And so, the madness begins.

Saint Patrick’s Day in Savannah is our annual, riotous, pagan festival. Our parade is the second largest in the US, after New York City. I marched in it as a teenager, and walked in it many years later as a City Councilman, and it is interminable, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a technicolor presentation of local business, and politicians, and families, with some weirdness thrown in for good measure; if you have been here for more than a couple of months, you will know people in the parade. It’s patriotic with many military and ROTC units marching, many of the soldiers and cadets sporting bright red lipstick markings from the young women who “assault” them in their moving formation.

I said pagan, although, technically, the parade is run by Catholics, but the day, and especially the evening, is a bacchanal. We have a complicated relationship with alcohol here.

When General James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, with the establishment of Savannah, one rule he had was, “No Rum, No Slaves, No Lawyers.” That rule did not last long.

It used to be we would see some ceremonial events a week or so before the day, and celebrating might start a day or so early, but I think I first noticed these decorations a couple of weeks ago, and there seems to be a little more every day–trolleys with green wreaths on the front, sophomoric humor on green t-shirts–and we are still almost three weeks away from The Day (Sunday, 3/17), or the parade (Saturday, 3/16).

It’s the 200th anniversary of the parade this year, with only a couple of years when it did not happen, during Covid, and it’s on a weekend, so the street party will be big. By the Wednesday evening before, we will start hearing inebriated, weepy or angry debates from the street, around 3 AM, about who was supposed to remember where the car was parked. One favorite plea for help is saying, “We parked on the square.” Yeah, we have 22 of those just downtown.

So come and enjoy if you are so inclined, but please get an app that will remind you where you parked, please try to hold down the late night noise in residential areas, and please don’t pee in my flower beds.

(Announcement: I have had several people ask me about prints of photographs used in this blog, so I’m trying an experiment. From now until June 1st, I’m offering a $250 price for an archival, custom print of any photograph used in the blog (go to www.savannahphotographicworkshop.com to see them all), signed, unmatted, approximately 10×16 inches on 13×19 paper. Caveat: no photograph looks the same on a screen and in a print: my goal is to retain the feeling of the picture, not to duplicate.)

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index.

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ come
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch ’em roll away again, yeah

I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooh, I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

“Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding

Time is a human construct, and it is relative. I saw a show recently where two teenagers found an unprocessed roll of film and took it to the store to have it developed, rolling their eyes impatiently when the clerk pointed at the sign that said it would take 1 hour. I suppose if you’ve only known a world where you can shoot a photograph with your phone, see it immediately, and send a copy to almost anywhere in the world instantly, 1 hour may seem an eternity.

This reference point on TIME resonates with me because I lived the evolution. When I started working in photography (1965), the way you got pictures in a hurry was to have your own darkroom, but even then it would be 15-20 minutes after getting into the darkroom before you might have a print, and that still dripping wet. Most people dropped their film off at a camera or department store. From there it was picked up once a day by a courier and carried overnight to a large commercial lab somewhere (I think Charlotte is where a lot of Savannah work went). So in 3-4 days you would have your photos back.

Of course there was Polaroid, but the high per picture cost of that made it a budget buster if you shot much.

Sometime in the 80’s, innovations in compact, automated processing and printing equipment led to the “1 Hour Photo” concept, with lots of false starts and lost investments, but it did eventually become the standard as even small businesses could affordably set up in-house labs. And then customers insisted on getting 1 Hour service, even paying extra, even when they knew they would not return that quickly. We are an impatient species.

So digital capture came along, and we could see the photo as quickly as shooting it. The “instant gratification” aspect alone was enough to know it would become the dominant medium, but the important thing is, still, to slow down, and look closely.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

I can taste the salt in the air; feel the gritty friction of sand, sweat and lotion on tender skin. Somewhere behind me there’s a murmuring of overlapping voices, like the adult conversations in a “Peanuts” movie, randomly interrupted by squawking gulls.

Temperatures in the 70’s here in February, a tease of Spring just around the corner, and this photograph, trigger memories that are real, but from infrequent experience. I always preferred the beach in winter.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index

Over the years many people have made a point of telling me what an angel Barbara is. I know her better than that, and could quibble a little, but since I mostly agree with the sentiment, I was happy to find photographic evidence of her persona.

For more of Bill’s photographs, go to https://www.billdurrence.com/index