At the Nov. 10 University of Michigan game against Northwestern, local journalist Lynn Monson documented that no matter where you look on Game Day, someone has a camera raised. Here’s a small selection of the people who decided to freeze moments in time before, during and after the game won by UM in overtime, 38-31.

These three photographers were among many gathered in a large crowd watching the Michigan Marching Band drum line perform in front of Revelli Hall before the Nov. 10 game.

Perhaps an indicator of how the game would end much later, two photographers show different results as they review their digital images before the game. Cathy Arnfelt of Lake Elmore, Minn., photographed her son – a player on the Northwestern team – during pre-game warm-ups. Next to her, Michigan fan Archie Eggleton of Grand Rapids seems happier with the photos he took of his stepdaughter, a cheerleader for Northwestern.

Jason Yoder of Detroit tries to get his 21-month-old son Cass to pose for a front-row photo with the football field in the background. Yoder’s wife, LisaAnn Rocha, watches.

A fan stands and captures video as he pans the masses surrounding him in Michigan Stadium.

Juan Lopez of Spring Lake, Mich., records video of his walk down the famous tunnel entrance onto the playing field.

Mike Swope of Jackson watches the game through his camera’s viewfinder for a while in the third quarter.

The Skycam television camera, looking like a extraterrestrial droid, moves low back and forth over the field to give a bird’s eye view of the football action for the game broadcast. In the background, a fan celebrates a different type of “cam” – the Big House Cam – that has flashed his image on Michigan Stadium’s giant video screens.

Not all traditional cameras have been replaced by hand-held cell phone cameras just yet. Martin Vloet, a University of Michigan photographer, focuses on game action with a large telephoto lens supported by a monopod.

After the game a student film crew asked a cheerleader to document them after they had spent the game working on a new admissions video for the university.

Ben Cabrera lets out a whoop as the Michigan Marching Band – displayed behind him on Michigan Stadium’s video screen – finishes a song while he was taking video of the scene. Cabrera, a student at the University of South Florida, has Michigan relatives.

A fan in a maize-and-blue houndstooth hat records one last video snippet of the day as the Michigan Marching Band returns to Revelli Hall after the game.

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A piece of string too short to use

Writing on Damn Arbor, a blog maintained by a half-dozen self-described “grad students, townies, and derelicts,” Quinn Davis wondered recently: “So. If a citizen gasps during a city council meeting but no one reads about it, what’s the point?”

Davis posed the rhetorical question in the context of an article she’d written for the Washtenaw Voice, a Washtenaw Community College publication she edits. About that article, her advisor ventured: “I worry that our readership may not be that interested enough to get through 800 words you have so far.”

Here at The Ann Arbor Chronicle, we would also worry about an 800-word article. We’d wonder what happened to the other 5,000 words.

Count that exaggeration as a rhetorical flourish.

In fact, since since June of last year, we’ve routinely published items shorter than 500 words. These  items are outcomes of individual public meeting votes and other civic events – they’re collected in a sidebar section we call the Civic News Ticker. Readers can view all those items in one go on the Civic News Ticker page. Readers who prefer to receive The Chronicle using an RSS feed reader can subscribe to just the Civic News Ticker items with this feed: Civic News Ticker Feed.

But back to the rhetorical question: What is the point of ever including details that most people might not ever read, in an article that tops 10,000 words? 

Here at the The Chronicle, we depart from A.J. Munson’s advice, written down in his 1899 book “Making a Country Newspaper”:

Trivial items should always be cut out of a correspondent’s report. The news service outlined here is so extensive that only important and valuable news can have space. John Smith may be pleased to read in the paper that he is husking corn, or that he has a sick calf, but those who pay their money for the paper are entitled to something better than such trivialities. ["Making a Country Newspaper," p. 37]

I’m not going to argue that John Smith’s sick calf needs to be part of a community’s permanent historical archive. But it doesn’t take a wild imagination to think up a scenario where  the inclusion of the sick calf could wind up being “important and valuable” – say for an epidemiologist who was studying the spread of some disease among cows, like “Mad Cow” disease, and wanted to try to get a geographical fix on where to start looking for “patient zero.” But really now, how likely is that?

