When our “Go West…” tour left Wyoming, into Utah, the landscape went from ascendant to eroding. As we continued into Arizona, the wearing away continued deep into the earth at the Grand Canyon, and in the emptiness of Monument Valley.
I think most “abstract” photography, an effort to remove or minimize objective references, is attempted by moving very close to the real world subject. Sometimes that can also be accomplished in the opposite direction, from a great distance.
The layers of color and texture represent eons, the millennia of slowly building up the sedimentary landscape, then the millennia of wearing it down, exposing the timeline. It’s easy to feel small in the American West; like the line at the end of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show:”
We now return to our boys’ “Go West Old Man” tour as they leave Wyoming and the Grand Tetons.
The overwhelming visual of the Tetons is the vertical explosion of the mountains from the valley floor. It feels strong, vigorous, and youthful. Granite and gneiss are the hard materials of that area, but heading south into Utah, that changes to softer sandstone. The landscape begins to feel weathered, tortured, then ancient, and arid.
Temperatures vary from hot day to cold night. Moisture condenses in nooks and crannies, in the slivers of niches of sedimentary rock. Freezes. Expands. Erodes. Sloughing skin. It’s easy to see things–figures, faces–in the rock, without peyote. It’s the kind of landscape that warns you there are consequences for being careless.
Mahamuni Pagoda (L) and Soon U Pon Nya Shin Paya Buddha Hall (R)
I have been curious about Burma most of my life. Dad served in the China-Burma-India theater during WW II, and growing up I read the great, true, adventure stories of Chennault and his Flying Tigers, and of Merrill’s Marauders. I finally had the chance to see it when Barbara and I visited in 2017, as the Rohingya confrontations were becoming widely known. It didn’t fit with my understanding of Buddhists that they would be a faction in a civil war, but we were never in any area where conflict was happening. People seemed warm, friendly, welcoming, but no one would engage in a conversation about the issue.
Mandalay has been called the City of Gold, because of so many shining pagodas. It is one of only two places in the world making gold leaf. The other is in Holland where the process is machined, but in Myanmar it’s still done by men swinging a sledge hammer onto a small booklet of interleaved thin gold layers all day long. That could be an indicator for how un-modern much of Myanmar is, how extensive the earthquake damage will be, and how difficult the task to recover bodies and rebuild a country that already had limited infrastructure, and, likely, fluid building codes, not to mention an ongoing civil war, and a xenophobic military government.
Called the Soft Gold Pagoda, Mahamuni Pagoda’s face is washed daily and no gold is ever placed on it, but since the early 1900’s the statue has grown substantially from the constant application of gold leaf everywhere else, approximately 2 tons. Reports and photographs of the earthquake damage are limited for now and probably anytime soon, but one story I saw said 270 monks were assembled here at the time for some testing; now 80 are dead and 100 are missing, thought buried in the rubble. It’s bound to be much worse. The well-visited monument is only a few feet from an entrance to a large shopping mall, modern looking but almost certainly built in layers over a century of evolution.
On Sagaing Hill, overlooking the Irrawaddy River, Soon U Pon Shin Paya, with it’s Buddha Hall and gilded stupa, at the epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude quake, is closed. There are online photos of the decapitated stupa.
Mandalay Palace (L) and Soon U Pon Shin Paya stupa (R)
Barbara’s relative tallness and blonde hair attracts attention when we are traveling in Asia, and it’s not unusual for a woman, or group of women, to approach her for a photograph with her, as was the case here. If Barbara looks a little splotchy, it’s a local makeup custom that looks liked dried clay. The Palace area had substantial damage; the Clock Tower and Relic Tower are collapsed.
Kutho Daw Pagoda
Near Mandalay Palace, Kutho Daw Pagoda, the “World’s Largest Book,” is 729 inscribed marble slabs, each in its own small stupa, presenting the entire 15 books of the Tripitaka, built between 1860 and 1868. You don’t have to know what that is (the teachings of Buddha) to appreciate the human achievement in building such an extensive monument. It is reported damaged.
Losing beautiful centuries old structures is a terrible thing, but the real tragedy is the thousands who will ultimately be destitute, injured, missing or dead.
My neighborhood in Savannah periodically adds a little twist to the day for tourists riding the trolleys around Washington Square/Ward, with events like the Bathrobe Brunch (a weekend morning where a large number of people in bathrobes show up for a pot luck brunch), or sometimes by the size of the crowd at our regular Friday afternoon gatherings, or maybe by a Memorial Circle for someone in the ‘hood who has passed.
