teaching, learning, & evolving in photography.
I should be working right now, but I’m still so happy that we actually got snow yesterday–I had to go ahead and post a few pictures! No words, and nothing special about the pictures, just images from a forecast-come-true and a little bit of Christmas-y feeling on a day when we could stay home and watch our woods fill up with snow.
Having neglected this space since summertime, I have a lot to catch up on, and I don’t expect to do that tonight. It’s been a long and complicated few months, with many transitions, lots of stress, growing-up galore, and some happy outcomes. While helping out my mom, who’s been struggling with health problems, I’ve also been supporting my kids as they move to new phases of life: Lily’s in a new job path, Ben is settling into college life, and Evan started high school this fall. My own work is expanding, and I will be taking on a new role as junior-class dean at my school beginning next week. Weaving this all together will be tough but, really, pretty fun. And for the first time in my teaching career, I’ve discovered this fall that while my beginning students assume that digital is the default starting-point for photography, their parents are coming back around to believing in film and “wet” photography as the authentic foundation for the medium. I continue to wonder where the expansion will lead and how I will forge a program–taught by just one person–that brings kids into photography no matter where their interests lie. Meantime, at least I can post a few pictures that perhaps will help tell the story of this fall.
One of the things I love about talking to my students and my own kids is that it keeps me thinking about the choices we all make. I believe that if we’re lucky, we never stop wondering about what we’re going to do “when we grow up”–we keep examining our sense of calling, and we continue to re-examine our personal vocations. Maybe the world isn’t changing any more rapidly than we are changing ourselves. What really matters is that we continue to ask the questions and to pay attention.
“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My vocation and my avocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only when love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”
–Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
Lightning in purple sky, headlamps of an idling train (bottom center), hydrangeas glowing from the porch lights–interesting night. That’s all.
One evening, Ben and I went cloud-chasing around the North Garden area. At some point in the proceedings, this film was fogged, but I like the images anyway. Here are a few examples. Fujicolor 400, taken with a leaky Holga.
From a visit to northeast Ohio–moving boxes into Lily’s new work-and-living space in Willoughby, exploring the dorm kitchen (complete with adorable kitten), and a drive along Lake Erie into Cleveland and Lakewood.
Willoughby is…kind of Bedford Falls meets Potterville meets beach town…with a great coffeehouse, some quaintness, and a surprising number of bars & motorcycles.
Pretty good tour-guide driver!
So it’s been, what–two months (again) since I posted here? That’s ridiculous. I have to stop waiting for time to put up something that I think is “significant.” Despite the demands of family, work, dogs, etc., I should be able to put up images on a regular basis–it’s just not that big a deal. Smack me if I continue to take this all too seriously! The school year’s almost over, and my goal for the summer is to pay happy attention to my own pictures for awhile. Until then: here’s a picture of tonight’s lovely post-thunderstorm sky.
This morning as my battered old Volvo bounced down the driveway (late for work as usual), the sun was just coming up over the quarry on Dudley Mountain. The redbud blooms and maple buds were literally glowing in the light, as was the stripe of dense fog that hovered over the quarry lake and creek. Late, schmate: I grabbed my camera and aimed straight into the rising sun, shooting about every 20 feet on my way down the hill. In the evening, Evan and I headed back into town to make sure the school baseball game was photographed for yearbook. We discovered that one of my wonderful editors was already on the job, but Evan and I had a great time walking Pauly around campus on this beautiful evening. What a luxury to have that little G-9 with me–digital is such instant gratification!
Today was one of the most beautiful Easter Sundays I can remember. Pictures can’t convey the wonderful softness and warmth of the air, but here are a few images of the redbud, dogwood, bridal veil, and flowering crab that are enlivening Red Hill right now.
Most years I take some pictures on Easter; I like the way I can trace back through the springs and remember the years when we had snow, when we had blossoms, when we had puppies or kids still at home for the holiday. Redbuds and dogwoods make me happy every year, without fail.
If you’ve followed this space for a few months, you probably know that we lost our dog Tom back in November–Evan’s dog, really–and we never were able to track him down. It made for a tough winter. But right before Christmas, Lily and I went out to Petsmart to pick up dog food, and had an inspiration: parakeets! Seemed like a good idea for Evan; it wouldn’t be a “replacement” for Tom, but it would be a new critter to care for, and we’d enjoyed living with parakeets in the past. So we bought a big cage and a lot of silly parakeet toys, and Evan was genuinely surprised on Christmas day. On the 26th, we went back out to Petsmart and acquired George and Roger (don’t ask). The dogs were fascinated, the house was full of birdsong, and the floor was covered with millet seed, husks, and little green feathers, but who cares?
