I've been looking at these pictures of you, that I almost believed their real...

Central Mississippi convenience store
Cotton plantation in Lousiana, on 84 West, just inside the border
LS 500, inside a National Forest- the cracks in the road spout grass
NW corner of Lousiana-the trees are in the lake

Usually, people decide to select good pictures from their vactions. For 12 hours and 20 minutes today I was making my way back from Mobile, Alabama to Arlington, Texas. Instead of taking the brainless interstate highways, I wove in and out through the intricate network of US, state, and county maintained highways up until I got to Shreveport, LA-- taking the scenic route. It was a wise decision. I was able to wrestle with race issues, observe other peoples homes and communities, explore the historical implications of slavery, see historical markers, talk to myself, and best of all, I was out of Sprint service the entire way, in digital roam about 30% of the time, in analog roam for about 40%, and out of complete service about 30%. Mission accomplished. Along the way I saw plantations, poor neighborhoods, beautiful, tall trees of Lousiana, and some beautiful lakes. I snapped about 45 pictures along the way-- out of open windows as I sped by cool things, stopping twice to get out and take pictures, and (my least favorite)took a few through the windshield.
Which brings me back to my original statement: I picked the worst pictures of my batch to share with you because of an idea I confronted in Dubravka Ugresic's The Museum of Unconditional Surrender.

"I never liked the whole buiness of taking photographs. I found tourists, armed with cameras, objectionable, I found lokoing through other people's albums or watching their slides a torment.
"During one trip abroad I bought a cheap automatic camera, and once the object was already there I shot several films. After some time I looked through the photographs and established that the scenes I had photographed were all that I remembered of that journey. I tried to remember something else, but my memories stayed tenaciously fixed on the contents of the photographs.
"I wondered what I would have remembered and how much if I had not taken any pictures..." (24)

Like Ben Franklin, the original Self-Made-Man, I will go to sleep tonight, considering my day in full length three times-- gonig over and over the pictures I have in my head, and the memories that cannot be caught within an 18mm focal length, f/4, 1/250, WB shade, ISO 200.

Comments

  1. jim15/7/06

    you are going to be at tyler's wedding correct? and follow-up question - what about that thing the night before?

    ReplyDelete

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