The Human Landscape

Humans have left reminders of themselves everywhere.

Here we are, the middle of January. It’s a typical midwestern winter day, cold, windy, snow and perpetual gray. Not enough snow to do something fun, just enough to be unpleasant while walking the dog.

I’m tired. Tired of reading bad news every day. I’m tired of trying to understand why anyone would think that any of this news represents something good or normal.

More saber rattling, more cruelty, more hoarding of money by the insanely wealthy and powerful. Less hope, less help, and less trust.

I have to get away for a while, a week, a month, enough time away from the insanity to rebuild the strength to continuijg to fight the evil that is erasing a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. No more doom scrolling or news I can no longer trust. It’s time to rest my head and my soul and think about something else.

A day or two ago I was reading a blog by Giles Thurston called The Photographer’s Eye. I read two of his posts and they helped my brain focus on something other than gloom and doom.

The first one was called Echoes of Humanity.

He said:

“While reviewing my photography archive from last year, I noticed a pattern I didn’t expect: I’ve developed a bit of an obsession with photographing chairs. It wasn’t intentional, but looking back through my lens, these everyday objects kept pulling me in. It turns out that the humble chair is actually the perfect example of what I love to capture most, the human landscape. What makes a chair so fascinating to photograph is that it represents human presence without needing a person in the frame.”

I wondered if I had ever seen what he sees in a chair. Do I have a quirky photographic obsession? Thurston believes all photographers do. That sounded like a challenge to me. What are my quirky obsessions?

I did find a few chairs….what’s the story here?

Form and function, evidence of a human need to create

A review of my archive showed that I have more than one. I found chair pictures in my archive, but what I found a lot more of were doors. Doors are like a huge question mark. They can be a sort of ghost story.

What secrets hide behind that worn door?

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