Our neighbors just to the south, Greene Square/Ward, have added to the possible surprising sights for a visitor, starting a new tradition a few years ago, an Equinox Party, another pot luck meal, but beginning with a “special cocktail” toast to the Sun and then a Sun Salutation, later followed by a series of games where one could win a Rudolph nose.
Neighborhoods where people look for reasons to celebrate together are the best.
The book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” told the outside world about the eccentric nature of Savannah, and some of her inhabitants. Saint Patrick’s Day is when many try to demonstrate it publicly.
The parade used to be the only really public event. When my sister and I were small kids, I have a vague memory of Mom taking us to the parade and us sitting on a curb watching it. While the parade still kicks the day off (after several fraternal breakfasts), there’s already been a week of activities from issuing the parade permit, to announcing the Grand Marshal, to greening the fountains. And after the parade those capable (not too old, parenting, or already over-served) will continue with a spring break revelry until the early hours of the morning. Soon after 3 AM bar closings, downtown residents will hear the drunken arguments about who was supposed to remember where the car was parked.
It’s a long parade and it once was, just a couple of years ago, there were long stretches of the route where you could walk up just before, and have a front row seat. This year, I saw someone in one of those areas putting out chairs more than 24 hours early.
A few years ago the City had to close the squares along the parade route the evening before to keep people from camping out there, and stop arguments. Now, when they open them in the morning for people to set up their family compounds, I hear it’s like the Oklahoma land rush, but I haven’t gone to see it.
Sidewalks get plenty of tents as well, with lots of folding chairs interlocking like a Maginot curb-line facing the street, and defended like the Ukrainian front, multiple coolers with food and beverage enough for at least three days, and in at least one case, a pickup parked nearby with one’s own personal porta-potty in the bed.
Continuing our “Go West Old Man” tour from last week’s post, the boys cross Montana and head south through Wyoming. I’ve been to about 25 of the 60+ US National Parks, and the one I always want to go back to is Yellowstone and the Tetons. (I know that’s two, but they are adjacent.)
Some years ago Barbara and I drove from Yellowstone’s northeast exit at Silvergate through Bear Tooth Pass to Red Lodge just after the route opened in the spring. The road was tunnel-like in the shaved walls of snow taller than our rental car, threaded up and down the steep mountain slopes. It occurred to me the plow driver tasked with the first clearing of the year might have a death wish.
This time, going in the other direction, and without snow on the ground, it was just spectacular.
Yellowstone will always be a special place for me, at least partly for the way it came to be. Photographs made by William Henry Jackson were shared with members of Congress to show what an amazing place it was/is, and they established it as our first national park, the world’s first national park, in 1872.
The Tetons were ghosts for my brief visit this time. There were a number of wildfires in the area and lots of smoke. But you take what comes, and there’s always an interesting photograph to be made.
With Tom Coffer and Paul Thompson at Badlands National Park.
The unspoken question: could three cranky old friends (old both chronologically, and in the length of their near 50 year friendship) manage almost three weeks in a car together all day, every day? We’ve worked together, played together, partied together, lived together, dated some of the same women, mourned together, but…. Well, 17 days, 21 states, and 7,310 miles later, we’re still speaking.
The genesis of the drive was a comment Tom made to Paul, that he had never seen the Grand Canyon and would like to do a road trip there. It was repeated to me and I suggested if we were going to drive that far, we should see more than one thing, maybe do a loop to see several national parks.
It took a couple of years to finally commit to a route. We were looking at a fall departure and Paul suggested we start in the north and move south to try to avoid weather issues, which we did. It didn’t wind up mattering for the weather, but hotels and restaurants were starting to close or go to shortened hours for winter, so fewer choices, and would likely have been even fewer if we had gone south to north.
So on October 1, Paul and I left Savannah, drove to North Carolina to pick up Tom and headed west. First stop was briefly in Saint Louis to get a photograph with the arch, and then head north for The Badlands.
Any thoughts I ever had of the Badlands before the first time seeing them (prior to this trip) was based on western movies and TV shows, showing them as stark, arid, severe, forbidding places. There is some of that, but, like most things in life, it’s more complicated. I’ve posted a new gallery of photographs from the day we spent there.
I should take long walks in the woods, in the rain, more often. It’s an analgesic to the cacophony of the world war on facts and empathy.
My generation expected to have jet packs for personal transportation, flying cars, and transporters to beam us up. Still waiting. One prediction that has finally arrived, also late, is the Newspeak language from “1984.” In 1983 U.S Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Well Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.