It’s not at all likely.

Collecting apparently trivial details of public meetings into an article is actually a bit like hoarding various artifacts in one’s home – left over Christmas wrapping paper, empty mayonaise jars or twistie ties off bread wrappers. Mary Morgan, publisher of The Chronicle, had a great aunt who maintained a neatly labeled box: “Pieces of String Too Short to Use.”

In this month’s column, I’d like to explore just one reason why we collect pieces of string too short to use. On their own, they might be too short, but if you save them, someone might be able to tie together events that would otherwise be forgotten.

Here’s an example from the Teeter Talk website, which in some ways was a pilot project for the kind of detail we include in The Chronicle. Those Talks – which I conduct in the guise of HD (Homeless Dave) – are presented to readers pretty much as they happen, including walnuts falling out of trees, or people wandering past, joining in the conversation. This excerpt is from a March 2008 Talk with Kate Bosher, which included a guy who turned out to be a photographer – he wandered past the West Park band shell during the teeter totter interview.

KB: Well, I would like to ask you a question.
HD: Absolutely!
KB: Which it not traceable on the Web, the answer to this, which is, what do you mostly do in between tottering?
HD: What I mostly do in between tottering. You know it’s evolved so that this is the way I spend the majority of my time. Recruiting people to ride, writing up – hey, how’s it going?
Photog: What are you doing?
HD: We are riding a teeter totter, man.
Photog: Can I take a picture?
HD: Absolutely. [to KB] You don’t mind, do you?
KB: Oh, no.
Photog: You’re a traveling movie crew?
HD: Not exactly, but we are documenting it in a very subtle way.
Photog: Am I in the way or something?
HD: No, no you’re fine.
Photog: You’re in the Film Festival? [Ed. note: The 2008 AA Film Festival ran from 25-30 March.]
HD: No, we’re not in the Film Festival. This is actually for an interview website where all the interviews take place on a teeter totter.
Photog: Where do I find that?
HD: Google ‘Ann Arbor teeter totter’ and it should come up.
Photog: Are there pictures?
HD: There’s pictures, lots of pictures.
Photog: Ann Arbor teeter totter.
HD: The URL is homelessdave.com.

I was reminded of that West Park band shell ride a few weeks ago, when an obituary for Jeff Lamb filtered through the Internet. That name stirred an old memory. It’s what made me search the old Teeter Talk interviews for Kate Bosher’s Talk. It continued this way:

Photog: If you Google ‘Jeff Lamb’ on Flickr you’ll see me, or go to ‘Jeff and Leyla’ and you’ll see everything on Ann Arbor.
HD: I’ll do it. Okay. Will do.
Photog: This is pretty amazing. [inaudible]

Lamb posted that photograph of me and Kate on the totter, to his Flickr account.

The brief encounter with Lamb is a piece of string, too short to use. But nevertheless, it’s been stored there in the record of that conversation with Kate Bosher. And it can now be tied to other, longer strands of those who knew him well. They’ll likely recognize, even in that brief thread, a man who seemed to be polite, curious – and at home in West Park.

Readers who are familiar with the history of Ann Arbor Internet writings might also remember Lamb from an old 2008 Ann Arbor is Overrated post, back when the Fifth Avenue residential project now known as Heritage Row was first proposed. Yes, Heritage Row has been around in some form or other that long. Julia Lipman, author of AAiO, served up a blog post by Lamb to her readers about the seven houses on Fifth Avenue that were proposed to be demolished to make way for developer Alex de Parry’s project.

The current iteration of the project, Heritage Row, has been rejected three times by the city council, depending on how you count, but in February, the council offered to waive a portion of the fees if de Parry chooses to resubmit it. De Parry held a citizen participation meeting on March 25, but has not yet taken any further steps in the submittal process.

Lamb stood his ground in that AAiO thread, even taking advantage of some snark about his dog to advocate for the protection of the seven houses.

So back to Quinn’s question: If a citizen gasps at a public meeting, and nobody reads about it, what’s the point of including that short, stubby little piece of string in a report of that meeting?

I think the point is this: Somebody might actually read about it, much later, years from now, and be able to tie that short little piece of string into the fabric of our community life.

