Ok, I promise, this will be the last contact sheet post (at least for a few weeks…).

Once again, a few rolls of film shot while aimlessly wandering…

Unfortunately, I’m not sure of the date on this one but I believe it would have been the fall of 1978. The first several frames were shot at Buff State in the student union. A violinist accompanied by a guitarist were giving an impromptu concert, I was somewhat surprised to find these. Most of the images I made in college were on rolls of film shot mostly for the yearbook and are now lost to time.

The next couple were made on a bus ride downtown and in the main library. I was asked to leave by security shortly after taking the (terribly underexposed) image of a library patron. This is a scene that will play itself out many, many, many times throughout my career.: Ray puts his camera up to his eye and is immediately confronted by someone demanding that he leave. In this case, in my defense, the man asked me to take his photo. How could I refuse a kind request?

Then we see an image of City Hall, followed by the remainder of the roll shot while walking down Niagara Street in the Black Rock section of town. The last image is of what was a restaurant directly across the street from my childhood home.

Again, not sure of the date on these two but they would probably have been made sometime in the early 80’s. These were also made with far more intent than the first roll. In each case I was recording something that was about to disappear.

Roll #56 was of the Chamber of Commerce building and the bank on the corner. I believe these were made because the Chamber building was slated to be torn down. If I recall, the bank building was supposed to be protected from damage by the contractor but suffered so much damage that it was demolished as well. The remaining images are just street scenes with people from a time when you still had people downtown during the work week.

Roll #98 was shot at War Memorial Stadium just before the demolition there began. I spent many a Sunday afternoon there as a youth with my dad watching the Bills play. During the demo I was able to procure several chunks of the stadium concrete that I used in a framed stadium collage piece. I still have some left…

One back story from the stadium shoot: While making the images in frames 33 through 37, I was standing in an empty lot across the street and stepped on a large nail that went all the way through my boot and about an inch or so into my foot. That really hurt.

After removing the nail from my foot I could feel the moisture from the blood soaking into my sock, but being so close to the end of the roll I just had to finish it before heading to the hospital. And if that wasn’t silly enough, not wanting to spend the remainder of the day sitting in the emergency room at Buffalo General (only a few minutes away), I drove all the way to North Tonawanda to DeGraf Hospital. I was in and out with my tetanus shot in practically no time. The drive there and home may have taken longer than the emergency room visit!