9/23 Saturday – 11am – I’m sleeping in a bit today, taking advantage of the last days in my orange bedroom before I move next weekend. I’m enjoying the play of the light off the ivy outside my window through the blinds, because it’s about the hint of a nice outside. I can be lazy inside but still enjoy the sunshine this way. If I was having a discussion with the day landscape outside, the outside would be flirting with me to come outside, with the joyful dance of the light off the natural reflecting ivy leaves, but my response is to keep my blinds mostly closed so I only have to listen to the distant giggle of light instead of being flooded by it.
3:30pm – I finally get up and head up to Lawrence in my car to start taking some photos for the first assignment. The day has won our little argument, because now she’s holding out on the light a bit, with clouds rolling in and out. At certain points of my drive around scouting for shots, it looks almost like dusk because of these clouds. I’ll drive past a park or a building, and by the time I decide to stop and shoot, the light has changed on me. It’s a good lesson in patience, however, because this fickle lighting leads to some pretty poignant shots of the fading industrial landscapes. I end up viewing it like I would a good trip to a discount store or farmer’s market: I’m shopping around for light situations not but what I intended to get when I left the house, but rather I get what looks good or ripe at the time.
4pm – I’m struck mostly on my first impressions of Lawrence by the tension between the very controlled order of the mills and canal bridges and the “wild” of nature of vegetation and other natural effects of neglect. The contrast of the red brick against the last vestiges of summer in the trees, plants and weeds is especially saturated in this time of cloudy light. I also like the forced twilight because it takes on the “edges” affect that Rowells talks about in the reading. In many socio-economic ways, Lawrence is on the edges of our economy; it makes sense that the landscapes reflect that.
I have been to Lawrence as part of my work with the Boys & Girls Club a few years ago, but I was heading straight into the projects and not “site-seeing” persay. I’m actually a bit frustrated by this first trip because I’m lacking a native resident to point out the real points of life of this city, versus me just driving around until I find something interesting. I really want to focus my final piece on some places that represent or channel the collective identity of the people that live in the city. I don’t want to be directed by the very planned streets and canals, and instead find those forged walkways through the city that represent real and daily movement. I think the collective narration of this city is not going to be as linear as the streets the originally architects designed.
4:30pm – I’m in the Phillip J O’Connell Park and trying to capture both the movement of the natural landscape and people enjoying the day in it. I’m focusing on a group of boys and adults playing soccer on the other side of a group of trees. Where I am on the path, though, it looks like they’re playing in the patch of trees, and because of the hill, the light at this time of day is creating some interesting silhouettes. I like the visual metaphor of the light dancing around as they weave in and out of each other’s paths with the soccer ball at their feet. I attempt to use backlight with the silhouettes of the players in the middle ground to make the light more of a character in my shot than the people themselves. I end up laying down the camera on the path to exaggerate the angle, and the result is almost like the path has become the main character and not the light.
5pm – Driving out of the city, I start to notice the first signs of the leaves changing, which is surprising more dramatic closer to Lawrence than my house in Medford, even though it’s only a 20 minute drive. It’s funny how nature “ages” with such vibrant colors, while humans usually bleed color from their hair and skin. Of course, driving at dusk affords me some great light to highlight this foliage.
1am – I’m driving some folks home after a party and somebody notices a very strange orange smudge in the sky. Jokes and speculation abound about it being a UFO or a Earth created skycraft, but then I realize it’s the moon. After reading a lot of fiction about Wiccan and Celtic traditions’ ties to the lunar cycle, I’m a bit obsessed with watching the moon, especially when it does these funky things. It’s a fascinating set of scientific conditions that discolors our view of the moon – a combination of it’s placement in the sky and the Earth’s atmosphere. AND it could look different on the other side of the Earth or on the other side of the city. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the money or time to figure out how to photograph these manifestations of the moon.
9/24 Sunday
10am – I drive down to Rhode Island to have breakfast with my mom, and I’m struck by how much I HATE the light on 95 through Providence because everything is gray concrete, lacking any contrast or extremes in color. I guess they don’t really want you to spend time on the highway, or be over stimulated by your environment so you don’t pay attention to driving.
On a more personal note, I start telling my mother about my trip to Lawrence the day before, and she tells me that a close great aunt of mine actually lived there for a while when she was a child, working in the mills. It makes me feel a bit closer to the physical environment of Lawrence knowing my Aunt Irene walked the streets and worked the mills. It solidifies my conviction that I only want to be guest of residents and not a tourist in my travels from now on. The essential story of a place embedded in the physical cues are totally lost on someone wandering through. But maybe this is giving human character to a place, which was cautioned against in the reading.
12noon – My parents have painted their little house gray (from a light yellow) and I’m struck how more friendlier this color is in the daylight. I think it’s because it is a better backdrop to my mother’s gardens and plants and my father’s (almost too) healthy long lawn grass. Mom has chosen very bright magenta pansies scattered among the beds that pop out significantly now against the gray house with blue shutters. My mother’s back garden (which is tiny, but she still loves to give tours through) is an excellent playground for most light during the day. It is buttressed by the fence and tall trees around the edges, but still surprising has bright patches of light. In the center, she’s created an island of tall vegetation and flowers, while the darker edges have low, ground spreading plants. Your eye is drawn to the island, complete with a glass ball and a birdbath. But on longer inspection, you start to see my father’s handmade birdhouse along the fence line. It’s a great playground of light for the birds and squirrels; they can sunbathe and show off their feathers/coats, or relax and eat on the edges, sort of like a great dinner theater setup.
2:30pm – I’m returning to Lawrence again with fellow classmate Deb, and the light is much clearer. However, things are also “clearer” because Deb went on a tour of Lawrence already and has much more knowledge of where to go. We also stop into the Heritage Park Visitor’s center, and I get to read a little more about the creation of the city and the history of people that have lived there. It clarifies why building were placed and constructed the way they were, in a way that I couldn’t read by just looking at the place. Maybe I will be able to read landscapes better by the end of this course.
4pm – I spent a good amount of time trying to capture the light play off of single red leaves among the still green leaves. I don’t end up using any of these shots in my set for the assignment, but I’m cheered by the fact that Deb was able to capture that play of the anomaly better than I.
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