A TALE ABOUT "FOUR"

I’m trying to find the right words. There are only 26 letters… maybe it’s not about letters at all. Maybe four is the magic number. Four seasons. Count to four as you breathe in and out. Four cockle burrs always finding me as I weave in out of the thicket. Four wrong turns leads me to a place that feels like North Dakota when the wind blows. Four shots from hunters in the distance. Four-ty mile an hour wind gusts. Four attempts at the shot. 

76/365

The cinematic silo and the red dilapidated barn sitting on the edge of a lake surround by woods is where I stumbled today. Dead trees cracking and swaying as I patiently waited for clouds to align above the silo. Loud snap, crack, and crash. Wispy bark flitters down to the ground around me and I look up as one massive branch is headed down.

Four steps to the side. Four rapid heart beats. Four box breaths and I look around. There’s no one here. No one saw that. Not a soul. I step further away. Not feeling like my feet are on the ground anymore. I watched as the tree leaned even more and started to record a video. The tree was going to come down. I knew it. The wind gusts pushed and pushed and it fell a bit more but didn’t make it fully to the ground. 

76/365

I leave it be. Let it fall without a witness. Without eyes on it. I’ve never felt at home here in this state. I miss so much of North Dakota and the people I left there. I miss the wind and the prairie and the Cannonball and the Heart. I know they have 10,000 lakes here but it isn’t enough to hold me. I’ve never loved it here. I’ve never been at home here. Never settled nor calm here. Until I walked in the wind, a wind that whipped and pushed like it does on the flat prairie back home. Never at ease here. Until I watched a tree fall by a silo and a red barn across from a small lake. Dodging certain pain by four quick steps.

67

Another short story.

67/365 // some stories are not meant to be told

67/365 // I took a picture I don’t like to look at

67/365 // so I went to be with the geese, but they were gone

60.

59/365. 06:40. 6 degrees.
I always thought I was a sunset girl but I think I’ve always been a sunrise girl instead.

59/365. 06:41. disclaimer: i made the moon MUCH larger but it really was the moon from 59/365.

A moon obsession is building and growing. I’m going to try to be chill about it but pobby not.

60/365.

60/365. I saw these guys on 59/365 and worried about them all day. High was 26 degrees. Drove by them again today, 60/365. Temp this morning was 29 degrees. It warmed up to 45 degrees today so I’m gonna believe they’re all just fine.

60/365.

60/365.

54. SUNRISE. SUNSET.

As it turns out, I like my blue with a little green.

7:07:17

7:18:27

17:19:11

17:19:11 detail

EARLY 40'S AND AN AGE OF PINK

I’m trying to be braver. Doing things I think I can’t. Like the 365 itself… Or going to a show alone, at night, in the city. I think it’s working.

41/365. The set up.

41/365. all in bloom. Seeing this band was important. It felt like something that is hard to describe.

41/365. & in honor of a song that means more to me than I can accurately convey, here’s a little tribute to that night. “in bloom” neck deep.

Impromptu hike on Sunday yielded encounters with four cockle-burs, three strangers and an infinite number of tiny little pretty dead things.

42/365. I swear I’ve dreamt this exact scene.

42/365 and as always, a light ring to close out day 42.

43/365. only one will do.

365 is working. The daily vitamin, it’s supplementing my existing courage.

IN THE 30's

35/365.

37/365. To get it, listen to Little Boxes by Malvina Reynolds

39/365.

33/365. Made several illegal pull over maneuvers tracking this guy and his balloon.

38/365. A small obsession with a portrait of place was realized.

31!

31/365.

Here’s what I know: The more you do this, the more you want to. The more I “see,” the more I need to save. The more I post, the more I like the record keeping.

It bugs me slightly that all the books and life coaches, etc. were in fact right… It takes 30 days to create a habit. We in it now, folks. I have to show you all the stuff I “see” and how I “saw” it. All in. 0 to 100. To the moon.

The mini’s are from photo class… they’re starting advanced photography and for some it’s been four years since they’ve touched a dSLR, so we practice, a lot. And it just so happens it was 49 degrees and sunny today so, out we went with our “beloved minis”.

I didn’t lose any students or minis… So — much better than the fall section, where I did in fact lose one of each. Luckily the student found their way back. But one mini has never been recovered.

I walked out of work at sunset. Someone told me recently that the cold air makes the sunsets more… “more” in the winter and now I can’t let one go.

31 down. 334 to go.
I know what I know.

Before I close out January, here’s my other favorite day (sunrise) from 29/365:

WEEK 3 & 4

Yeshashmudia. The weeks of inventing characters. It started with the queen of diamonds. But my favorite is the queen of clubs.

