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I’ve been making the segue lately from taking shots of landscapes and buildings to taking pictures of people. I love how this one combines my old love of vintage aesthetics with my new found desire to capture the essence of personalities. Much thanks to Susanna and Time for being willing subjects this summer!
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One of my all time favorite shots, yet strangely I don’t remember much about taking it. A sculpture just off of Michigan Ave in Chicago near Grant Park. I think it was simply a gorgeous summer day and I was using photography as an excuse to wander around the city and enjoy the sunshine.
I’ve always had fun playing with lens filters, and this shot seemed to be begging for such a treatment. And sure enough, much to my delight, it looked even better developed than it did through the view finder. So yeah folks, NO photoshop here. This image is straight off the neg.
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It’s true that beauty exists in eye of the beholder, but it can only truly be seen if the mind is free.
I didn’t achieve enlightenment in the nether regions of the continent but I did find virtue in my past. It was a bit of a revelation. The secret was not to run away as far as possible. All I really needed to do was return home and face myself. It may be forty minutes north of Normal, but it’s freeing to finally be at peace with who I really am.
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For brevity’s sake, let’s just say I’ve always been I’ve always been conflicted about where I came from. I would never describe my former environs as “striking” or “beautiful,” but that’s exactly how everything looked on this trip. I was even compelled to take a picture of this corn field, a landscape so ubiquitous to the area that it can start to make you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of green.
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About a year and a half later, I went home for my 15 year high school class reunion. There was more than a slight trepidation that I would come to regret making the trip, but I was greeted with nothing but beauty. I was completely dumbfounded at how striking the landscape looked. It seemed almost unfathonable that this could be the same place where I had grown up.
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However, in the end there were no regrets. I needed to take this trip. It was something I had to experience, even if it wasn’t all one big rose parade. There was no romanticized revelation achieved, but in retrospect I learned a far more valuable lesson. For the first time in my life I started to realize that contentment could not be achieved by merely turning a corner, reaching a milestone or obtaining a goal. It had to be achieved from within first. Until that happened, everything would continue to feel hollow.
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I found a scenic overlook just beyond the main path and perched on an overlook. There was a twinge of euphoria, a slight sense of a teary eye forming, but ultimately no cathartic release. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I wanted to scream but was too self-conscious.
I realized later that my romantic notion of “finding myself” was really just a veiled desire to break out of my comfort zone as much as possible in order to induce a breakdown. I wanted to force myself to finally deal with all the emotional baggage I had been deferring all my adult life. I wanted to reach an end so I couldn’t run anymore. Or perhaps find a place so far away and remote that I would actually be able get over myself and let it all out.
But I couldn’t do it. I was still crippled. It didn’t matter where I was. I couldn’t escape my limitations by reaching the end of a continent. I couldn’t achieve peace of mind by completing a journey. -
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The closest I came to reaching nirvana on the trip was here. I thought that Mt. Rainier National Park was the most beautiful place I had ever seen until I stopped at Oswald West State Park and walked down a path that revealed this majestic enclave where hordes of surfers had gathered for the afternoon.
THIS is what I was looking for. This is what I had traveled two thousand miles to see. The redwood trees, the endless waves, the soaring bluffs, the crisp ocean air. The perfect antidote to the flat urban concrete landscape that had numbed my senses for the past decade.
If it were actually possible to find oneself, this was exactly the kind of setting where I liked to imagine it would happen. At the top of the bluff, my future spirit would be there waiting for me behind a tree, ready to whisper “the answer” in my ear. Indulging myself in this romantic notion more than I’d probably care to admit, I darted up a trail to the top. -
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I finally pulled off I-5 in Olympia, WA and crashed at a cheap motel near downtown. I had thoughts of returning for a second day at Mt. Rainier, however waking up to a dark and misty morning inspired me to return south to Oregon and check out the fabled scenic overlooks of highway 101. A second full day of solo driving brought back more intense feelings of self-doubt, but once I reached the coast, it was all forgotten (for the afternoon at least).
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The majestic bliss I experienced quickly fizzled into despair by dusk. Completely wired and paralyzed by indecision, I just got back in the Jeep and drove. Stay another day to see more of the park? Go grab a drink in Seattle? Hightail it back to Portland? I played out a million and one scenarios in my head, but couldn’t decide on any one. I just drove.
The winding backwoods roads spit me out in the outskirts of Tacoma. I was completely exhausted at this point and needed to crash but still couldn’t bring myself to stop. There were about a dozen cheap hotel chains along the Interstate here, but every one I passed seemed progressively sleezier. I kept driving.