Dave Askins is co-founder and editor of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

A portrait of Mary from circa 1880, photographer unknown.

“That was very good, thank you,” said Mary Parsons, Ypsilanti’s only 19th-century female studio photographer.

Born in Vermont in January of 1838, Mary Elizabeth married John Harrison Parsons when she was 21 and he 25. The couple followed other western-bound migrants, and during the Civil War both taught in Ohio. By war’s end the couple had two sons, Dayton W. and Frank John.

The conflict had decimated the student-aged population of young men. In 1865, John and Mary came north to Ypsilanti. John bought the equipment of retiring photographer J. A. Crane and created his own studio. It occupied part of the top floor of Ypsilanti’s post office building, then on the west side of North Huron next to Pearl Street. It was a good location near the bustling downtown on Michigan Avenue. Mary helped run the business and kept house in the family’s apartment, next to the studio.

Five years into the work, the couple were supporting a family of six that included nine-year-old Dayton, five-year-old Frank, 3-year-old Viola, and the baby, Ina. Mary was pregnant with another child.

After New Year’s Day of 1871, she gave birth to a son, naming him John, Junior.

The baby’s namesake was deathly ill. He was diagnosed with consumption, or tuberculosis, Washtenaw County’s leading cause of death in the late 19th century. The disease accounted for 15% of all county deaths.

After a struggle, John died on February 24. On May 13, Mary’s new baby John also died of consumption. Mary did not have relatives in the area. She had to forge ahead or see her remaining children suffer. She became a professional photographer.

“For the benefit of any sister seeking a place among the limited situations for our sex, I would say that women can succeed in any department of the photograph business,” Mary wrote in a letter to Martha Louise Rayne, who published it in her 1884 book “What Can a Woman Do: Or, Her Position in the Business and Literary World.”

Mary continued: “… I should not have chosen it as a life-work had not circumstances pressed me into service. My husband and myself were both teachers when we were married. He was a teacher of a commercial school when the war broke out and took so many of the class of young men that were beginning a business education that he dropped his professorship and took up photography. I learned printing of him, and afterwards, as his health failed, I assisted in different departments, and when he finally died, leaving me with a family of five little ones, I took his advice, and have carried on the work successfully enough to support my family ever since.”

Mary concluded: “I hope you will make it a successful medium in giving encouragement to our sex, compelled by adverse circumstances to support themselves, for all cannot be teachers, clerks, or seamstresses.”

The 1873 Scripps, Clark, and Polk’s Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory lists 195 Ypsilanti business concerns and businesspeople. Only 10 businesswomen are listed. Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Case were milliners [hat makers] on Cross Street, Mrs. Curtis and Mrs. Shrieves were milliners on Huron, Mrs. Earing was a milliner in the Hewitt block, and Mrs. Martin was a milliner on Michigan Avenue. Miss Coe was a milliner on Huron and Miss Rogers was a milliner on Michigan Avenue. Miss Cramer was an agent of the Howe sewing machine on Michigan Avenue. Miss Casey was a manufacturer of “rats,” the colloquial term for women’s hairpieces.

The information is at least two years out of date: John Parsons is included in the listing as a photographer, when by that time Mary was operating the shop. She did it well, and ran an ad in the June 13, 1874 Ypsilanti Commercial:

“PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY. Mrs. Parsons has been making improvements in the sky-light of her gallery, giving much quicker time in the taking of negatives and a nice effect for ‘shadow pictures.’ She is trying to keep up with the times in all that will help to improve the art. Those wishing a good picture give her a call.”

Mary produced cartes-de-visites and cabinet cards. Cartes-de-visites were portraits about the size of an elongated baseball card and were a very popular keepsake to trade with friends and relatives. One of the cartes-de-visites Mary made bears her colophon on the reverse, in the elaborate style of the day. Cabinet cards were photographs whose larger size of 4 1/4 by 6 1/2 inches soon made them more popular than the older cartes-de-visites. Both techniques used albumen prints mounted on stiff board.

By the time Charles Chapman published his History of Washtenaw County in 1881, Mary merited a mention. “Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Parsons has carried on the photograph business. The work in the operating-room is done by an assistant, but the finishing and printing she does herself. Her business has increased and been generally successful.”

