And, in the background as if incidental, there is a kind of handsome white tower with the letters "CSU" in signage relief on each of the 2 visible sides, looking out over the city and the scene. Our hero has moved to Cleveland to attend CSU, remember.
Far right on the photo, there is a sign for "Marino's Hair Cutting," with a little arrow pointing you there.
In the next photo it comes together. It's a photo of an intersection; our hero is not (yet) awesome at framing, maybe. BUT along the periphery of this photo we have several things. Foreground and 58% of the photo or so is a big spacious intersection in a big spacious American city: wide streets, street lights, scattered people crossing. Background, though: green and trees, and peaking up beyond them a handsome glass building that we recognize from earlier photos -- the handsome low-slung glass building that adjoined the courtyard our hero had photographed the day previous. Also off to the right, and it really looks incidental but subsequent photos knit it in as important, is another labeled CSU building, this one short and squat and tan, with signage along the top reading "Monte Ahuja College of Business," which is apparently currently undergoing a conversion from a 4-credit to 3-credit course system, with which I wish them godspeed it sounds like a nightmare. I couldn't find anything on its site for an abbrevation by which this long-named school prefers to be known, so we'll call it MACoB from here on out.
Centered in this photo -- perhaps this is the subject -- is a tall streetlamp pole with a banner on it, green background white letters running sideways: "Cleveland State University"; small font horizontal: "Engaged Learning".
Next is really just an adjustment of the previous. Our hero has repositioned to get a different angle on the intersection of what we can now see is Euclid Street. Incidentally, from the formal perspective of framing but probably not from the perspective of why this photo was taken, this also gives a straight-on (background) view of the MACoB building, foregrounded by street, intersection, ersatz red cable car tourist bus thing, park/courtyard from previous photo series, and trees. But it's there.
To give our hero credit, and put snark aside, these photos do a great job of conveying the physical context in which these buildings are placed. They'd be great illustrative photos to share with, for example, friends back home, or perhaps with parents whose pictures one carries in one's wallet.
The next two photos are even more of a duo, and they're what confirmed me in this "the background buildings are really the point" thing. You may disagree, reader, but you haven't seen the photos and you probably never will because once I post this I'm deleting them. (Not for reasons of narrative elegance. Because I'm compulsive and it's satisfying. Also to free them, or something. Whatever.) Anyway these two photos: guess what two intersections. A broad avenue, it looks maybe like a residential neighborhood with some city-ish multifamily houses on the left, and a kind of neat old fashioned neon "GREYHOUND" sign on a building across the street, a building with Art Deco curves and long Art Deco window channels inset. But the subject of these photos, now that we've learned to read our hero's work, is clear. It is the brown, rather unhandsome 1960s/'70s looking mid-rise residential building with one long flat side of smallish windows and one narrow side of concrete balconies facing us. It looms over the scene like an implication, which I wrote and I'm sticking with but I'm unsure an implication of what. The second photo just comes closer to this same building, with the remarkable achievement of still keeping it like a background fixture and taking the intersection one block closer as its centered subject. But there is the building again, emerging.
This is not the Statler Arms, which we'd earlier conjectured might be where our hero took up residence when he came to Cleveland. The Statler Arms looks, frankly, a lot nicer. So what is this other building? It's residential. Is it where he lives? Was he crashing at the Statler Arms? Has he not decided yet, so he is sharing the options with his parents/whomever back home was getting these photos?
Dunno. Dunno dunno dunno. Maybe subsequent photos will clarify.
The final photo of this day is different. It's a photo of a computer monitor, specifically of a web browser on a CSU Staff page: the photo features 5.5 thumbnail portraits of people with @csuohio.edu addresses and job titles. Centered -- and in this case I'm going to say I think the centered thing is the thing -- is a woman who works at the College of Business in a capacity I'd be curious about if I came to the U.S. to pursue an MBA and was looking to stay afterwards. Why take a photo of a screen with her information? My guess is just that people record important info all kinds of ways -- maybe that was easiest at the moment.
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