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Assignment 1 recap
When I picked out the 20 words and typed them up, I printed them out on a square 2-inch piece of paper that I then taped them to the back of my camera. I never knew buying the Nikon D5000 with the 360-degree screen would come in so handy. Not only can I tape the words on the black plastic part so that they are always facing me when I'm taking pictures, but my digital is also acting more like my film camera in that I am not reviewing my pictures after each shot - it's a surprise :) My goal is to shoot about 200 photos/assignment, more if possible, but to do so patiently and diligently with a wide variety.
I wasn't quite sure where to start, but since it was such a beautiful sunny day on Wednesday I had to get in my car and drive. Not knowing where to go, I searched MapQuest for any streets or towns named "
Katie" in the area, and the map said there was a Katie Lane near Kaukana in a small town called Holland. I printed out the directions and just drove, stopping occasionally to take photos of the landscape and buildings. When I got into Holland I searched and searched for this Katie Lane, but I never found it.
Back through country roads I was driving when I spotted a small cemetery on a hill. I pulled over and started walking around, looking at the stones. This must have been primarily a family cemetery as only a handful of last names existed, the most populous being - Ellis and Walker. I wondered who had walked through here, who now rested here, and what the circumstances were. My favorite tombstone was carved like a tree trunk with a book resting on top, with carved ivy and an anchor at the base of the trunk. But what was most interesting was a tombstone that was higher with another book on top, with a real vine plant crawling up its base and almost covering the inscriptions. This tombstone almost looked out over the graveyard and the city in the backyard. I could even see the blue water tower from this angle. As I peered back to my camera to read the words, I wondered what made me stop the car and walk up here. Maybe I had thought about the
shoes that had walked there, but when I left I realized that it was really the
breathing that was there and still is because of the plants and trees. I admit, it was weird walking there by myself in the middle of nowhere, but it was also peaceful and not spooky like I thought it would be.
I decided to ditch the maps and try to find my way back to campus through the back roads, and wouldn't you know it, about an hour later I wound up driving on X past a dead end called
Video Lane. I didn't even know this road existed. So I turned around and drove down it, and it led to a huge asphalt plant. As I came closer to the fence, I looked to my right and there was a radio tower that looked like the building had a UFO on top - it was very strange. At the same time a dump truck sped down the straight gravel path - certainly not abiding by the 10 mph speed limit sign. He looked at me and gave me a strange look, but as I hadn't gone past the fence, he couldn't tell me I was trespassing. If you've ever seen the movie Erin Brokovich, it was this strange place out in nowhere and I felt like Julia Roberts sneaking water samples that were probably contaminated due to toxins. I don't know why, but it just did not seem like a Wisconsin place, it seemed foreign, and I felt slightly uneasy being there.
On Friday my mom came up to visit. We planned on driving up to Door County, but we had a late start, so we decided to drive to Sherwood to High Cliff State Park and did some hiking. We had a great time - it was beautiful weather, the trees were just starting to change, we climbed the look-out tower, and joked that the carved steps down the cliff looked like something out of the movie Lord of the Rings. She was being
sarcastic and pretended to be Gandalf in the Mines of Moria saying, "Don't come here!" I started laughing, "Mom, you mean, 'You shall not pass?'" We were both walking along narrow, steep paths, and her agility surprised me. Not that she isn't fit, but she's had so many back problems and health issues that she must have been energized by being out in nature, as was I. Not wanting to waste daylight, we decided to drive on, hoping to make it to another state park taking Highway 10 to Two Rivers on the shore of Lake Michigan, but it started to get cloudy.
Earlier we had driven past an old barn and abandoned house where a sign said "POSTED, No Hunting, Fishing, Trespassing." Where exactly you could fish on this plot of weedy land is beyond me, but the point was clear - don't enter here. The driveway was even padlocked, though it would have been easy to just drive around it. We pulled over and I walked along the side of the road and changed to a zoom lens. My mom called out, "Aren't you going to go inside?" I couldn't believe she said that, my mom whom I thought always played by the rules. "Are you crazy?" I shouted back. I've been in enough trouble, I thought, but I was still curious. There didn't seem to be any cars driving along the road, but there was a sharp curve so you couldn't really be sure. I started to step closer and closer to the house, but it was still a ways off when I suddenly heard a vehicle zooming towards us. I freaked out and ran back to the car where my mom was swinging her legs back and forth from the end of the SUV and eating the caramel apple we had just bought at an orchard a few miles back. She was so calm, almost child-like in that moment, and we both laughed as got back in and drove on.
Later we went to Brillion. That is the town my mom grew up in until she was four, and she had mentioned she had never been back to see her house. She wasn't sure she even remembered where it was located. But she called her older brother and he gave some vague directions. As we entered Brillion, I saw a restaurant that looked like it came out of the 50s. When my mom saw Rudy's too, she knew she was close. She remarked that she didn't know where to go next, but as if she was remembering her surroundings with ease, at the next street (Columbus Avenue) she turned right and drove very slowly not keeping to her lane. "I have a picture of me on the sidewalk that wrapped around our house to the backyard, there was a fence there." She said she didn't know if this was right, but suddenly she stopped the car in the middle of the road and just stared out her window to the left. "Is that it?" I asked. She said nothing, just stared. As if to herself, "They didn't change the color. I was afraid they'd paint it a different color." Then as we drove on, she spotted it - the sidewalk. This was it. She pulled the car around and parked on that side of the street. I asked her if she wanted a picture with the house, and she said yes, all the while very silent. First she stood in the driveway. "This must be over 50 years old - look at how cracked it still is, and the same garage, too." And it was, cracks and weeds growing up all over, a tiny blue and white garage that looked like it could barely hold one car. I took a few shots of her as she walked to the door, "Should I ring the doorbell? Oh, look, it's the same one as we had." She knocked and rang, but no one came to the door. The only real change, she said, was the big plastic bear that greeted you as you walked in, and there was no fence in the back yard. She was adamant that I didn't get the bear in the photo of her as she stood on the porch steps. As we got in the car and continued driving, we had other conversations, but she would interrupt saying things like, "I didn't really want to come back here, but I'm glad I did," and "Isn't it strange that I found it on the first try?" I know she wasn't looking for a response, she was in her own world, but I was glad to have been there with her as she experienced this "
on familiar wonder, the exactly familiarity she came."
4
My anger is not against my world but myself. I wish I could see things differently most of the time. Mostly in a literal sense, but metaphorical as well. When I'm driving I see that the blue splotchy sky would be beautiful if those damn power lines weren't interrupting my view. The park would be beautiful if those damn brightly colored plastic slides weren't jutting up from the cement slab someone just needed there. I see my world interrupted. I see beauty distorted. I see things that I wish I could not. I am blessed to see. This ability also makes me anxious. I want to look people in the eye and have conversation. I want to share seeing with other people. I want to show what I can see. But what I see is ugly. I see the baby plants struggling to break through pavement. It is most simply speaking, due to my eyes that I can see, of course. But what can eyes show you? Portraits were made for an audience and I downright hate them. Thus, my challenge. When taking portraits eyes are not even focusing on the photographer but the glass lens behind which one of the photographer's own eyes interprets. What can you interpret from staring eyes outside of conversation? Can these eyes show you that I'm struggling to pay rent, that I'm lost beyond belief, that I'm trying? What is the draw to portraiture? Can you show a concept through simple reflections?
