Vernacular PalettesLocal Color in Richmond Virginia

Photographs and notes by

2012Ralph R. Sell

Book copyright 2012 by Sandpiper Enterprises.Ralph R. Sell retains sole copyright to all photographsin this book.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

ISBN 13: 123­4­56789012­3

For more information or archival prints from this collection, contact the author atRRSell@Verizon.Net

Camera loaded and ready, many of us inter­mittently travel through new­to­us places onthe planet, stimulated and fascinated by unfa­miliar stories, smells, sounds and sights. Thelatter often show rich, bold palettes. Thesecolors then reappear in our slide shows, flickrphotostreams, picture albums, Smugmug gal­leries and dreams for our next excursion. Iknow this. I’ve relived the cycle many times.

Responding to globalization excesses, manytrend afficionados promote the benefits of thelocal. Local food, produce, banks, wines, mu­sic, roasted coffee, chefs and more havecaught the fascination of those troubled byglobal soul Pico Iyer’s lament that now “every­where is made up of everywhere else.” So forthis photo essay I turned my camera around.

With this small book, I challenge all you ac­tual or aspirant world traveler photographers tofind visual fascination in nearby places. Add“local photos” and “photographing locals” toyour to­shoot list.

I also include a challenge question.Is Pico Iyer's quip correct?Does everywhere really look like pieces from

everywhere else?Of course “the local” lacks canonical bound­

aries. For the record, all photographs in thisbook were taken by the author within or nearthe city limits of Richmond Virginia. For tem­poral context I also give the year the structurewas first built and the year I took the photo­graph. Early 2010 revisits found some re­painting and recoloring. Local color includesits own dynamic.

Vernacular PalettesIntroduction

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Above: Single and double homes, Oregon Hill, painted clapboard with wood trim 1910:2009Left: Row homes, Swansboro, painted brick with wood trim 1920:2009

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Above: Double homes as shops, Carytown, painted brick with assorted trims 1930:2009Left: Row homes with cityscape, Oregon Hill, painted brick with wood and metal trim 1890:2010

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Above: Single and double homes, Museum District, painted brick with stone and wood trim 1918:2008Right: Double home, The Fan, painted brick with stone and wood trim 2008

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Vernacular PalettesPage 10Primarily Yellow

Bold primaries often dominate vernacular palettes. Computers and digital cameras may mix their Red­Green­Blues and printers usually overlay Cyan­Magenta­Yellow­Black, but around Richmond, I found many paintedbuildings showing the classic artists’ Yellow­Red­Blue palette.

Starting with yellow, each of these artists’ colors will have their turn.

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Above: Single home, Forest Hill, painted stucco, 1927:2010Left: Modern architecture, Jeff Davis Highway, painted stucco and cement 2009

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Above: Single home, Fulton Hill, painted composite siding 1947:2010Right: Sally Fretwell Paints, Carytown, painted brick 1933:2009Previous page left: Restaurants, Carytown, painted brick, wood and siding 1920:2009Previous page right: Hermitage Grill, Hermitage Road, painted brick 2009

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Vernacular PalettesPage 16 Primarily Blue

Above: JJ's Restaurant & Lounge, Jeff Davis Highway, painted cement block & brick with metal trim 2009Right: Mojo's Philadeli, VCU/Oregon Hill, painted brick with wood trim 1900:2009

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Above: Rob's Too, Jeff Davis Highway, painted metal siding with wood trim 2009Left: Rob's Tire, Jeff Davis Highway, painted cement block with wood trim 2009

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Above: New Battambang Market, Swansboro, painted cement block 2009Right: Single home, Swansboro, painted clapboard with wood trim 2009

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Above: Fritz's Care Care, The Fan, painted brick and metal 1930:2009Right: Rudd Appliance, Swansboro, painted brick 1930:2009

Primarily Red

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Aboce left: Left side of double home, Oregon Hill, painted clapboard 1910:2010Above right: Nacho Mama's Restaurant, Carytown, painted brick and wood 1922:2009

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Above left: Row home, Jackson Ward, painted brick with wood trim 1842:2010Above right: Single home, Jackson Ward, painted brick with cast iron trim 1900:2010

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Primary colors combine in two ways, either together or apart. Together yellow and red make orange; yellowand blue make green; and so forth. Apart, yellow and blue appear as, well, yellow and blue! I first presentprimaries mostly apart, then mix them together, and finally drop all colorimetric pretensions, allowing vernacularpalettes to define themselves.Yellow and Blue apart.Above: Ruby Red Beauty Supply, Jeff Davis Highway, painted brick, cement block and metal 1988:2009

Mixed Palettes

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Yellow and Red mostly apart.Above: Comida Mixta Restaurant, Jeff Davis Highway, painted brick with wood trim 1940:2010

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Above: Lion Mart, Chamberlayne Avenue, painted cement block, brick and wood 2009

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Above: Tropicabana Night Club, Jeff Davis Highway, painted cement block with wood trim 2010

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Above: Multifamily conversion, Museum District, mostly painted brick with wood trim 1920:2009Left: Joshua House, Bellemeade, painted stucco 1915:2009

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Above: Becky's Restaurant, Monroe Ward, painted brick and metal 1915:2009Left: Single home, Church Hill North, painted clapboard with wood and wrought iron trim 1910:2010

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Above: Single family home, Bellemeade, painted siding with wood trim 1925:2009Left: Single family home, Church Hill North, painted clapboard with red trim 1900:2010

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Above: Single family home, Fulton Hill, stone facing, with wood and wrought iron trim 1946:2010Left: Single family home, Church Hill North, brick facing, siding and painted trim 2010

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Left: Single home, Fulton Hill, weathered shingles with wood and metal trim 1920:2010Above: Modest home, Fulton Hill, paint-starved clapboard 2010

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Technical notes.Camera: Digital Single Lens Reflex Pentax K10D producing Adobe’s DNG image files.Lenses: Pentax M 28mm, M 50mm, M 135mm, DA 18­55mm zoom.Lighting: natural sunlight.Image processing: For most photographs, I merged five exposure­bracketed DNG images (­3 to +3 ev in 1.5

ev steps) into a single High Dynamic Range file using Photomatrix 3.0.3 software. I then tone mapped the res­ulting HDR image using the Qtpfsgui 1.9.3 software implementation of Rafal Mantiuk’s “A Perceptual Frameworkfor Contrast Processing of High Dynamic Range Images.”

Final cropping, contrast, saturation and sharpening adjustments were performed in Adobe Photoshop CS3which also converted the aRGB color space into Blurb’s CMYK space.

Book layout produced with Scribus 1.3.6 which created an Adobe standard PDF/X­3 file. Fonts are Scribus’sArial and Bauhaus for text and captions respectively.

Additional information about the software and techniques is readily available from www search inquires.Information about original construction date and neighborhood location came from the City of Richmond Real

Estate Assessor’s online Property Search athttp://eservices.ci.richmond.va.us/applications/propertysearch/default.aspx.I wish to acknowledge the inspiration and insights received from the Focus Group Camera Club of Richmond

Virginia.

© Ralph R. Sell June 19, 2012