I started out going someplace important over in Maryland to do
something important and then I saw that dirt road and Vivaldi’s Four Season
came on the radio and I decided it was all a sign for me to go for a ride and
shoot pictures.
Those old houses.
When I go to the art galleries at the Smithsonian I look for a work of art that
has balance and good colors and tells me a story and leaves me room to make up
a story, which may have been what the artist wanted. For me it’s the same thing in shooting these old, decrepit
places….battered might be a better word, although both words means the same
thing.
These houses can be beautiful in all their disarray and they
tell a story and they leave me endless room to put a story to it, to ask
questions, like what happened here? Where did the people go and why did they go
there? Of course, the other option is to just drive past this places and see
nothing, what a horrible existence that must be.
See that photo of the wide blue sky? I’ve trained myself to
every now and again stop the car, get out from behind the wheel and look at
scenes like that. I have this fear that if I don’t do that I’ll start taking
those wonderful scenes for granted and eventually I won’t see them at all. I
look at these displays by God and I say out loud “Look at that!” I have spent
so much of my life looking at things and places and people that don't matter.
To stop and look at something I want to see is a gift.
I took a picture of that stream because I grew up on rivers, the
Mad River in Waterbury, the Naugatuck in Ansonia, the Connecticut River. I've
lived nearby the Potomac for three decades. The ancient Celts believed that
rivers had their own souls, of course the ancient Celts drank a lot so that
explains some of it, but isn’t it a wonderful notion?
See that cow? I came across him on my way home. I’ve been
snapping his picture for four years now and he’s always in the same goddamn
place with the same expression like “Do I know you?”
See that horse with the white stripe down the middle of his
face? I know horses can’t smile but….actually I don’t that. I don’t know
anything about horses except they eat hay and sleep standing up and they scare
me a little, so maybe he is smiling.