A dozen years into her work, Mary received a marriage proposal from Erastus Samson, a fellow native Vermonter and the owner of Ypsilanti’s first drugstore, where he also sold whiskey, gin, and some dry goods. Erastus had lost his wife Georgianne in 1882. On March 30, 1883, Mary and Erastus married. She was 45 and he was 61. Mary moved into the Samson home at 302 Cross Street.

Mary sold her studio and all the equipment she and her husband had accumulated over the years since the business’ beginning almost 20 years ago. Her career as a photographer was over. She settled in to a comfortable life.

Erastus and Mary remained married for 22 years until his death at age 83 in 1905. Mary lived to age 80 and died in 1918. Her photographic legacy is housed in various family albums in the Ypsilanti Archives.

Mystery Artifact

This biweekly column features a Mystery Artifact contest. You are invited to take a look at the artifact and try to deduce its function.

JR Roberts correctly guessed last column’s item. He or she wrote, “a tacking iron for dry mount photo tissue (essentially paper impregnated with hot-melt glue). You’d use this to heat, and thereby hold, the tissue in place on the back of your photo; trim them both at the same time; position the photo on matte board; tack the tissue onto the board; then put the assembly in a dry mount press, which would heat the glue in the tissue, and flatten the photo at the same time.” Roberts added, “This was also handy for hot waxing cross country skis.”

Vivienne Armentrout noted, “Yup, I gave away a dry mount iron like that a few years ago too.”

This time we don’t have it so easy, I daresay. This is a new acquisition by the Ypsilanti Historical Museum. It’s a 3-inch-cube container with a removable lid. It is an item so weird, so impractical, and despite its tiny size so dangerous that you don’t wonder why they stopped making them. Dream up the craziest application you could think of for this doodad and you’ll likely hit it on the nose. Take a chance and good luck!

Laura Bien is the author of “Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives.” Have an idea for a column? Contact her at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

Standing outside Starbucks at the corner of East Liberty and South State, Harvey Drouillard and Pavlina Salzeider strategize about their photo shoot. (Photo by the writer.)

This is a story about feeling uncomfortable.

Nudity tends to do that – make people, especially Americans, feel uncomfortable – and public nudity even more so. Not for everybody, though. Not for Harvey Drouillard.

Harvey has achieved a certain notoriety for taking black-and-white photos of nude men and women in public settings – walking down the street, standing in front of movie theaters, mingling with crowds. He uses the photos to make postcards and greeting cards and calendars, and has published a book as well, titled “The Spirit of Lady Godiva.” The shots are taken in Seattle, Chicago and other cities, but mainly in Ann Arbor.

I’d heard of Harvey, of course, but when he called The Chronicle to see if we wanted to tag along while he did his thing at this year’s art fairs, my first thought, frankly, was “Ick.” But I learned long ago that some of the most memorable, transformative experiences are ones that start out in an uncomfortable place, so on Thursday evening I headed over to Harvey’s staging ground – Antelope Antiques on East Liberty.

Karl Lagler, owner of Antelope Antiques on East Liberty, holds a photo taken by Harvey outside the store when it was located on Fourth Avenue. (Photo by the writer.)

Antelope reminds me of the basement of my childhood home, crammed with artifacts: An antique plumb bob, movie posters from the ’50s, bracelets made from old typewriter keys, the smell of well-read books. And on the wall behind the counter, a photo of a naked couple, standing outside Antelope’s former store on Fourth Avenue. In the photo, they’re unseen – or being ignored – by a pair of older women, who are walking past and looking the other way.

Karl Lagler, who owns the store with his wife Amy, is a friend of Harvey’s and has known him for years. When Harvey arrives a few minutes later, it’s clear that he’s at home in the shop. In fact, on this evening it seems like nearly half of the people who stop by know each other – it’s that kind of place. Comfortable.

Harvey introduces himself to me. He’s a gregarious, personable guy, very talkative. It occurs to me that I expected him to be creepy. He’s not. Self promotional? Well, that’s something else entirely.

Pavlina Salzeider arrives at Antelope Antiques with her children, Ivana and Frank. (Photo by the writer.)

