The Battery Died

Because the battery died in my camera I am going to "verbalize" the photo I most wanted to take at the carnival last weekend. Kaper says everything is art, this is me making a mess of several kinds of mediums, I'm also making his point in saying "Everything is art, just not good art."

From nearly a story off the ground the view comes into focus. Lights flashing, spinning, winding, screaming, and shinning on all the peripherals. The left side of the page begins with lines forming the trashy wooden bench. Draw the lines back at a 37 degree angle. 37? Who knows. Back. Towards the center. Away from the game with the basketballs and the giant stuffed monkeys. Closer to the thing that looks like shed, blocking the bumper cars. The line goes there. Paint it green. It's not important now, later on an arm will be slung across the back of it. I'm getting ahead of myself. No, too detailed. Let's try again.

Sitting on stage right and center there's a couple. Backs to the audience. The bench is turned as to face the back right wings. We barely see their faces. Only the Hispanic man as he rubs his wifes shoulder while they eat and watch the people passing. They're only the background. This is just the set up. Meet my props, mom and dad.

Behind them I want to sculpt the little girl. She's our dream, goal, light. A little four year old stands there, unattended to, about five feet behind her parents. The shot from above shows her in a soft light. Soft! In a carnival where nothing is soft and gentle. But here's this little wisp of a girl all dect out in her yellow sun dress and white sandals. She's playing, standing, watching. A picture of innocences is there before us. Just to the left of the riot and noise, just under the screams and ballyhooing of the carnies; here is a soft innocence in a land of cons and wildness. Family and love painted right there in front of me. I mentioned the dress is yellow right? At her feet, at our angles feet, she is standing on six or seven empty water bottles, a small disarray of garbage that has managed to spill forth as collateral for the even mayhem.

I wanted to photograph it. There is something that has always appealed to me about innocence and damage. Destruction and beauty standing side by side fascinates me. I want to show you, this is how I feel about the world. My world isn't made up of everyday mediocre "good/bad" when I think of how things are I see flowers and trees growing in the wake of volcanic eruptions, I see lovers holding hands in war, I see children being born next to people dying at the hospital. The world needs to see both, both at the same time, in one fell swoop, because each image must be held in our head at the same time. Let us not forget either the great beauty, wonder, and glory that allows us to fly, or the devastation, destruction, damage, that occurs when we fall. This is what it means to be human. To look both square in the eye and live.

That's my shot. The one I couldn't take because the battery died. I wish I could show you.