On a cloudy Saturday in May 2009, I took my new-to-me Nikon D700 camera for a little photo walk around the Capital District. And the photo walk included a few shots at an old building that no longer exists today.
Recognize this structure?
Yep, that is the old First Prize slaughterhouse and meat packing plant on Everett Road, just off I-90. By 2009, the building was mostly used by urban explorers and graffiti taggers. A couple of years ago, the building was razed; only the smokestack still stands today.
I took that photo in 2009.
I found it yesterday.
After going through some old boxes in a storage section of my closet, I found an old hard drive. I don’t remember what computer it was originally held in; but once I connected it to my current computer lineup …
Hoo boy. I found a ton of old Nikon D700 photos shot long, long ago.
Here’s another one. This was an ice cream and bumper-boat place in Schenectady called Bumpy’s Polar Freeze. I caught this little image in May of 2009.
Now for all arguments’ sake, the building is still there, it’s still an ice cream parlor, but it’s changed hands a few times since 2009.
A few photo folders over … and look what showed up.
That’s New Scotland Road, with the old Delaware & Hudson railroad bridge spanning it. The streaks of light under the bridge were an early personal experiment in long exposure photography. And the D&H bridge no longer exists; it was torn down and a new span was built – which promptly buckled during construction, so the builders have to try again.
And I thought about these photos as I went through this archive. These were taken 14 years ago. I was still married in 2009. I was still living in Pine Hills in 2009. My blog was still on a tiny homemade blogger.com host site; heck, I was a few months away from being picked up by the Albany Times Union for their blog portal.
In other words … this shit is old.
Oh wow, that’s the facade of the old Third Precinct Police Station on North Pearl Street. If I recall, that building too was supposed to undergo renovation; I think the project fell though and the building is now a parking lot. Ugh.
And here’s another item that left us far too soon.
I kinda forgot I had even captured this image. Way back in May of 2009, mind you. There’s a time capsule for you. Oh wait … there WAS a time capsule under that statue’s pedestal.
The remainder of the photos are all shots around the Capital District – buildings, green spaces, nothing too consequential. But seeing these images once again reminded me why I took them in the first place. I wanted to improve my photography skills. I wanted to test out this Nikon D700 and make it worth my investment (to move above the old Nikon D70 I previously owned).
Are any of these photos competition-season worthy? I’m thinking not. Maybe they were a decade and a half ago … but there’s time to improve on where I’ve grown.
And more importantly and personally – it felt good. It felt necessary. It felt life-affirming. Grab the camera and go somewhere and don’t even think about why you’re going. Just go.
Honestly … part of me wishes that was still the case.
But 2024 is coming … and maybe I can make this happen once again.
We shall see.
Chuck The Writer 
You found treasure.
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