How Fairs Fare

For the past 150 years world's fairs and expos have provided us with product introductions large and small: the elevator, motion pictures, and squished pennies (large); ice cream cones, the Ferris Wheel, and television (small). But what happens when the wiz-bang newness of a world's fair packs up shop and leaves town? Left behind is a legacy not just of product innovations, but of innovative buildings and grand plans.

Photographer Jade Doskow has been revisiting past world's fair sites and capturing how those sites have fared. Her photos are usually stark and unpopulated, a far cry from the bustling days of the fair. But they remind us that such fairs aren't just fleeting glimpses into what the future holds, but they're also lasting legacies that bear testament to where we've been.

Pictured is Jade Doskow's photo of the U.S. Pavilion from the 1976 Montreal Expo

GPO in the 21st Century

We've written several times about the Government Printing Office, the behoemeth print operation just down the road from us. Though it isn't humming at quite the same rate it did in its heyday, an article in today's Washington Post talks about how the GPO is preparing for its future:

"Pressmen are being trained to operate digital presses designed for shorter runs. When they retire, their jobs will move to a new generation schooled in building e-book partnerships and designing iPhone apps."

Though the GPO is going digital to stay relevant, paper lovers needn't get themselves too dogeared:

"For whose who fear the end of the printed word, there is good news. GPO officials, working with librarians in the federal depository system, have come up with a canon of about 160 titles that will continue be printed by the GPO indefinitely, from the Economic Report of the President to the Internal Revenue Bulletin."

Personally, I can't think of better bedtime reading than the Internal Revenue Bulletin. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The piece also features an historic photo gallery.

Giving Thanks

A few photos from a Duckpin Thanksgiving spent out in Shenandoah National Park: a log, a sign, a cola dispenser, and Neoproterozoic columnar basalt jointing.

Click photos for wicked big versions.

Rest Stop Frames

The ol' dogwood tree in front of Duckpin Press HQ is blooming and that means summer is just around the corner. And summertime means road trip time.

Do you have any road trip plans? Lizzy Oppenheimer sure does. She plans on photographing what many folks overlook. Namely, overlooks. (And picnic areas, rest stops, and roadside shelters.) She's been at it since 2009, but has a long way to go. You see, she plans on photographing every rest stop in America. That's going to be one long trip.

Her photos so far have a great open-road feeling to them (three appear above). If they're any indication of what's to come, this is going to be one terrific journey.

Happy travels wherever you may be headed this summer. And while you're on the road, why not check out a rest stop or two?

Printer's Devil

How did Shorpy get this image of Duckpin Press' first apprentice? Well, they didn't. It's a 1917 photo of Riverside Press in New York City. But you can understand how we confused the two, as we still try to dress as nattily as these chaps.

Click on image for wicked big view.

The First Blog?

Duckpin Press' west coast correspondent brought to our attention a terrific collection of early 20th century photography. What's so special about it? It includes some of the only color photos of small-town, Depression-era America, courtesy of the Library of Congress' collection.

The photo above is from the collection. It features a commercial print shop housed above the offices of the town's newspaper, the Brockton (Mass.) Enterprise. Pasted in the windows are handwritten bills which tell the news of the day, including one with the headline, "Billy Hill is Dead, Aged 41." These posters are updated as news comes in, keeping the locals apprised of current events. Some 70 years later, the Enterprise is still doing exactly the same thing.

And wouldn't you know it, that print shop is still around, too.

Click on photo for larger view.


Headlines posted in street-corner window of newspaper office (Brockton Enterprise). Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Government Printing Office, Part 2

So whatever became of all those forms we saw in the previous post? After their printing they were likely sent to this room -- the bindery -- to be stitched and trimmed into a finished product.

The above bindery photo also comes courtesy of Shorpy's Harris+Ewing Collection. Though at the time this photo was taken (c. 1910) DC's neighborhoods were mostly segregated, the workplace needn't be. The GPO served as a growth environment for many African-American printers, including several who lived in our house. Could this have been Duckpin Press' forebear?...

enlarged from top image

Government Printing Office, Part 1

We're fortunate to live so close to what was once the world's largest printing plant, the Government Printing Office. Being only a mile away from the facility, it would be an easy commute if, instead of being occasional practitioners, we toiled full-time in the Black Art. Perhaps it was this easy commute that appealed to previous occupants of our house. Several GPO printers have called our house home, starting just after the turn of the 20th century.

Shorpy's Harris+Ewing collection has some great glass-plate negatives from the GPO's heyday. We favor this particular shot from the composition room. Note the endless pile of forms sitting in galley trays down the center of the photo. That right there is more type than we'll likely set in our entire life. We kinda get the feeling that the previous occupants of our house are looking down and smirking at our humble basement operation.

enlarged from top image

Lego-Realistic Photos

Charles C. Ebbit's light-hearted, if acrophobia-inducing, photo of the RCA building under construction has been the subject of umpteen parodies. The above recreation uses nothing but Legos and a keen sense of humor. You likey? Here's 10 more photos recreated with Legos.