In the early evening this past month I passed a couple in the shade of a grove of huge trees that erupt from the long parking strip between the sidewalk and the street. It is a warm evening and we pass each other without slowing. We eye each other, they curious and suspicious because I carry a camera, while I am determined to be nonchalant. It never works.
I noticed he carries a leaf in his left hand, low at his waist, and I caught it barely.
Photography sometimes lends itself to fantasy, and photography of the computer is most accommodating. Starting from a regular, ordinary picture, the fantastic tones and shapes assemble themselves on nothing much more than a click. The image first displayed is inspiring enough, but when I let my Irish imagination loose, my machinations push the display into a thicket of black branches under a sky of blue and white. Or is it a forest of kelp?
Spring Sky Through The Alder Trees of Puget Gulch - What One Saw Today ©Christopher Petrich 17x17 Matted in Museum Rag White Board. Printed to Hahnemuhle PhotoRag.
Photographs number as the stars. But not too long ago, the stars were bits of plastic film mounted in cardboard frames. Some of those old things fell to earth, forgotten, landing on old lawns, bent and stained. Why did someone make this photograph? Why is it now so small and worthless.
Such are photographs when they no longer serve to remind you of what and why, of who and when.
They land on the grass on the way to the dump, forgotten in plain sight.
Discarded Slide On The Grass - What One Saw Today ©Christopher Petrich 14x17 Matted in Museum Rag White Board. Printed to Hahnemuhle PhotoRag.
On the March For Our Lives Saturday my mind was filled with memories of protests long ago, when I was at school. At that time gun violence was on everyone's mind, as it was the time of Viet Nam and Kent State. When counting by tonnage of bombs dropped, that time was more violent than this. But this time is more personal because the gun violence now is in our schools, just as it was in Viet Nam, back then.
But on the scale of human suffering, this time is far worse because we don't know when to quit, or how. Our thing is money and domination. It wasn't always, but nevertheless. The two go hand in hand, and there isn't a more sure way to gain control than to start killing people. But staying in control using violence is sure to loosen your grip on power.
We can say we are justified in spreading war and violence across great regions of the world. We can say it, but the people who live with what we do know different. They know US as indifferent to suffering, even as we say we care.
This time is personal, too, because the war is in the streets and all colors are at risk, not just red, black, yellow, and brown.
This violence was planted long ago, and now it has returned in full bloom. We were the boys who went to Viet Nam, or ducked it. We were long hairs back then. Now we are gray, and this time we are responsible.
Since Sandy Hook, nearly 400 children learned to die in school. We march to protest their innocence.
Last evening on my way back from Safeway I saw these coats hanging from a shop sign, wedged as they were between boxwood plants standing in pots next to the shop door. When I passed by, a woman looked out at me for a second. I think she was inside steaming the coats. They looked a little wrinkled.
What one saw today
Rounding the bend I see Spring. Today where I live the air is clear and cool, and the sun shone throughout the day. There is no doubt that bright light from the sun on a crisp new spring day hits the spot. Yum.
