As 2019 draws to a close, I’ve been thinking back on the work I’ve made through the year. We’ve done a fair bit of traveling, with a trip to Twin Falls, and Zion Nation Park. My project with Tommy keeps rolling, though it has slowed some since winter hit. I’d hoped to work on a few other projects, including the 10,000 Steps work, but I think I’m going to have to wait until next spring/summer to do anything. In all it’s been a pretty good year.
Twin Falls, Day 2
I’ve been to all of these places before and photographed them all, but in many ways, though these places are familiar, it feels like I’m coming to these places for the first time (sorry if you’ve now got Foreigner stuck in your head). It’s been good to reacquaint myself with a landscape I fell in love with years ago.
I started the day by heading out to Thousand Springs, and got there before the sun rose and the moon set.
Moonset Over Thousand Springs, Idaho 2019
Thousand Springs, Idaho 2019
On my way back to town I spotted a couple Magpies building a nest in a tree. Magpies aren’t my favorite bird, but it was interesting to watch them build a new nest.
Magpie Nest Under Construction
We spent some time at Niagara Springs where Tommy ran and jumped off all those rocks (pictures of that are coming soon). I made some photographs I quite like.
Picnic Area and Firepit, Niagara Springs State Park, Idaho 2019
Niagara Springs State Park, Idaho 2019
We ended up going to a few other parks with playgrounds throughout the day so Tommy could play. I ended up photographing in parks more than I did at the places that drew me to this part of Idaho. I’m not complaining, mind you. I learned things about my creative process by visiting a variety of different places where the creative objectives are different.
Cascade Park, Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
Thomsen Park, Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
We finished out the day with a quick visit to Twin Falls Hydroelectric Project. This now singular waterfall and its dammed twin comprise the two waterfalls for which the city of Twin Falls gets its name.
Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
Twin Falls, Day 1
Sometimes I just need to get away from my normal photographic haunts as a bit of a palette cleanser, so we planned a tip out to Twin Falls, Idaho for me to do just that. We left Logan yesterday a little after noon, and after checking in to our Air B & B, we found a park so Tommy could run around after being in the car for almost three hours. I took advantage of the opportunity to gather some images for my parks project.
City Park, Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
City Park, Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
City Park, Twin Falls, Idaho 2019
After dinner, we headed out to Shoshone Falls, and they sure didn’t disappoint.
Shoshone Falls, Idaho 2019
I played around with a few different variations of this image before I made this one, and it’s my most favorite image from the trip and that I’ve made in a long time.
Tommy got super cranky, so we left earlier than I thought and hoped we would, but I couldn’t stay away from Perrine Falls, so I dropped Gina and Tommy off at the Air B & B, and headed over.
Perrine Falls, Idaho 2019
After I made a few images, I headed the rest of the way to the bottom of the canyon to Centennial Waterfront Park, and came back with some images I’m quite pleased with.
Submerged Dock, Snake River, Centennial Waterfront Park, Idaho 2019
Fisherman at Dusk, Centennial Waterfront Park, Idaho 2019
Don’t Litter, Snake River, Centennial Waterfront Park, Idaho 2019
Some Thoughts on Parks
Something I've always known while working on my parks project is that I'd eventually need to include photographs of the playgrounds that exist in these parks. I've never done anything about it since I've been super self-conscious of the appearance of a strange, lone man in the park with a camera on a tripod photographing a playground full of kids running around. Even when using my large format gear (maybe especially, due to the size of the camera and laboriousness of using it) I still felt like people would think I was a creep and call the cops, and that was when I wasn't even near playground equipment. I think I'll still feel like that to a small degree even now that I'm a father and my kid will be one of the ones playing.
Anyway, this has got me thinking about these playgrounds (what I grew up calling "Jungle Gyms") and how they've changed over the years since I was a child, and beyond even that time. Frederick Law Olmsted, when designing New York's Central Park, included plans for a place for children to play, an area he called the "Kinderberg" or "Children's Mountain." Parks and playgrounds grew more prolific in the late 1800's to early 1900's, and where a park couldn't be created, schoolyards were opened up for year-round use, and vacant lots were temporarily re-purposed for children's recreational use. This explosion of public parks and playgrounds in the late 1800's and early 1900's was a fueled by the large influx of immigrants in that same time period. But the first playgrounds weren't as we now know playgrounds. There was playground equipment, but the playground wasn't an area for "unstructured" or "free-form play." Often there was a leader who led the children (most of the texts I've read so far mainly mentions only boys) in marches, singing, saluting the flag, drills, and "occupation work" (think "arts and crafts").
I now think that this project has just become related and perhaps intertwined with the photographs I've been making of Thomas as he explores and learns and plays out in nature. Not that the two projects need to merge somehow. I just bring the relation up because I'm now seeing some patterns emerge in my work, and it may lead me down new paths for at least these two projects.
After writing all this, I'm now pretty anxious to get out and photograph some parks again!