The Early Days

By way of introduction, Harvey tells me a bit about the genesis of his photography, starting out by saying, “It’s just nudity – it’s no big deal.” The year was 1994, on the day of Hash Bash, and Harvey was living in a loft apartment on Washington Street, “in the building that the Dalai Lama bought,” Harvey explains, a building which now houses the Blue Tractor restaurant. On that particular day, Harvey was hosting a nude photography workshop in that loft – learning, not teaching.

During the workshop, at one point he looked out the window and saw a large group of hippies waiting to cross the street. For whatever reason, he thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if people at the end of the group were nude, just walking along?” And the corollary: Wouldn’t it be cool to take a photo of that?

He was using a borrowed camera for the workshop, shooting with 35mm black-and-white film. He had seven frames left on the roll, and decided to use those frames to act on his concept of shooting nudes in public. His first “model” was small – under 5 feet, he guesses – and simply wore a large men’s shirt, easy to shuck, easy to shoot.

Later, he took photos in front of Ann Arbor landmarks – Michigan Book & Supply, Harry’s Army Surplus (which closed in 2005), and the State and Michigan theaters. He made 4 8×10 prints and took them to Middle Earth, where he showed owner Cynthia Shevel. According to Harvey, she ordered greeting cards on the spot, 100 of each.

Since then, he’s taken almost 700 photographs. He’s made greeting cards, postcards, calendars and his book – but he hasn’t been able to make a living on that alone. To do that, he trained as a butcher and now works at Plum Market. They provide health insurance, he notes, which has become more important now that he’s in his 40s.

Part #1: The Prep

About this time in our conversation, Pavlina Salzeider – Harvey’s model for this shoot – arrives with her two toddlers and an au pair. She’s from Czechoslovakia, speaks fluent English and owns a salon in Farmington Hills. She’s beautiful. Friendly and relaxed, but serious too. Again, it occurs to me that Pavlina is nothing like I’d imagined – though I’m not entirely sure what kind of person I thought might be willing to go out in public and shed their clothes. She tells me that Harvey’s a friend of her salon manager, and that she lost a bet – that’s why she’s here, she says. She’s also seen Harvey’s book, and respects his work. Yes, she’s nervous. There’s also a sense that this is quite an adventure – and it is.

Harvey Drouillard looks on as Pavlina Salzeider signs a waiver allowing him to use his photos of her for commercial purposes. (Photo by the writer.)

The next half hour or so is all business. Harvey first asks Pavlina to sign a waiver, giving him permission to use his photos of her for commercial purposes. She has brought a dress that’s easy to get out of, but she needs to practice, he says. There’s a technique to this.

She goes into the women’s bathroom and changes into the dress. When she emerges, they go to a back room in the shop, which is more the size of a small closet. There’s no door.

This is where Harvey’s helper – a retired physicist who asked that I don’t identify him by name – plays a role. He stands guard by the room, making sure customers can’t get through to gawk. He doesn’t look like security – he’s wearing a gray T-shirt with UM’s Saturday Morning Physics logo on it, white socks and sandals. On shoots like these he carries Harvey’s equipment, acts as lookout, and films the crowd reaction during the actual photo shoot. A tall, quiet man, he wears glasses and looks professorial and doesn’t seem like someone who has been on dozens of excursions of this type. But he has.

Harvey gives Pavlina a mini-tutorial on the process of disrobing quickly in public. “Ok, what you’re going to do is completely drop and take one step to be completely clear of the dress,” he says. Stand on top of your sandals until you’re ready to disrobe. Drop the dress so that it makes a donut on the ground – that way you can step into the center and quickly lift it up. Don’t bend over. “Do I keep my watch on?” Pavlina asks. “No!” Harvey says. “No watches – that looks tacky.”

Pavlina Salzeider unties her halter dress in a trial run that Harvey Drouillard times with a stopwatch. (Photo by the writer.)

