i'm transitioning here: brijeete.blogspot.com
visit, comment, leave your same old mindsay love.
i'll be back one day.
i think i'm the kite.
i'm going back to mississippi to do more katrina relief.
pictures when i return.
fallphotographymmmmmm. fall. there really is nothing like it.
makes my heart all warm and fuzzy, and my camera too. =)
[again, most of these will be cut off due to size. Click the reply button and then "more" to see the full picture]
[again, on most screens you'll have to click the reply button to see the full picture.]
try it yourself!
=)
Hello there, mindsay. It's been almost 2 months since I've posted anything here. When I realized how long it had been I knew something had to be done.
I don't generally do this [and by this I mean write something long and detailed before I post pictures on this blog], but after a particularly reflective weekend at home I just couldn't help myself. I've provided a bit of background about my new favorite subject to photograph - my 72-year-old father. I could write for days about that man, but I do eventually need to sleep. To see the full pictures you may have to click to reply to the blog and then click "more".
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My father was born in a rural Irish town in the 1930s. His address read as such:
312 Hackballscross, Ballybinaby, Co. Louth, Ireland.
His real birthday is disputable - he was born some time around midnight and no one bothered to write down which day he was actually born. Consequently, we have been coaxed into celebrating his birthday on both November 20 and 21. When my sister and I were younger we'd always ask him how old he was on his birthday. Every year he was turning 29. Even when we were old enough to realize this was impossible, we didn't argue.
To this day he blows out 29 candles.
If there's one thing my father can do it's tell a story. If you sit across a table from him you'd better have cleared your schedule for the next three hours. When I was younger I hated him for his stories. My mother would hold a magazine in front of her face and read it while he talked at her or go to bed to avoid his rambles, leaving me as the lone set of ears to be preyed upon. I had to strategize to get to bed on time - if I got my glass of milk before he was more than halfway through his nightly fifth of Canadian Club whiskey I was usually in the clear. If I waited any longer there was no escape - my mother would be asleep for sure and there'd be no one to rescue me. Hours and hours of the same stories, punctuated by a fit of laughter or a slobbery cry and sometimes both. Much to my disappointment and frustration, the next morning he never. ever. remembered what he'd said. And so it continued for years and years until he stopped drinking. When the drinking stopped the stories stopped. At the time I was more than overjoyed that I could now walk into the kitchen and not have to sit through the entirety of a slurred rendition of "The Foggy Dew" or hear that one about stealing whiskey and scones and cigarettes from his schoolteacher's wake [Mr. Agnew who was kicked in the head by his donkey and wasn't that just what he deserved, to get kicked in the head by an ass, the bloody old feck that he was]. But now that I'm older I sort of miss those stories, likely because I know that some day in the not-so-distant future he won't be around to tell them. I blame the lack of stories on the lack of alcohol, and though I'm thankful he's no longer drinking [it ruined huge parts of my adolescence], I'm convinced now that no Irishman without a drink is as great and mysterious and awe-inspiring as he is with a drink.
When I'm home on weekends and can deal with the hateful, angry, bitter, lonely old man that he's become, I coax those stories out of him again, and sometimes I even get new ones. I've started writing them down soon after I make my escape, and I think one day I'll publish them. I'll call it "Stories from an Irishman who Never Wrote a Goddamn Thing Down". or maybe just "Henry Fucking McEnaney".
Yeah, I'd buy that.
There's something powerful and meaningful to be said about the only person I've ever both truly loved and truly hated. I haven't figured out what it is yet, but until I do I'm content photographing his last years. There's something intriguing and terrifying about taking his picture, and it surprisingly has nothing to do with being told to "fuck the fuck off" or being warned that, in reference to my camera, i'll "find that fucking piece of fucking shite in the garbage tomorrow" if I don't get it out of his face. I think it might be the idea of photographing a man so keenly aware of [and wallowing in] his own mortality. Add to that the fact that this man is my father, and the experience is overwhelming and exhilirating and indescribably heartbreaking. He knows he's just going through the motions now - cook breakfast, take medicine, watch Court TV, take medicine, cook dinner, take medicine, read the Irish Echo, take medicine, go to sleep, repeat. He only leaves the house for groceries or the occasional trip to Lowe's to buy another tool he's too old and weak to use to fix something he's too old and weak to fix. It's a painfully bleak bow out of life, and despite our conflicts and my tendency to hold grudges too long, I can't help but think he deserves more.
Farmer. Boxer. Militant Irish nationalist. U.S. soldier. Mechanic. Short-order cook. Patient. Bigot. Recluse. Husband. Father. Brother. Son. There are so many layers to that man that I'll never be able to touch. Maybe the words that suit all that he is will come when he's gone. For now pictures will have to suffice.
I got 40+ mosquito bites photographing this place.
it was worth it.
again, im too lazy to resize, so click where you'd reply to the post to see the full pictures.
back in June I took a black and white photo class, and while i was home one weekend i randomly found this dumping ground for old school buses. I'm pretty sure no one else really knows about this place because it's pretty well hidden. I decided to go back there this weekend and take some more shots.
i've gotten too lazy to resize my pictures, so you'll have to click at the bottom of the entry like you're going to leave a reply [and leave one if you so please] and view the wider pictures there. Besides, resizing kills the magnificent details.
i went back to the bus graveyard [above picture from there].
i also explored an abandoned textile mill.
many many pictures coming soon.