Projects
Last night I stumbled upon my original Departures Blog that I had hosted on Blogger that I started in 2005. It’s been both good and a little depressing going through those old posts (most of which I’ve transferred here to this Squarespace hosted blog). Those posts from 2005 and 2006 were right at the end of my BFA project on public parks and right at the inception of my lumens. There are some musings on where to take both projects as well as explorations into other projects that never really became of anything. It’s saddening that I let things die, but I’m glad I found those posts. Now I can use them to inform my current work as well as pick up now where I left off 11-12 years ago.
So, with that in mind, I thought I’d list some projects that I’m most interested in taking on:
- Resuming the Parks Project. I’d really like to follow through on an idea I had way back when to obtain historical photographs of the older/oldest parks in certain cities and incorporate them into the overall body of work, including but not limited to rephotographs.
- Fire pits. There’s a lot of ground to explore with this one.
- Lumens. I’ve not yet said what I need to say with the lumens.
- Construction photographs. These were excellent exercises in seeing and design.
- The 10,000 steps idea I’ve had since my stint in grad school. I think this one occupies my thoughts most of any potential project.
- Weaves/collages. There’s so much potential in this project and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
- Through Tommy’s Eyes. Not the official title, but it’s what I’m calling it right now. I still feel I have to make this work.
I also want to be more active on this blog, and I’ve got a few ideas to help me do that. It basically just comes down to prioritizing the right things.
Latest Work
The opening weeks of 2017 have been pretty wild, at least where the weather is concerned. We were hit with a few storms back to back, netting us almost two feet of snow. Then the snow turned to rain for a week last week and almost melted it all. I've been able to get out a few times and photograph, both before and after the rain. With so much snow melting so quickly, there's been flooding in town and the Bear River rose about three feet (disclosure: that measurement is just an eyeball measurement, not anything official from USGS flow data).
Hyrum Gibbons Mount Logan Park, Logan, Utah 2017
Hyrum Gibbons Mount Logan Park, Logan, Utah 2017
Snow Covered Field, Amalga, Utah 2017
Thirty Five Minutes in Amalga
South Logan Benson Canal, Utah 2017
25 Paces North and South Walked 10 Times
Private Property, Amalga, Utah 2017
Submerged Sprinkler, Utah 2017
Seattle 2016
Last month Gina and I took a trip to Seattle to celebrate our first anniversary. We had so much fun seeing the sights, and playing tourists for several days. Seattle has been one of my favorite places ever since I lived there for a few months while my brother Jesse went through treatment for Leukemia. It was fun to take Gina to some of the places I knew, and just as fun going to new places together.
While we were there, I was able to make lots of photographs. Here are all of my favorites:
Hansen Bridge, Idaho 2016
Chism Park, Bellevue, Washington 2016
Lake Washington, Chism Park, Bellevue, Washington 2016
Chism Park, Bellevue, Washington 2016
Lake Washington, Chism Park, Bellevue, Washington 2016
Chism Beach, Lake Washington, Bellevue, Washington 2016
Alki Point, Washington 2016
Alki Point, Washington 2016
Snoqualmie River, Snoqualmie, Washington 2016
Snoqualmie Falls, Snoqualmie, Washington 2016
Snoqualmie Falls, Snoqualmie, Washington 2016
Salvaged Penstocks, Snoqualmie Falls, Snoqualmie, Washington 2016
Snoqualmie River, Snoqualmie, Washington 2016
Washington Arboretum, Seattle, Washington 2016
Rhododendron Glen, Washington Arboretum, Seattle, Washington 2016
The Avett Brothers in Seattle
Last week I got to go to Seattle for the first time in eight years to see the Avett Brothers in concert. Yeah, I know, Seattle is a long way to go just to see a band, but the Avett Brothers are no ordinary band!
For those of you who don't know, my brother got Leukemia while in South Korea in the Army in 2004. After treatment at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis in Tacoma, the cancer went into remission, but some months later, it relapsed, and the only chance of getting rid of it then was to do a bone marrow transplant. So, while in my very last semester of college, I went up while he went through that treatment at the VA Hospital in Seattle. At that time I was in the middle of my Parks project for my BFA, and I got to photograph a lot of the parks in and around Seattle. While I was there last week, I took the opportunity to go back to a few of those parks and rephotograph some of the original scenes from 2005.
This one is really the only "re-photograph" I made. The rest are all new images.
Magnolia Park
Magnolia Park
Puget Sound, Discovery Park
Puget Sound, Discovery Park
Along the road, I snapped a few photos with my phone (for those of you who follow my Instrgam feed, some of these will look familiar):
Somewhere in Oregon
Crossing into Washington
The concert, as the Avetts always are, was amazing!
On Sunday, after church we drove down to Redondo, a place on Puget Sound with a nice boardwalk. It was still a nice place for a photograph.
I didn't realize how much I missed Seattle until I went back. It's such an awesome city, and it was hard for this good thing to end, as all good things must, as the saying goes.
Sportsman's Park