They do a trial run. “Ready? Go!” Harvey says, clicking a stopwatch. She shimmies out of her dress, then immediately puts it back on. “That was only 11.38 seconds!” Harvey says. Good, but not quite fast enough. He asks her to try a different technique – leaving the ties of her halter dress undone, so she can simply pull it down. This drops the time to 9.5 seconds. A third attempt comes in a 8.71 seconds – close to the record of 8.2 seconds, Harvey says. Yes, apparently there’s a record.

Harvey teaches her the hand signs they’ll use once they’re outside. Putting your hand on your head means you spot the police. Making a slashing motion with your hand on your thigh means that kids are in the area. Putting your arm across your chest with your hand in a fist is the “all clear” sign. Harvey holds up his index finger to signal “Ready” – thumbs up means “Go!”

He also talks to her about her own state of mind. “Just think ultra smooth,” he says. “Try to keep it cool, take a deep breath, and try to have fun”

“People will see you and they’ll be dumbfounded,” he adds. “As soon as those clothes come off, you’re going to be so powerful.”

Pavlina and Harvey walking east on Liberty, toward State. (Photo by the writer.)

Part #2: The Shoot

So now it’s time to go. Pavlina’s au pair is staying behind at the store with one-year-old Ivana and four-year-old Frank. Pavlina asks Harvey if she should put on lipstick. No, he says, you look great.

The four of us, including The Physicist, head out into the art fair crowds, walking quickly down East Liberty toward South State. We’re going to the information booth at the corner of Liberty and State – Harvey wants to shoot Pavlina interacting with the booth volunteers. He gives her a task: Walk up, ask a question, walk away. “What should I say?” she asks. I’m thinking, “Does it really matter?”

We get to the intersection, and of course it’s packed. People are ambling along, some pushing strollers, many looking at maps. There’s a woman in a baseball cap and “Jesus the Rock of Israel” T-shirt passing out flyers. The street corner smells like grilled sausage.

Behind the counter of the information booth are several women of varying ages, most of them wearing sunglasses and red T-shirts with an art fair logo. They have no idea what’s coming – why would they? It’s an odd sensation, knowing that something dramatic is about to happen, giving people a pretty good story to tell, at least.

Harvey tells Pavlina to watch him – he’s going to do a run-through so she can see what he wants her to do. He walks up next to the booth and stands, then pantomimes taking off a dress. Nobody seems to notice this somewhat bizarre motion. He then walks casually over to the information booth, talks briefly with one of the volunteers, turns and walks back to his original spot. I don’t have a stopwatch, but I’m sure it takes a lot longer than 8.71 seconds. The Physicist had told me earlier, “If it goes right, it goes very quickly.” No one has mentioned what it might mean to “go wrong.”

Pavlina and Harvey confer about their photo shoot. (Photo by the writer.)

Harvey comes back over and asks Pavlina if she has any questions. She doesn’t. They both go back to the information booth, and she gets into position. Harvey decides that rather than dropping her dress to the ground, it would be faster if she draped it over a cardboard trash can that he has moved a few feet closer to the booth. She agrees.

There are two things that concern Harvey: 1) avoiding the police so as not to be arrested for indecent exposure, and 2) doing the shoot when there aren’t any kids around. This second requirement seems impossible – the crowds flow through like waves, with kids on every crest. Kids eating ice cream cones, kids riding on their parents’ shoulders, kids running, kids screaming. Harvey is making lots of slashing motions against his thigh.

The Physicist has pulled out a video cam to record the crowd reaction. Harvey keeps scanning the intersection, looking for the right moment. Pavlina is standing next to the booth, on her sandals, looking a little bored.

Pavlina waits for kids to leave the intersection. (Photo by the writer.)

And then, something shifts. It’s hard to describe – like the feeling you have as a performer just before the curtain goes up. Pavlina looks over and nods. The Physicist nods. Harvey flexes his wrists, then puts up his index finger: Ready.

Thumbs up: Go.

In one fluid motion, Pavlina slips off her dress. She moves quickly, but doesn’t hurry. She is buck naked – and weirdly, no one seems to notice, or pay attention. I feel like shouting, “Hey, you nimrods – there’s a naked woman RIGHT HERE!”

She walks over to the information booth. I can’t hear what she says, but she has a brief conversation with one of the volunteers. Everyone else – the other volunteers, the people in line at the booth, the fair goers walking past – keep doing what they’d been doing. It’s truly surreal.