I’m assisting an old friend and teaching colleague who is bringing a small group photo workshop to Savannah soon, and my goal is to show these folks something more than the sole focus on Savannah’s Landmark District (the old town) that most visitors get. For part of that, I have Skidaway Island State Park on our agenda, to see something of the wetlands environment that is the “Low Country.” I took a drive out there to see what kind of shape the park is in, thinking, because it was raining, to take a short walk on the trails to make sure it is a viable shooting location. I wound up walking all the way back to the river, about an hour an a half round trip.
It’s not the first time I’ve gone to the marsh for peace and quietude. Growing up, my school bus crossed a large expanse of open marsh twice a day, every day. A little later in life, I wandered along the edges of those areas, playing with the kind of graphic images you can get from the complex simplicity and infinite spectrum of colors and textures of grass, mud, and water. But what fascinates me more is the transition space between open marsh and the lowland forests next to it, a place where something is always being born, and something is always dying.
My first time in the park area was when the island was still a private landholding, accessible only by boat. After the creation of the state park (and the construction of two bridges and a causeway to provide access), I’ve dropped by off and on for years. At first there were no formal trails or infrastructure. You just roamed through the marsh and floodplain areas at will. Now boardwalks elevate you above the wetland areas, and the trails are formalized and mapped.
In 1983 I did some nude photographs of a young woman swimming in one of the creeks that flow through the area, but I had no idea that we would be such trend setters. On my latest walk I found that spot to be a designated photo station. Not kidding. Unusual, interesting idea. The sign tells you how to use the cradle to hold your smart phone and then where to upload the photos to become part of a long range series of images from that spot, to create a time-lapse portrait of how the area changes over time. Cool. Maybe I should send them some of my nudes.
Valentines’ Day last week reminded me of this photograph. Our room had a rose bud in a vase, rose petals scattered and shaped into a heart on the giant bed, and more scattered over the bathroom vanity and linen.
We had caught a taxi at the airport and given the address for our hotel, Les Jardins de la Medina. We arrived on a narrow street of brick pavers, defined by long, tall, plain walls abutting the pavers. The hotel entrance was as unprepossessing as the exterior wall, but going through the door was like being Mary, finding the key to the gate of “The Secret Garden.”
Entering the hotel you are immediately in a lush courtyard jungle . You’re asked to sit and relax, enjoy a cool towel, drink and refreshments, while someone checks you in, gets your luggage moved to your room, and, when you are ready, takes you on a tour of the property, ending at your room. Of course there is no ADA in Morocco, so everyone has to climb stairs, guests and staff.
I spent almost 30 years traveling for a living and I’ve spent a lot of time in hotels. A lot of time. Often as I stood in the mind-numbing sameness of another of those corridors of repeating room doors, I thought of the hallway scenes from “The Shining” or “Barton Fink” or “Naked Lunch.” I understand why a hotelier would want to maximize ROI with as many rooms to rent as possible, and those rooms as standardized as possible to simplify and control costs for housekeeping and maintenance, but it is such a pleasure to discover a property designed and built to exploit the light and climate, where every turn you take is some new, unique vignette.
I was assisting at a workshop many years ago and National Geographic photographer Jim Brandenburg (https://www.photoby.fr/en/8-jim-brandenburg) was speaking, suggesting a different spelling for the braggadocio bumper sticker soundbite, “No Fear!” His version, “Know Fear.” Use it.
A few years later I was one of the photography Mentors for a workshop; the trip leader had just divided the students into groups for each of us, and she said, “Bill, here is your group and here is your costumed model. Go do something interesting and teach something at the same time.” (Or something to that effect.)
One of many ways of distinguishing different kinds of photographers is between reactive and conceptual. I’m mainly reactive; I respond to what’s happening. But nothing is happening.
The model is standing there waiting for directions. The students are staring at me waiting for pearls of wisdom. Thank you Jim. Fear can be a useful motivator. Just do something, and ideas will flow from that. I need a story, a narrative. Backgrounds tell stories with the information they contribute, and I have this western gold-mining ghost town.
So she’s the school marm, leaving her home, walking the dirt street to the school house, stepping carefully, and watching for reckless riders. First composition has such contrasty light, a reflector puts light under the hat, but it feels flat, footlight-y, and her fingers look odd. Move in close, a smaller area where I can use a large diffuser to control and soften the light, much more natural feeling. Keep moving in, with a nod to Vermeer.
Walk down the dusty street to the saloon, beautiful window light bouncing off the smoothness of the worn floor. Same model, same outfit, but now she’s a dance hall girl. Move in tighter, again, for those eyes.
And then…then, there were these old railroad tracks and cars, and another actor/model in just the right outfit. So we did a quick “Snidely Whiplash and Nell.” Dudley Do-Right must have been just around the corner.
