Ron - The Wall Series

Wall Series, Triptych, Truth From Perceptions (click on all photographs to enlarge)

So, it's a wall.  It's just a wall, right?  Why would anybody bother to photograph a wall?  I'll try to explain.

• Interesting - just after I wrote the sentence above "Self Righteous Wall" by Ryan Bingham began to play on the stereo.  Yes it was a total fluke.  This was the first time that I had listened to that album! •

When I first came upon the wall that is in the series of photographs and in the accompanying video, I visually experienced the the elements and materials that shaped the wall's form and construction as well as the erosion of its face.  The light played across the wall revealing the reflectivity of its surface textures.

View of the wall in context with surrounding buildings

Upon closer observation I began to see the wall's history and evidence of contemporary visitors.

I realized that a building used to exist where I was standing as evidenced by the outline of the old interior staircase on the whitewashed cement wall.  Drilled holes and other imperfections revealed no longer existent structural elements.  Time was taking a toll on the cement wall and the underlying brick structure.  Parts of the cement wall that was littered with random marks, gashes and spalls had fallen away from the brick.

Visitors to the wall had made their mark, or marks, either by simply scratching into or painting the wall leaving evidence of their calling or proclaiming their devotion to another.  Others took the time to etch shapes into the surface using the wall as a sort of an outdoor sketch book.

Metering for the last photograph in the slide show

So, in front of me was this wonderful wall, a facade full of abstractions, history, personal messages, expressive doodles, textures, shapes, forms, shadows and highlights.  At this point it was my mission to discover, conceptualize and visualize the various elements in the wall and present them, and what I felt about them, through my photography.

I have visited the wall several times.  Each time my understanding and view of the wall became more refined.  Seeing more clearly I was able to progressively make better photographs.  Photographing the wall has been a work in progress.  In this post I'm presenting a slide show of what I feel are the best photographs of the wall in the order that they were made.

This series of photographs is closely connected with Alfred Stieglitz' concept of Equivalence which was also practiced by Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, all photographers whose work I greatly admire.  The subject of Equivalence has been written about extensively so I will not delve too in too deeply with this post.  

Within Minor White's 1963 essay, Equivalence:  The Perennial Trend, there are these two passages:  

"...in practice Equivalency is the ability to use the visual world as the plastic material for the photographer's expressive purposes.

When a photographer presents us with what to him is an Equivalent, he is telling us in effect, "I had a feeling about something and here is my metaphor of that feeling."

These two passages do a good job conveying the concept of the series of wall photographs that are a part of my project "Truth From Perceptions."  Photographs such as these do defy a simple description although I have made an effort in this post to detail the inspiration for making them.

Making the first photograph of the Triptych

Here is a short video of when I recently visited the wall:

Here is the slide show of images from The Wall Series, in the order that they were made:

Click here to go to the Flickr page of "Truth From Perceptions" where you can view the "Wall Series."


(Candid photographs by Satch)

Mike - Blog IV

The subject matter of this work in progress has so far reflected on my life growing up in a small town.  I have tried to be somewhat brief in describing my background and family in various activities.  The main focus of these blogs and the images provided will be to communicate how I have felt on the times that I have returned to the town.

None of my family has lived there for quite some time as my mother passed away in the early 1990s.  There have not been any childhood or school friends that I have had any contact with, basically since I left at the age of 20 when I was going to college. 

There has been very little reason to visit the town other than sometimes passing through on the way to other cities in northern Indiana.  Several years ago, one of my two brothers had contacted me to tell me that our neighbor who was a very close friend to our family while we were growing up had passed away.  I went to his calling to visit with his family and share memories.  Our neighbor was "Mr. Middle America."  He was everything you could think of that represented the best of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

On the way home, I stopped to see my best friend from Hartford City who lived in an even smaller town close by.  Later that year, he was killed in a car accident.

And I returned once again to my hometown to speak at my best friend's funeral.

These thoughts and reflections are primarily of a personal nature.  However, most of this blog will also deal with the changes in the city itself in the past thirty to forty years.  Like many small towns across our country, Hartford City enjoyed a boom and growth in the years after World War II.  New houses at the edge of town were built, industry and businesses on all four streets around the Courthouse flourished.  I recall that for many years, much of the county fair was held on these four streets, with all the games, concessions, and some rides lighting up the night sky. 

As we now know those times that we thought would last forever, did not.

Mike - Post - III

403 E Kickapoo St.

403 E Kickapoo St.

As Ron has indicated, computer problems have prevented me from posting.

To continue, being raised in a small 2 bedroom house in a neighborhood full of other kids was fun. Mom was divorced when I was young, and it was sometimes a struggle to provide for her sons. We always had used bikes, never new! As the old saying goes, we were never hungry, and always clean.

The old house, long since removed, was rented at a very low rate.

At the start of most every school year, she would walk us uptown to J.C. Penny or Mongomery Wards to get us some new school clothes. We would stop and get some groceries on the way home.

Ron - Ludington, July 14, 2011

This summer Satch and I drove up the Lake Michigan shoreline during the week of July 12, Satch's birthday and our anniversary.  We stopped along the way in search for materials for Satch's art.  We spent a couple of great days in Ludington.  While scouring the town and nearby countryside for rusty and other intersting stuff I began to see that many of the working class neighborhoods were in decline.  A little research revealed that Ludington has an unemployment rate of 12.5% and negative job growth.  Obviously the economy and the shifting sands of business relocation were taking a toll on this beautiful, small Lake Michigan harbor city.

While this particular trip was not about making photographs, I had my cameras along and kept them close by.  After stopping at a neighborhood shop to acquire more Satch materials, what I had been seeing in the non-tourist areas of Ludington came into focus and I needed to make photographs.

Snapshot by Satch

An abandoned corner store stands next to two abandoned houses, one of which has brush growing up all around and even out of the edge of the house's foundation.  On the street by the houses are two streets signs proclaiming that between them only "One Hour Parking"  is allowed and the corner store has two signs in windows that lets passersby know that financing is available for any income or any credit!

I made three photographs, two of which I selected to show.  The one of the two attractive, yet abandoned little houses prominently shows the brush and the two parking signs.  In the photograph of the store I wanted to show a bit of the surrounding environment which makes obvious its prominent corner location in a neighborhood that continues to exist against the odds.  I continue to dwell on and think about the metaphor of the fragile network of wires that connect all of us and supply our power for technology and communication while bypassing this abandoned business.