The last weekend of summer in Philadelphia offered the chance to look for contrast between light and dark. Nothing metaphorical or profound. Just shadows.
Looking for and at shadows invites a different way of seeing the city, a way that often requires looking down, looking for lines and patterns, for fragments of people going about their lives. The shoes and the streets tell us a lot about who the person is. Feet walking to work, work in the tourist industry, wear period shoes and extend beneath the hem of a historic skirt. They move efficiently across the street in a crosswalk, against the “Don’t Walk” sign.
Other feet don more comfortable, casual shoes, those worn by people who are themselves probably tourists. They stroll along cobblestoned side streets where no “Walk” sign discourages their progress. They have no destination in mind, no place to go.
But don’t always look down. Light and shadow play across buildings too, creating patterns and contrast with the late summer sky. Buildings that send forth dog-walking residents who look every bit as tidy and uncluttered as the buildings they’ve just exited.
There is a special aesthetic to religion in the South West. A starkness to the architecture and design, born perhaps from the struggle to survive in the harsh climate. Amazingly, some of the missions and churches have survived centuries. The San Xavier del Bac mission south of Tucson, for example. Founded in the late seventeenth century, the church dates from the late eighteenth. It’s hard to believe that the population in the area was sufficient to support the mission for the past two centuries. It is also a testament to the Franciscans who have continued to hold mass at the church and minister to the community for the past 225 years.
San Xavier del Bac
While some religious institutions continue to survive in the south west’s unforgiving climate, others struggle and contract. In Santa Fe the St. Francis Cathedral School represents the other end of the durability spectrum. Founded just 70 years ago in downtown Santa Fe, the, school closed about a decade ago. The school was repurposed as an arts school. But that too has closed. Now the property is for sale. Stay tuned for another otherwise unremarkable over-priced “boutique” hotel.
The latest issue of 52 arrived yesterday. They look great. I had them printed locally, at Fireball Printing in Philadelphia. They did an excellent job. The print quality is superb. The paper has a nice, rich, substantial feel, making it a pleasure to sit and look through while enjoying a cup of coffee.
I’ve started distributing them. So let me know if you want a copy.
You had been wandering the streets for a few hours looking for some scene, some storefront, courtyard, or back alley. Now and then you sought shelter from the drizzle, ducking into a café or standing in a doorway. The dreary sky and glistening cobblestones suited the city, which somehow seems to glow with its own internal light. Although you started in the center amongst the cacophony of shoppers and strollers, you prefer the surrounding districts with their distinct personalities. Your path wound further and further out into the less trafficked neighborhoods. Then, when the snow started to fall, you left the streets behind and wandered into ….
Alone in a garden with snow-covered fountains.
A heavy snow had been falling for a couple hours by the time I passed through the gates. It was a lovely evening, I thought, to linger in the imperial gardens. As I wound my way deeper into the gardens I passed the occasional visitor walking back along the pathways toward the exit and the city beyond the walls. We exchanged nods or fleeting pleasantries about the weather. At some point I realized that I had stopped seeing other people. Even their footprints were disappearing gathering darkness. Wandering amongst the trees and past the empty fountains, their sculptures blanketed in snow, I felt as if I had the place to myself.
Soon even their footprints would disappear.
Oh shit, I thought, I do have the place to myself. I haven’t seen anybody for at least 30 minutes. It is unmistakably dark now. And although it is not cold, a heavy, wet snow continues to fall from the leaden sky. It’s 7:00 now. What time do they lock the gates? I had only glanced at the sign as I entered, but I seem to recall 5:30. Surely that was just a suggestion, or when they stopped letting people into the gardens.
Fifteen minutes later, standing in front of the really tall, really locked gates, I am rethinking my decision not to pay attention to the time. There is no one-way turnstile to let people out, as I had vaguely hoped there might be. There is no guard in the guardhouse to save absent-minded visitors from themselves. No. There is just a formidable gate, topped with spikes that are clearly more than just aesthetic embellishments. I have a perverse appreciation for the symmetry of these gates. Originally designed to project an image of strength and authority outwards to the masses, and to keep those people out, these gates and the walls surrounding the gardens work equally well to trap people inside. Just to be sure, I push on the gates. They neither move nor even make a sound. Standing there in the dark silence of the garden, I can hear cars accelerate from the intersection just 50 yards and a 10-foot wall from me.
Worth every minute of effort.
After checking various other gates to confirm that they too are locked for the night, I begin looking for the section of wall I can most easily scale, importantly a section without the big, sharp spikes along the top. And I’m wondering what the penalty will be should I get caught. Surely I can talk my way out of a night in jail, but given the local preference for fines, I suspect it will cost me.
Speaking of fines, isn’t there a police station by one of the entrances? Not, of course, the one close to me. In fact, given the direction I wandered the perimeter, that entrance is rather far from me. Did I mention the snow, which an hour ago was lovely but is now considerably less so? As I trudge back through the snow, I think: I might be spending the night under the stairs behind the palace. At least that’ll be a story.
Oh good, there’s the station. And I see somebody inside.
I make pictures when I can, like other latter-day explorers who work during the week.… No important mandate to chart some vanishing wilderness subsidizes these outings, and even a short drive into the land can become an adventure. Weekend exploration may not be what it used to be, but it’s a compelling act nonetheless.
Mark Klett, Revealing Territory (Albuquerque, 1992), 163–164.
As photographers, we do not just set out to “capture” an image on film. Rather, as Alfred Stieglitz said, we can use the medium to create an equivalent to the experience of what we see and feel when making a photograph.
John Sexton, Listen to the Trees (Boston, 1994), 84.
My photographs are meditations on the light that illumines and transforms the ordinary, the often overlooked. There are those rare moments when the everyday reality of our world is transcended and one glimpses the eternal and infinite.
Marion Patterson, Grains of Sand (Palo Alto, 2002), xi.
Trying to make photographs that can speak takes time. Seldom do I visit a place for the first time and immediately make photographs I find meaningful. Making repeated visits, I like to look and explore, observing the changing seasons and the transformations of nature, beginning to feel visual and spiritual connections. As valuable for me as the image recorded on film are the images recorded on the emulsion of my mind.