Though the house seemed a bit more like a zoo again, things grew more quiet when Lily took Teddy back to Ohio, and then another sad dog story began to emerge. Josie, our 10-year-old shepherd mix, had developed a lump on her face over Christmas, and though the vet initially thought it was from allergies, we discovered in February that she had a tumor. All of us were devastated at the prospect of losing another animal; our very old, frail cat Lucy had died in early winter, and another elderly dog, Ginger, died in 2007, so we had lost 3 animals in less than 18 months. After a lot of conversation and a lot of tears, we decided that perhaps the time was right to bring a puppy into the house. It would give Charlie, our 5-year-old hound dog, a new buddy, and perhaps diffuse some of the worry we felt about Josie. (For the record, our vet is providing us with prednisone that has helped to slow down the progression of Josie’s illness–her face looks awful, but she’s otherwise energetic and happy).
Evan read, researched, and talked it over, and decided that another shepherd mix would be the best choice. A smart, trainable pup who was oriented toward people and would stick close to us on walks–that’s what we were hoping to find. The local shelters seemed to house mostly beagles and pit bulls, but Lily 
found a wonderful little female shepherd mix at the
Cleveland animal shelter, and to our surprise, they allow out-of-state adoptions. So on the first weekend of March, when our spring break began, Evan and I drove out to Ohio to pick up Polly (or, as he prefers to spell it, “Pauly”). A four-month-old stray from Cleveland, she was picked up on the streets there and brought to a shelter, then moved to the Cleveland Animal Protection League. When Lily got her, she’d already been spayed (unusual) and the vet had x-rayed her left front paw, which is crooked; probably it’d been broken while she was a stray, and now she looks like a little canine ballerina holding a pose. She obviously had been cared for and worked with by somebody, somewhere, as she already knew how to sit on command, but her house training was nonexistent. It’s been a somewhat tiring month of cleaning up puddles, standing around in the yard crooning “go potty!” and shuffling outdoors in slippers at 4:00 in the morning, but’s all been worth it; as Lily realized when she found her in Cleveland, this is a smart, personable, affectionate little dog who is quick to learn and eager to please. She loves everyone in the family, gets along with the other dogs and is fascinated by (but increasingly comfortable with) the sounds and smells of rural Virginia. 
Just as our week-long spring break was ending, Lily came home for 10 days and was able to take over a bit of the training and puppy-socializing tasks. That first week of staying home alone (in a crate, but still!) was a tough one for Pauly and for her humans, but we’re getting into a good routine now, and she’s doing pretty well. And the side effects of raising a puppy are indisputably healthy. I’m forced to be outside, preferably patient, where I can listen to the first peepers of spring or the crescendo of birdsong as the sun comes up. I’m getting reacquainted with the constellations and the array of wildflowers on my hillside as I stand around, leash in hand, waiting for Pauly to deconstruct the narrative of smells and sounds that only a dog can interpret. Yep, I’m tired, in the same odd way you’re tired when you have a new baby and your sleep is constantly interrupted, but after three kids and lord knows how many dogs, I know that it’s temporary, and I’m grateful that another new little life has joined us on Red Hill. 
In February, I met up with Lily and Ben in Gambier so that we could see the Kenyon drama department’s production of Sarah Ruehl’s “Eurydice.” It was a wonderful show; photos of the set are on my Facebook page, but they can’t do justice to this energetic, poignant play (it was beautifully designed, though). The campus and village were coated with slushy ice, and we spent a few hours after the play tottering around on the slippery Middle Path, taking pictures and enjoying the spectacle of pleasantly drunk and dressed-up students heading in and out of Phling, the annual February all-school party.
The next morning, to Lily and Ben’s dismay, I absolutely had to stop at the Mt. Vernon cemetery where I have photographed before. Wandering around through the ankle-deep snow, I shot several frames with a roll of slow-speed color negative film in my Holga.
Back at Kenyon, after our traditional (and excessive) breakfast at the Deli, we walked around campus one more time, amazed at how much we felt at home. I finished my roll of film and shot a lot of digital as well. When I had the 120 film processed several weeks later, I loved the results–unpredictable color, entertaining artifacts from the light leaks, and a brand-new way of documenting my surroundings with my beloved toy camera.
Of course, in the not-quite-two-years since my daughter graduated, Kenyon has changed; like any school, it’s constantly evolving. But it has a powerful ability to sustain connections to people and to place. Perhaps because of its village setting, you can go back and feel at once welcome and inconspicuous. I look forward to many happy returns.
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