She’s sweet but she’s always somewhat confused, off in her own world. She’s a bit out of the loop but everyone loves her just the same. Everyone gives clubs a hard time but she’s just a club, she can’t help it. So here she is personified in human form, frozen with buttons on her head and lines from her eyes, wondering what the heck is going on and not remembering where she is supposed to be. And the spade queen is just annoyed with everyone.

16/265, 17/365, 19/365, 18/365

And then I moved on to some more detailed editing. Liquify and line additions.

23/365, 21/365, 24/365, 25/365

And then the fog came and stayed and I spent time before the blue hour in my neighborhood capturing the atmosphere. 26/365

But as it turns out, I can’t stray from self portraits for long. Who knew they were my favorite? I definitely did not admit that to myself or anyone else until a few days ago.

28/365
my hands are tied
to worlds unknown
and this I know

WEEK 2

This week I tried to focus on something in photography called the Blue Hour. It’s a specific window of time that happens half hour before the sun breaks the horizon and a half hour after. In my opinion it’s really only accurate in the 10 minutes before the sunrises and the 10 minutes that follow. As it’s winter, sunrise was around 7:48ish this week and it was a challenge within my work schedule to make it work. It was going great until Thursday.

Thursday’s Story: 11/365

We had a situation today. “Situation normal, all messed up.” I wanted to do the whole week in the “blue hour” and so I race around in the morning to get the photo and then race to school for 0 hour.

The blue hour is best in the 10 minutes before and after the sun breaks the horizon.

Today’s journey was to BELWIN Conservatory. Notice how it’s in all caps. My phone does that now because I tried to get Siri to “text kate” and tell her where I was. “BELWIN Siri, B E L W I N. Text KATE.”

It’s not populated. It’s remote. It’s dark and I’m alone with my pepper spray and a camera. I’m always positive I will be kidnapped at any moment. Kate tracks me virtually so she can recover my body, obviously.

Anyway, I’m running through the thicket at BELWIN. And I’m waiting for the light and I check behind me and I see a car pull into to the entrance real slow and just idle. Looks like a big van. We all think the same thing when we see a van… shoot. Ok gotta get the shot. Gotta get the heck outta here. It’s not working. The blue hour is not bluing. It’s only gray and the shots are terrible.

I’m bounding through the weeds and stumbling around in the dim light and snag my ankle, drop my glove, and trip. Shoot, number 2. I’m about to give up anyway, when I hear a strange muffled growl/sigh/gasp in the thicket.

NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. That’s it. I’m done. You win BELWIN. I try to tell Siri to “text Kate” again because my fingers are numb and now I’m running because the van is a van.

“HEY SIRI CALL KATE” “calling Kate…” Kate picks up right away and I give her the run down. “RUN. Get to your car!”

I’m running. I’m running and it’s freezing and my ankle hurts and I can’t hold the phone and the camera and the pepper spray and I slide the final two feet to my car, whip the door open, toss the stuff on the seat. “I’m in! Doors locked! Van still here.”

“Claire get out of there!”

“I am, I’m peeling out!”

Funnily enough, after my first two classes of the day I saw out the window a blue sky. It’s been 11 days since we’ve seen the sun here. Go figure.

Friday was freezing. I thought my fingers would never recover and be forever stuck in the camera grip I had to get these images. It only got colder, so Saturday & Sunday were spent inside with some good ol’ self portraits.

Here’s a combo of 13/365 and 14/365. For 13/365 — I only had the idea of putting the flowers in my ears and had several versions I liked. On 14, I did the eyes, and man it was hard to see but I figured I should keep it consistent and finish the story and put the flowers on my mouth.

1 | “did you hear something?”
2 | “i didn’t hear anything. did you see something?”
3 | “i didn’t see a thing,” she said.

365

They won’t all be winners. I might not make it every day. I may not even make it to the end of the project… I’ve only ever made it to day 18 in the three times I’ve attempted this before. I can’t even guarantee the photos will be taken on the day they’re posted… But they’ll exist for as long as I can keep it going.

1/365

Project 365. I don’t know who first started this. I did some googling but wasn’t confident in the answers I found. Some crazy photographer who wanted a challenge…I’m sure. That’s usually how these things begin and then people follow along for the ride, then join in, and then it becomes this massive living thing. There are charts and prompts and websites out there to hold you accountable but I’ve got enough that. I’m not even sure if I’ll post them all on my website. Maybe just the highlights each month.

