For two years, Maria and I have been having a spirited disagreement about what i think is a dreadfully ugly Rhododendron bush right outside the living room window. I said it was a stuffy old thing and we ought to get rid of it. Lots of people post messages about how sweet and warm Maria is, but let them try argue with her about a bush or a flower. She says the Rhododendron isn’t going anywhere, we fight about it every Spring and every Fall. The next time she goes to Gee’s Bend, I’ll let the donkeys into the yard to graze, I bet I can get Simon to eat it.
I have to be honest, though, it flowered this week and I got lost in the photos. It might be an ugly bush, but it creates some nice flowers.
I decided to move my windowsill gallery the former girlfriend was busy cranking out fiberworks so I was curator for a minute, and I saw the dogs lying on the porch, taking in the sun so I moved my windowsill gallery to the porch. A captive audience.
Minnie is a strange animal, even by cat standards. She is highly verbal, talking to us all day. She is changing, getting more comfortable out of doors in the summer, she comes in at night to cuddle with Maria but she is happy to hang around outside now, more than six months after her leg was amputated. She hides under Maria’s studio, she has her favorite spots in the field, where she hunts and in the pole barn. She has always loved chickens and they have always loved her.
Minnie spent the first months of her life at the first Bedlam Farm with chickens in the big barn, she still hangs with them. Today I came into the barn and she and the white hen were napping together up in the hay stack.
Red was raised as a working dog, I imagine, dogs like him are bred and trained for focus, they live and work with the sheep, when they are not working, they are very often in crates or lying in barns. Red’s life is pretty varied now, he is a therapy dog, he has more girlfriends than I can count and I imagine he will lose some of his focus in his new life. So far, this has not happened.
This morning, I asked Red to hold the sheep in the side pasture while we moved the donkeys and cleaned out the pole barn, we were distracted by phones, visits, chores and cell phone calls. Red did not move from this position for one hour. He has the most intense gaze I have ever seen on a border collie.
Sometimes in the evening, Maria and I go out and take photos, we drive around the beautiful hills of Washington County, New York. Many times, I get scolded for walking on the roads, or for pulling the car over, or for standing along a highway trying to get a shot of the sunset. I can’t count how many times people have yelled at me, although no farmer has pulled a rifle on me for some time, I think they know me by now.
Last night, we pulled over at a stop sign – Maria is very scrupulous about stopping in a safe place – and a woman in a white SUV came up behind us. She had to driver around our car to come to the road, which has great visibility on both sides. “Excuse me,” she yelled, “this is dangerous!” I nodded to her, but she kept yelling that what I was doing was dangerous, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say, so I said “thank you.”
I think that wasn’t the right thing, as she drove off in a huff, yelling “dangerous” every few yards until she went over the horizon. She was annoyed, I asked Maria if I was doing anything dangerous, and she said no, the woman didn’t know what she was talking about. Maria does not lie or make excuses for me, I have the scars to prove. If I had been doing something dangerous, Maria would have been out of the car long before the SUV came, and yelled at me the loudest.
I have been yelled at many times in the course of my photography, sometimes justly, sometimes not. I used to be reckless, running around in the near dark with dark clothes, a truck whizzed by and hit my tripod once and nearly took my head off. I don’t hop out of the car in the dark any more, I always make sure the flashers are on, Maria is always yelling at me to get out of the road. I supposed I should have said I was sorry to the woman in the SUV, but I wasn’t really. It wasn’t dangerous, she just didn’t like having to pull around us a few feet, some people are like that.
Photography, like reporting, is by nature intrusive. And obsessive. When the light is right, I will do almost anything to get the shot. I have the right, of course, to pull off a wide country road and take a photo, so long as I don’t block the road or step in traffic (I have done both of those things, I am sorry, since Maria I don’t do them any more.) How can I explain that need for that perfect angle, wanting to get the sunset and the curve of the road, the directional signs that give the photo a different feel.
There are a lot of grumpy people in the world, and a lot of sweet ones. Most of the time, people wave at me and give me a thumbs up or ask me where they can see my photos. If I have annoyed anyone, I am sorry. Sort of.
