The triplets from Wooster who were celebrating their first birthday at Jimmy V’s after visiting the St. Paul School class that created a prayer chain while mom was in the hospital waiting for their birth. Abigail, Brandon, and Claire are doing fine after being born at 27 weeks weighing a total of six pounds.
All this reminded me of the video I’d watched earlier in the day.
Wonder why I’m a photographer? Because these stories surround us. I have a camera and ask others to talk with me. Photographs and stories are one result. You don’t need a camera to ask others to talk with you. Everyone has a story. Learn to ask. Learn to listen.
Utility worker taking a break is My Final Photo for May 15, 2013
Spent most of my morning monitoring utility work in and near the easement at the rear of my small plot of Westerville.
The city is upgrading underground power lines and as luck would have it a main transformer box sits at the corner of my much less than an acre piece of the city.
Several years ago the city moved power from overhead poles to an underground network that is insufficient to handle the current load and requires upgrade and redesign. I know it’s not up to what is required as our section of the grid fails many times during the year. Our normally quite cul-de-sac gets even more quiet with air conditioners silent. The neighbors behind me are on a different circuit and remain bright and cheerful. Our corner of the J-shaped grid goes dark throwing about 25 homes into a world where flashlights and candles light the night and neighbors stand in the street pondering what happened, why again, and when things will return to normal.
I’ve stopped reminding everyone of the 1960 “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” Twilight Zone where a neighborhood if thrown into darkness as an alien experiment in human behavior.
Our street has a dynamic set of families and home owners.
Young couples with toddlers, single mother, families with multiple grandchildren, divorcees, homes shared with adult children and their children, a family from the Arab Mideast, creatives, blue-collar workers, nurses and teachers, and owners that quietly keep to themselves with pulled shades, closed garage doors, and labored conversation. Previous neighbors include a mix-race couple, a single male who is rumored to have been the first love of a neighbor’s oldest, a family with a developmentally disabled child, families with “perfect” children, and families with arrest records.
The annual July 4 Rib Cook-Off and cornhole tournament draws nearly 100 from extended families, friends, and college mates. There’s even have a parade down the short street.
Few people sit in their back yards. Most have benches and chairs in front so they can see and talk with one another. An unknown car and driver are scrutinized yet pickers are eagerly greeted the night before Rumpke arrives.
We watch out for each other’s kids. We constantly harass the Pittsburgh sports nut who displays his favorite town’s most current sport’s flags and defends every loss and openly celebrates the victories.
There’s not a problem as father and son temporarily close the street to practice lacrosse tosses.
Everyone warmly greets returning soldiers with the exuberance of patriotism although most have never been in the military.
Births, deaths, graduations, police cars, new cars, and over-productive gardens become a shared experience among the 15 homes on my street.
It’s a great street on which to live. The diversity is complex, exciting, and at times confusing. There are touches of the fear and anger that might emerge in a Rod Serling story. As an observer I’m get excited to live in and witness this neighborhood.
Baby crying in stroller at farmers market – My Final Photo for May 8, 2013
Wednesday beginning in spring means the Uptown Westerville Farmers Market where I spend several hours each week talking with farmers and their customers. Usually I come away with photos of the latest crops or someone inspecting fruits and vegetables or carrying their selections to their cars.
I heard the low volume cries of a baby in the stroller next to me at the last booth in the market. It was a cry just loud enough to be heard but not of such a volume that the baby sounded in distress.
The lower section of the stroller held an older child who was too involved eating the recently purchased cookie to care about her sibling crying just over her head in the second compartment. I couldn’t see the crier because the sun shield was folded over her.
Her mom, taking a break from deciding which breads to buy, folded down the shield to make sure everything was OK. It was, except the baby began to cry louder once she saw mom. Mom, recognizing the increased volume and intensity as a feined attempt at physical distress, went back to her shopping.
The tears, the expression, and her reaction when the baby saw mom intrigued me.
I got two frames before the oldest child, a sister holding a cookie and standing beside the stroller looked at me like the grenade boy by Diane Arbus, reached over and closed the shield. She then looked at me, tilted her as if to say “Go away! This is my sister and you’re not going to be taking pictures of her crying!”
She turned and walked away shoulders held high and the cookie slowly moving toward her grinning mouth.
The photo is ordinary but the story elevates it to My Final Photo for May 8, 2013.
Baby crying in stroller at farmers market – My Final Photo for May 8, 2013
Wednesday beginning in spring means the Uptown Westerville Farmers Market where I spend several hours each week talking with farmers and their customers. Usually I come away with photos of the latest crops or someone inspecting fruits and vegetables or carrying their selections to their cars.
I heard the low volume cries of a baby in the stroller next to me at the last booth in the market. It was a cry just loud enough to be heard but not of such a volume that the baby sounded in distress.
The lower section of the stroller held an older child who was too involved eating the recently purchased cookie to care about her sibling crying just over her head in the second compartment. I couldn’t see the crier because the sun shield was folded over her.
Her mom, taking a break from deciding which breads to buy, folded down the shield to make sure everything was OK. It was, except the baby began to cry louder once she saw mom. Mom, recognizing the increased volume and intensity as a feined attempt at physical distress, went back to her shopping.
The tears, the expression, and her reaction when the baby saw mom intrigued me.
I got two frames before the oldest child, a sister holding a cookie and standing beside the stroller looked at me like the grenade boy by Diane Arbus, reached over and closed the shield. She then looked at me, tilted her as if to say “Go away! This is my sister and you’re not going to be taking pictures of her crying!”
She turned and walked away shoulders held high and the cookie slowly moving toward her grinning mouth.
The photo is ordinary but the story elevates it to My Final Photo for May 8, 2013.