However this ends up, I wanted a photo that would work as a bookend to the first. I dreamt up this idea in the car listening to all the greatest crappy punk songs I hold so dearly. And then I thought, maybe this is the year, 2024, 365, a photo a day. So whether I make it or not…on 12/31/2024 I’ll take the sister to this photo and invert the opposite side. Whether you stick around or join in, I’ll see you on the other side.

ICE STORM & A 10 HOUR ROAD TRIP

A post-Christmas ice storm closed roads, knocked out power across North Dakota and Minnesota. On boxing day, the ice settled in and 24 hours later, I decided to make the trek our from 808 to 6572. The drive is roughly 8 hours and 2 minutes, 554 miles. This time, it took about 10 and some change. But, you’ll see why I had to keep stopping…

Elgin, ND 12/27/23 | approx. 11:33 a.m.

In southwest ND, the roads were slick and then slushy. The grass crunched as ice broke in fragments under my feet. The sun was shining so intensely that it looked as if the trees were made of glass and would shatter from a medium sized wind.

I’m only slightly obsessed with bokeh.

And I meant to keep going but around Jamestown, by the Bloom exit, something strange began to happen in the sky and I pulled over three separate times. (Always on an exit ramp, safety first.)

The whole land was coated in a half inch or more in ice and it was impossible to describe. Luckily, I prefer visuals.

"Halle," he said, "we're gettin' married today."

As we waited for the bride, Aaron talked to Halle and told her about how they were getting married today... It was a quiet, anticipating moment. I’ll admit I had a lump in my throat.

Aaron may or may not admit that he too, had a lump in his throat.

A WEDDING TO HANG YOUR HAT ON

day 34 self isolation

This week my photo classes are studying self portraits and double exposures. I spent about an hour photographing my self portrait in “isolation” and then another two hours editing.

It was limiting and reflective. I’ve only use myself as a prop. Hoping to further the understanding of the world ‘isolation’ - my hair serves as a way to cross out the world, the bad news, the missed moments…Using my own hands in the double exposure to show the push and pull of emotions. Bury it down, it bubbles back up, and so goes this roller coaster; day 34.

Quarantine

April 2nd, 2020.

It’s been since March 12th for me in 598 sq. feet. If you know me, you know my aversion to germs and getting sick. You also probably know about my eating habits. It’s been rough.

As I’m a teacher now, I have to put on a brave face and not shut down. I’ve challenged my photo classes to document their lives in quarantine. I started it last week for myself but who really wants to see me brush my teeth and make ‘claire scrambled eggs’ - no one? Pobby. (If you know me, you know this is a word my dad and I made up).

So I tried to put into a photograph how I feel. And really, I just want to go home. Hang out on the prairie, keep the parental units indoors, get cabin fever, play scrabble, pretend I’m in high school again. There are much fewer people in Mott than where I am. In fact, I think my entire apartment complex has more than 800 people living in it.

I’ve never been much for a city girl, yet here I sit, on my 4 seat options (couch, stool, decorative chair, ottoman), writing to you. Standing around, gazing out windows, pondering my life choices.

This next section…is an example for an assignment Photography II students will do. Their goal is to photograph a triptych: a picture or relief carving on three panels, typically hinged together side by side and used as an altarpiece; a set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together.

So I photographed myself how I look when I do have to brave the germs and the people to get food, or the mail, or take the garbage out. But the middle section needed interest, so I took off my gloves and held a small pristine clock to show that time is something I am very aware of. Finish it off with some muddied boots to get me to the store and home without any human interactions, and it’s done.

That’s all for now. We’ll see you maybe next week.

LIGHTENING & RAINBOWS, OH MY

PRAIRIE STYLE

I really loved shooting these two and can't wait for the wedding at the end of summer. Have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! Thanks for viewing!

AFTER A LONG WINTER...

I had the pleasure of photographing Jess and Tyler on Jess's family ranch. It was a rainy day but felt great to be back on the prairie. 

More updates to follow...

FALL FAMILY PORTRAITS

We got these photos shot just in the nick of time... Fall portraiture is always a tricky waiting game. One day the leaves you want to spice up the portraits are flourishing in beautiful fall colors, the next a 60 mph wind rolls through and dissipates all that wonderful scenery.

STREET FAIRS AND MINI MODELS

Graham is always ready to test locations with me. We dash out of the car, run up and down hills, around trees, hand in hand across busy streets. He is always down to do what I ask. This was a marathon day of it and we were rushing so much I guess he clenched his fists and managed his fake smile for me. I may be the only one who enjoys it because I know the context but oh well.

Now Ellen, you can rarely get her to pose at you want....but she has the most moods of any little girl I've ever come across. I appreciate her for teaching me patience and waiting for the "Ellen" moment.