#244 – HOT WIND – 1 March 2017
In the movies, when the police or the lawyers ask “Mr. Hicks, where were you between 8 and 10 pm on the night of March 1st?”, I panic. If asked I’d emerge a suspect. I can’t remember where I was a week ago between 8 and 10 pm. I’m typing this on 1 March 2019, and I’m looking at my posting from 1 March 2018. For the rest of this page, I’ll try to remember something about each day, exactly one year on. “It was a Thursday, officer.” (I’m allowing the use of reference materials.) I took the camera to work on this day, and made some images at lunch time (but … not the one posted below).
#245 – Got A Light? – 2 March 2018
If there is no opportunity to make images during the day, (example: work in the way) I sometimes take the camera and tripod with me when I walk the dog at night, and I see from my image files that I did that on March 2, 2018. I like the fact that everything moves very slowly, including the long stretches of time (sometimes minutes) during which the shutter is open. I am harvesting light from whence there is seemingly only dark. Helps me relax. I also like the fact that I can’t really imagine what the exposed image will look like until after it is done. My calendar says it was fridge purge day at work a year ago today – a communal kitchen clean up which I am ashamed to admit I don’t often show up for.
#246 — Tendrils — 3 March 2018
Saturday in the sun. Every year since 2015, artists have created installations around the lifeguard stands on the beach. The crowd is there, interacting with the art, looking at the lake, taking pictures. A year ago I made pan shots across reflective metal surfaces on one of the installations. I left Ollie at home so I could concentrate, he had already done his business. Tomorrow’s and the day after’s images are from today’s outing. My all-time favourite of these is this fantastic installation.
#247 — Sculpted — 4 March 2018
This night a year ago was Oscar night 2018. For the past 10 years we’ve hosted an Oscar party for friends of Ruth’s daughter; same fantastic crowd every year. When we started they were 20ish, now they are 30ish. It’s been our privilege to watch the unfolding movie of their lives. 10 years ago they drank all our wine and laughed through the night; now they present us with wine bottles, laugh until it gets reasonably late, and then hurry home because there’s work the next morning. They are clever and funny and embracing. There is a $5 anti pot for best predictions, which I have never won and never will.
#248 — Waterfall — 5 March 2018
The Toronto International Film Festival operates year round out of a dedicated venue (The Bell Lightbox). We go to a series called “Books on Film”, which features just that — movies made from books. There’s always a guest who is associated in some way with the film, perhaps the director, or the book author, or maybe the screenplay writer. So you get entertained twice, once by the movie and once by the guest. I believe that a lot of great cinematography involves setting up a captivating still shot (perhaps as described in a book …) and then letting people move through it for a while and say stuff.
#249 — Chill — 6 March 2018
Posted this a year ago. Did I go down to the lake in the morning and sit in the sun? No. Did I take the day before off work to make this image? No. I went down in the dark of night to make this. That’s not the sun, its the chilly winter moon. So fun!
#250 — Nutone — 7 March 2018
A couple of blocks north of work is an alleyway that I kept revisiting, camera in hand, wanting to uncover an image. Never succeeded. Captured a few scenes but they seemed “stereopytically” alleyway and/or bland. Other times there would be people hanging out and smoking and that would intimidate me just enough to stop (I know, others would see this as opportunity). Finally, at the end of another unsuccessful traverse, right at the mouth of the alleyway, I made this. I am happy with it. I am happy to have kept coming back and trying over. I will continue to do so. This image was taken exactly a year ago.
#251 — The Walled Garden — 8 March 2018
If I take a detour on the way home from work, I can ride by a hulking, decommissioned power generating plant called The Hearn. You can poke your lens through the fencing and capture bits and pieces of it from a distance. The image I made a year ago today is posted as #258 on March 15. It looks misty or foggy, but that is just the out of focus chain link fence in the extreme foreground. (Is it not stupid that because of my ‘exactly a year ago’ rule, descriptions of what I did and images I posted don’t sit next to each other.)
#252 — Candy Store Back Door — 9 March 2018
I had lunch a year ago today with a work contact who has unbounded energy. An endless river of ideas flood his brain and gush across the table. Many of them are really good, but I am drowning in them and so I cannot grab hold of anything that swirls by. Already on to the over-next wave. This on a Friday, last day of the long workweek. My job here is not to get him to slow down (not his nature, fruitless and unfair to ask) but to somehow slow the flow down on my side so I can work with it.
#253 — Four Square — 10 March 2018
Oh my — a year ago I posted something square on instagram! Had to be, as you can see, its the only way to crop this image, also from the aforementioned alleyway. Its the only post of the project that makes good use of the constrained screen real-estate instagram offers. But here on the web site it looks, awkwardly outsized.
#254 — No Go — 11 March 2018
This image got the least number of likes for the month of March 2018 (n=5). About that: Firstly, I do only one thing to direct traffic, and that not too well, which is to add a few hashtags. Secondly, despite that lack of effort, I keep looking all day after I post to see how I did. (Double digit is good!) Thirdly, I am not a social media person, generally. I deleted facebook for lack of use. I used to tweet but stopped because no followers. Fourthly, I am a loner by nature, and an introvert. What is the point then of posting? The point is to post. What is the secret reality? The secret reality is part of me wants to be very popular and feels looser-like for not so being. Just have to make … better images.
#256 — Dead End — 12 March 2018
In Ontario, Monday the 12th of March 2018 was the first week-day after daylight savings, which means everyone was a bit off their game adjusting to the fact they had to drag themselves awake and about an hour earlier in biological time. This is my excuse for not remembering anything that happened on this day. Payback for the extra hour of precious, delicious bonus sleep when the clocks set back in autumn. The sun, root source of these annual manipulations and Celestial Patron of Photography (soure of all light … fits), cares less.
#257 — Wanna be Friends? — 13 March 2018
Had lunch this day a year ago with a colleague, since retired, who had recently taken up piano. After lunch, he emailed me a couple of recordings. I am impressed with five things. One, he did something he itched to do regardless of age (and music comes with a strong youth bias — good luck to you if you are starting over age 12). Two, he has been working hard. Three, he is proud and he strong in his pride — to wit his voluntary sharing of accomplishments. Four, he is admirably proficient. Five, sharing aside, it was clear from listening to him that he is doing this primarily for his own satisfaction. These are lessons for all of us, at any age, and with regard to any endeavour.
#258 — Iphone Sunset — 14 March 2018
The exercise of remembering back a year is at best partially successful. If I am demonstrating anything at all, it is not memory skills but research skills. To assemble the little blurbs above I have researched my calendars, my image library, the weather. I once had a colleague who, if asked “tell me the highlights of your career,” could and would give a detailed blow by blow accounting with dates, names, locations and events. No one made the mistake of asking twice because … it was as tedious as it was complete. Perhaps it is your blessing as a reader that my memory does not work this way.
#259 — Bunker — 15 March 2018
That said, my father once observed of me that I remember the things that are important to me. I find that I easily remember the making of every image in this 365 day project: not the specific date, but where I was, how it felt in the moment, who I was with. “So,” my father would say, “image making must be important to you.” Good to know.
#274 — The Eye of Sauron — 31 March 2018
Here’s the thing: to the extent that accurate memory is about tracking reality, I’d rather be making things up, creating fantasy. Much more fun. Research shows most of what we call memory is blended with and changed by fantasy. And so the second part of March, the next page, is .. a fantasy as remembered by Ollie the dog, as it was told in real time on Instagram, a year ago. This all really happened … in Ollie’s mind (which is also a fantasy)!