Harvey is snapping photos the entire time. After a few seconds, he yells “Got it!” At that, Pavlina turns and walks back over to her dress, pulls it up – then darts off down the sidewalk, with Harvey right behind her. They duck into Urban Outfitters.

It’s over.

Pavlina with her one-year-old daughter, Ivana, after the first photo shoot. (Photo by the writer.)

Part 3: The Aftermath

The main thing I’m curious about is this: What did Pavlina say to the information booth volunteer?

So I go over to the volunteers, who are now clustered together, laughing. I’m not sure you could find a more good-natured group of women. I tell them about Harvey – most had never heard of him, though one woman recalled his failed attempt to do a group shoot last year in the same location, an attempt derailed when the Ann Arbor News ran an article about his plan, and the police showed up in force.

The volunteers tell me that when Pavlina walked up, they at first thought she was wearing one of those fake-naked body suits. Until they realized she wasn’t. Here’s what she asked: “Where can I find an ice cream store?” The volunteer she approached, who asked that I not use her name, said, “Oh my god – what can I say? You’re pretty brave.” Here’s what the volunteer told me she wishes she’d said: “Would you like to work at the booth?” or “Can I sell you a T-shirt?”

By this point, Pavlina, Harvey and The Physicist have gone back to Antelope Antiques, so I head back there as well. Everyone’s pretty jazzed about the shoot. So jazzed, in fact, that Harvey asks whether Pavlina is up for another go, this time at Main and Liberty. Why not?

This next shoot has many of the same elements as the first one, except that now we’re accompanied by Pavlina’s two children and her au pair. Frank, the four year old, is a sweet little pistol, who screams “PLANE!” every time he sees one flying overhead. There’s some discussion about whether this time Pavlina should carry Ivana as part of the shoot, but Vava, as she’s called, is getting a little tired and fussy, so they drop that idea.

This group was performing on a corner of the intersection at Main and Liberty, where the second photo shoot occurred. (Photo by the writer.)

There’s another complication: Just after we arrive, a singing group with several children sets up on the northeast corner of the intersection, and starts performing. This seriously violates the “No kids” rule, so Harvey hopes a large enough crowd will gather to listen to them, blocking their view of Pavlina. Secondarily, he hopes for a short set.

Neither happens, so Harvey scraps his plan to have Pavlina walk into the middle of the intersection and talk to whomever happens to be there. Instead, he asks her to simply walk from one side of the street to the other, and back. She would start at the southwest corner of Main and Liberty, walking across Main. Like before, the place is packed.

This time, there was no “moment.” Vava wasn’t the only one getting tired. Dusk was falling – it was almost 9 p.m. by now – and Harvey was losing light. He gave the sign, and off she went.

Again, it was surreal how a naked woman could walk across the street and back, in the middle of a crowd, and attract so little attention. Though in this case, a few men – including one very agile guy in a wheelchair – proved to be quick on the draw with their camera phones.

Pavlina walked to the beat of the street singers, with casual confidence, but she wasted no time – her back and forth took less than 15 seconds, I’m guessing. Her two kids could not have cared less.

Final Thoughts

I haven’t included any photos of Pavlina during her state of undress. I didn’t take any. It was remarkable to me, in fact, how her nudity – while pivotal to the whole exercise, obviously – was in some ways incidental, and certainly asexual. It wasn’t her body so much as her lack of clothes that was noticeable, especially amid a swarm of people in all manner of attire. In some ways, her nakedness made the rest of us seem bizarre.

She pulled it off because she seems so comfortable in her own skin. Not an exhibitionist, by any means, but almost nonchalant about it. That trait comes through in most of Harvey’s photos, actually – people doing the mundane, walking down the street, just standing around. And oh, yeah – they’re naked.

Despite our sexually charged culture, we’re a prudish bunch, we Americans. And Harvey’s work won’t change that. But it does have the power to make us confront what makes us uncomfortable, and to perhaps see the world in a slightly different way.

And I’m comfortable with that.

This promotional poster for the 1957 film "Ten Thousand Bedrooms" is on sale at Antelope Antiques and is more sexually provocative than Harvey's photo shoots. Question: Why does Dino appear to be wearing lipstick? (Photo by the writer.)

