Ice: a diptych
My photographer friend Al told me about a year-long photography class called “Gathering Light,” taught by photographer Laura Valenti. Al thought maybe I’d like to take the class (he was already enrolled) and since he’s never steered me wrong (except for that one time) and because I needed some structure and direction this year, I signed up.
The assignment a week or so ago was to work on diptychs; it was not easy for me, as my photographic eye is more documentary and, to me, diptychs seemed more fanciful or something. I don’t know. Anyway, as often happens the idea to combine these two images came to me when I didn’t even know I was still thinking about it. You’ve seen both of them before (here and here). I rather liked the way they turned out.
And tomorrow, maybe, you’ll see another pair of images…
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 12.5.20 and 1.3.21
Buy 1 Get 1
In Texas, fireworks can legally be sold only during tightly-regulated times, leaving stands like this one to just, well, stand there for almost the whole year. They look pretty bleak without business but with the ever-present buy-1-get-1 offer. And on cold and icy days, they look additionally forlorn.
Smyer, Texas
photographed 2.10.2021
Lil Mark and the ice storm
I drive by this roadside memorial every day (that I work in my actual office) on the way home. One day, just before Christmas, there was a car parked near the marker and as I passed, I saw a woman getting some red plastic flowers out of the trunk of her car. I’ve seen many roadside markers and this was the only time I’d ever seen anyone leaving anything at one of them. It’s a bit of a mystery: many of the markers that I pass often have flowers or other decorations that are obviously new, or that change with the seasons, but I never seen it happening.
So earlier this month, on a day when ice and freezing fog were in the forecast and I had my camera with me, I stopped at that marker with the Christmas-time flowers. And that’s how I learned that his marker is for Lil Mark, who was 33 when he died last summer. And I now believe that was his mom I saw, putting flowers out for the first Christmas she didn’t have Mark with her. It is hard to imagine a sadder task.
Hockley County, Texas
photographed 2.10.2021
Salt and Spoons
The salt bowl next to the stove has a tiny olive-wood spoon that my parents brought back to me from a trip to Turkey.
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 2.9.2021
French Bowls
I got these two lovely little bowls at an olive oil store in Paris. They live on an open shelf in my kitchen, so I get to see them often*. And I wish I had more of them.
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 2.9.2021
*Especially for the last eleven months of working from home.
One Day | One Image 