Monthly Archives: November 2002
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Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Sunday, November 17, 2002
I’m spending an evening following Steve, a two-year veteran of living on the streets of Lincoln. Steve scours through alley dumpsters looking for goodies. Today it is a motorized racecar set that he gives to a six-year-old homeless boy named Joey, some stained glass window ornaments that he gives to the soup kitchen, and a tore up piece of Beetles memorabilia that he plans to give to a friend.
He methodically moves from the backside of one business to the other, the cobblestone allies cluttered with strewn pieces of paper and broken shards of glass. He prefers to go to dumpsters of charities: they throw away the best stuff, he says.
Steve likes to give. You can see the glow on his face when he hands over a gift he dumpster dove for. But as we walk into downtown, we bump into Brian, a visible fixture of the downtown Lincoln homeless scene. Bathing in his own stench, Brian asks if either of us have a dime. Steve says, “Sure, I have a dime.” He gives it to Brian.
Meanwhile I state that I have some change. I dig into my pocket and pull out an assortment of silver and copper. “Here you go,” I say with a smile.
Afterwards Steve gives me a lesson about dealing with the homeless with dignity. “When a friend of yours at the office asks for a quarter, do you empty out your pockets for him and give him everything you have?”
No.
“When a man asks for a dime, he wants a dime. Nothing more.”
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
It’s strange, I suppose. It’s strange how it comes and goes: the ability to see. It’s strange how some people have it and other people don’t. Those who do have it have it on different levels. I have it. But not every day. Most days, I suppose, I do have it. Even on my best days I don’t see as well as some other people see.
How do you explain it to somebody who doesn’t have it? I’m not entirely sure. Two people are walking side by side down a sidewalk in late afternoon. The first person sees a crack in the sidewalk that if unnoticed would trip the duo up. The first person sees a car traveling down the alley that could be dangerous if the two do not yield. The first person sees what a lovely yard the neighbors have, how the leaves are all raked up. The bushes are pruned back nicely. The first person sees the street signs that ensure them that they are going in the right direction.
The second person sees a completely different universe. He sees the texture in the foliage that is starting to decay. He sees how the late afternoon light hitting the yellowed treetops makes the leaves so much brighter than the deep blue sky in the background. He sees a pattern of nine window frames with a crack breaking the otherwise neat arrangement. He sees silhouettes playing in the shadows. He sees the fire surrounding the backlit person walking the other direction. He sees how the electrical wires strewn across the sky form obstacles to an otherwise clean background. He catches little moments of serendipity all around him.
All this occurs in about 5 seconds and all these visions are put into different perspectives that include rules of thirds, tilted horizons, depth of fields, blurred motions, negative spaces. Moments in time, any one of them could be captured on a plane of film or on a digital CCD.
Surely a bloodhound can sniff its prey on any given day. Can’t a wine taster dismantle the many sophisticated tastes in a vintage chardonnay? Why then is the ability to see such a fickle thing. Why does it come and go like it does?
Sunday, November 3, 2002
If you enjoy my photo journal, you should check this out.
A guy by the name of L. Brandon Stone recently started a site that compiles other photo web logs (blogs) like mine. There are a lot of people out there making great photos and having good things to say about them.
I urge you to check out photoblogs.org*
I also just found a photoblogs webring. A webring alows a browser to keep moving on to the next page in the ring. You’ll notice this:
DandyID
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