Blog Archives
Going up against chaos
My regular reader(s) already knows that I often photograph restrooms, and that reader is nice enough to not laugh to my face about that.
But this is a reason why I have that weird little habit: that turned-over trash can was just ASKING to be photographed, if you ask me.
Another one of my weird photographic habits, which my brain tends to do all on its own without any assistance from me, is to place song lyrics in my head when I see scenes like this. Usually they are Bruce Cockburn lyrics and usually they don’t seem to have a very strong connection to the actual scene. Today’s lyrics, suggested by Melinda’s Brain, come from a song called “Going up Against Chaos.” And if you listen to the lyrics and can figure out a connection to this photo, please let me know: I’ll be damned if I can tell what it is.
Slaton, Texas
photographed 2.17.2021
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
One Day | One Image 