Fragments From Floyd

I can't remember much about it, except that some fellow, a photographer--was ill or disabled in some way--confined to his fourth-floor apartment. Mercifully, he lived in a corner space and had large windows on two sides, overlooking a park or a busy street--I don't recall exactly. One would have thought his photographic life had come to an end with his lack of mobility. But no. He continued to take thousands of photographs of the busy street, the park, the coming and going of pigeons, people, the seasons, the eternal shift of light from hour to hour.

Though I've forgotten the details, I have held on to the significance of this little tale from real life. How blessed I am, I thought two years ago this month after posting my very first images, literally to the world via the weblog. I may not go far from home, but I can carry my camera any place that I can walk--up and down our valley, along the creeks, climbing and following the ridges looking down on the house and barn. I can bring back ordinary views from this small place, details of days, fragments of my time in this sheltering valley. That should be enough to sink my teeth into, I thought. And I was right.

Not everyone who saw the disabled photographer's pictures took from them the poignancy and meaning that the photographer always did. He was there when the shutter snapped, remembers all the senses his film could not capture--the distant sounds of children playing; the smell of bread baking in the next building; pigeons cooing contendly from the window ledges; the curtains moving gently in the morning breeze. Maybe he was familiar with some of the subjects he froze in time with his camera and they were not merely shapes and textures and colors to him. And so what appears ordinary is indeed extraordinary to him, and even to some who have come to see his images.

The picture of the pasture and barn here is what I see from our mailbox, facing south down the valley. The larger image is here, and the very next image (click NEXT to the upper right of this gallery picture) is called Pasture Walk and is a view north, back toward the house and the maple trees that frame ValleySouth. So there's your nickel tour from outside our doors. Nothing fancy. Green grass, lots of trees, blue sky and white clouds. More than enough.

Footnote: Be sure and stop by Hoarded Ordinaries where Lorianne picks up this theme and gives it the benefit of her perspective and clear language:

"The ordinary is all we have: it is, after all, the very stuff of our days. It is by watching the daily passage of common lovelies that we train our eye to catch the spectacularly uncommon; through the door of the ordinary, the extraordinary creeps. Are you watching? Will you recognize it when it arrives hidden and silent, cloaked in green?"