Portland today and the Portlanders
Today’s post is about Portland, Oregon and Portlanders. I vaguely remember promising one of my readers, ages ago, that I would post my pictures of Portland. I never had a chance to do so. Except once when posting something about postmodern architecture. We went to the Pacific North-West in 2016.
Ages ago it seems. Covid-19 did this to us while we stopped travelling for nearly three years. As a result all our memories appear to be far older than they really are. Nowadays we’ve almost stopped travelling entirely, The Swedes call it Flygskam or Flight-shame. This blog post isn’t just about these old Portland images, it is also meant to encourage you to buy the book published by a long-time reader of antimuseum.com, David McCarthy. The book is aptly entitled The Portlanders.
Portland today and the Portlanders
Since then, there has been water under the bridge.
Today Portland is on the agenda as a long-term liker of my pictures has just issued a book entitled The Portlanders. David McCarthy, that’s his name, sent me the book after a week-long battle with customs and excise on both sides of the Atlantic (Pacific maybe, I’m not sure which way the parcel went).
You can have a look at his blog entitled Sanslartigue, since the world of photography was left by Jacques Henri Lartigue in 1984 (there is a Sanslartigue1 too, maybe David hasn’t found the way to transfer his old blog posts to his new platform).
Lartigue was a dandy and a painter and photographer who had to make a living with his art when the family fortune dwindled in the 1930s.
Saying Yes! to the Portlanders
Portland is a positive city. When reading David’s book, I realised I had followed in his footsteps so to speak and stumbled upon some of the same neon signs. The Yes sign from Frances May to start with, which has already been very helpful to me to illustrate many blog posts and presentations.
A City with an attitude
Frances isn’t the only one with an attitude in Portland. I can’t quite remember what store front that was and Nassco doesn’t seem to fit the ATM sign. I will have to ask David.
Emergency
To a European photographer, emergency stairs are an endless source of inspiration.
Portland is also called the “City of roses” and many other nicknames. It was a centre of organised crime in the 1940s and 1950s. But it is now considered one of the safest cities in the United States. In the 1970s it became one of the epicentres of the hippie movement.
If you want to know more about Portland and the Portlanders, now you know what book you should buy and where!
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Yann, thanks so much for the kind words, your patience, and of course your purchase! By the way, the bridge in your photo is the Hawthorne Bridge. You can see a view of the Steel Bridge in my Instagram post, linked at the bottom of Sanslartigue 😉. Also, the trailers are generally referred to as food carts around here. Thanks again, and I love your take on Portland, look forward to more of your photos!
Thanks David I will make some changes later we were busy losing a World Cup 🏆⚽️to sodding Argentina 😝 (Just kidding, they deserved to win). I tried to mention you on LInkedIn but couldn’t find you.
Sorry about the Cup. I’m not on LinkedIn nor Facebook, gotta set some limits 😁
No worries. I agree with you and I staunchly refuse to dance on TikTok! Wouldn’t be a good idea anyway 😉