The Chronicle's favorite FestiFool puppet. What can we say ... we like watches and clocks. Look at our logo.

From 4-5 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, as the skies achieved a spitting sprinkle, but did not ever achieve a steady rain, the puppets of FestiFools cavorted at street-light level for the crowd that was several people deep along Main Street.

We were there to look at the puppets, but without even trying, we saw any number of people that Chronicle readers might recognize, just standing in one spot at Main and Liberty.

Among the folks we spotted included Bonnie Bona and Kirk Westphal (both on the city planning commission), Linda Diane Feldt (Stopped.Watched. correspondent, who filed this report from late in the afternoon), Edward Vielmetti (a2b3 organizer), Steve Bean (environmental commission), Matt Naud (environmental coordinator for the city), Margaret Smith (with the Huron River Watershed Council), Sarah Kaufmann (fiber artist, who’d just finished her shift at Downtown Home and Garden) and Mike Myers (local photographer).

Myers had a camera along, and he wasn’t alone.  The visual appeal of  giant puppets meant that plenty of photographers were patrolling the sidewalks, documenting this third annual edition of FestiFools.

While some onlookers might have had difficulty identifying a favorite puppet, The Chronicle was partial to the clock face.

FestiFools photog. This guy knew what he was doing, whatever the crown might make you think.

"Vita with Argus C-4. Adrian Wylie. Argus C-4 Geiss modified with 100mm Lithagon lens, Sliver-Gelatin Print. $100."

The Chronicle missed the opening on Friday, Sept. 12, of the Crappy Camera Club exhibit at the Argus Building. Called “Vintage Argus: Contemporary Images,” the exhibit features contemporary photographs made with Argus cameras, which until 1962 were manufactured right there in the Argus Building. But the exhibit runs through Oct. 12, and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., so we headed over to check things out.

The exhibit is easy enough to find on the second floor of the building, with temporary signage clearly indicating where the pretty pictures can be found. There’s also clear signage indicating that the white barrels on both floors are containers for the Argus Building Food Drive for Food Gatherers. But if Chronicle readers throw their empty cupcake wrappers or other assorted litter into one of those barrels before noticing the signs, it’s good manners to fish that stuff out before heading up to the exhibit on the second floor.

It’s intimidating to document photographically a photography exhibit by a photography club nestled right into a museum exhibit dedicated to the very cameras that took the photographs. But we were undaunted.

Other than people who work in the Argus Building, The Chronicle had the exhibit to ourselves. Plenty of quiet time to contemplate the question: What kind of people bought these cameras? Almost any description of the Argus Building includes some mention of the fact that there was a time when Argus cameras were some of the best-selling American-made 35mm cameras.

Tim Seaver, owner of Tios, made a delivery to the Argus Building while The Chronicle was at the exhibit. He owned a C-3 model Argus camera.

That question was answered when Tim Seaver, owner of Tios, came up the stairs with a delivery off his menu of Mexican food to one of the Argus Building tenants. “I had one of these – it was a C-3!” he exclaimed when The Chronicle quizzed him about the exhibit. After making the delivery – hot food doesn’t stay hot if you take time for idle chat – Seaver explained that his dad had bought the C-3 Argus camera for him to use during winter 4-H. Summer 4-H was for raising sheep.

Seaver scanned through the glass display cases looking for the model he had owned, and was satisfied when he located it. He said that when his mom moved out of her house, they had found his old camera, complete with the advertisements and instruction manual. He concluded, “It took really good pictures without me!”

Note: We’re evolving The Chronicle’s commenting policy towards enabling threads on more of the stories. Comments on this one, however, we are consciously keeping closed … for now. If you have comments on the exhibit, there’s a guest book at the exhibit you can sign. We’d encourage you to go to the exhibit, soak it up, and leave your sentiments there. The Argus Building is located at 535 W. William St., on Ann Arbor’s Old West Side.

Guest book with space for comments at the Ann Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club exhibit at the Argus Building. The C-3 model that Tim Seaver located sits on the second shelf of the glass case just to the right of the frame.