Ultimate Old Lifty

In the summer of 2018 I was flipping through my copy of Chris Faust's Nocturnes. On page 59 is a plate titled "Bayfront Marine Tanker Truck, Duluth, Minnesota 1990." This black & white photograph depicts a tanker truck parked in a snowy lot. Peeking up behind the truck is Duluth's Aerial Lift Bridge. It is night time and the bridge is glowing intensely as this was a good thirty years before the lights that illuminate the bridge would be converted to much dimmer LED lights that barely make it visible at night that we have today.

In the Photographer's Notes for this image, Faust states:

Someone could do a series on the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, similar to what Joel Meyerowitz did with the St. Louis Arch.

"Damn right someone should" I thought moments before having another thought. "Wait. That someone could be me!"

So I pulled out my copy of Meyerowtz's St. Louis & the Arch and got to being inspired.

"But wait, why are there photographs on this page before 2018?" you may be asking.

You see, back when I was a youngin around the turn of the century when I was starting to get interested in photography, I was kind of a weiner about the Lift Bridge. It wasn't a serious subject. It was for tourists and beginners to fill the frame with. So I didn't take many intentional photographs of it. Just opted for the moments when it was incidentally in the background somewhere.

Then I got a hold of an 8x10 camera and started photographing what would become my Watershed collection. A serious camera for a serious project! Fine. I'll allow a few photos intentionally composed around the lift bridge! So anything before 2018 probably originally comes from that body of work.

But by the time I read the Faust passage I was older, less serious, and was starting to grow into a love of photographing as many copies of the same weird things I could find… as a meme.

Well the memetographer has taken over and is now one with my soul. So fine. It was time to let it rip. Me vs Old Lifty the Aerial Lift Bridge! Old Lifty being a nickname created for a 2014 Schneidermann's Furniture billboard that left the residents of Duluth going "Old Lifty? WTF. No one ever calls it that." But now, after years of calling it Old Lifty ironically, the nickname has kind of stuck for those who know.

Wow. Ok. How about I shush up and let you look at some pictures.