Whether you agree is irrelevant.
Documentary
The signs we display say a lot about our approach to life’s biggest challenge in July, 2020.
No one would question that life this year has been bizarre. I’m still waiting for that first photoshoot since February. Maybe it will happen this week, but I’m not going to be surprised or upset if it doesn’t. There are too many challenges. The National Weather Service this morning issued a heat advisory for all of Central Indiana for today from 1:00 PM to 8:00 PM with warnings of heat indices over 105 degrees. Tomorrow may not be any better, nor the day after that. Shoot indoors, you say? Where? I’ve yet to find an indoor location that is both suitable to the content and appropriately sanitized against the virus. If you know of such a place, please share.
This situation leaves me with a conundrum each week of whether to re-process and re-imagine work from the archives, as we’ve done often, publish pictures of the kids, which we’ve done a few times, or go with something more random and timely, which we’ve done once. I’ll admit to not feeling terribly motivated by any of those options. I’d skip this week completely if I wasn’t afraid that with everything else going on you’d completely forget I exist if I didn’t regularly remind you that I’m still here, still hanging on, pining for days when I’m shooting something exciting every week. So, we went with a topic more documentary than anything, just to have new pictures to post.
One thing of which we are now certain is that this damned pandemic is going to roil this entire year and probably next year as well, at least in the United States. Why? We’re stupid and we lack substantive leadership. Our so-called president has decided that the virus is a distraction and doesn’t want to be bothered. Daily, he proves himself a fool. Even if he was capable of the leadership necessary, however, a formidable portion of the US population is just stupid. There’s no other reasonable explanation for why people didn’t wear masks and stay home and shut this thing down in March and April like every other developed industrialized country in the world did. NO ONE is continuing to face increasing infection rates as high as we are. Yet, I see doctors re-stating the obvious each morning: if everyone wore a mask, the virus would be contained within two weeks, a month, max. That this hasn’t yet happened is disgusting.
As a result of failed leadership across the US, corporate entities, trying desperately to remain solvent, stepped up this week and began requiring masks in their stores. And while the cynics among us are waiting gleefully with cameras in hand for when the requirement at Walmart goes into effect this week, many of us are questioning why we had to wait this long for such a substantial response. Indianapolis has been under a mask mandate in public for the better part of two weeks now and I’m still cautious when going to the grocery store because no one wants to be the “bad guy” who enforces the safety measure.
The recent corporate decisions, however, have spurred a requirement for new signage. In most cases, local stores were sent images to print out and tape to their front doors. Larger entities, such as Kroger and Home Depot, have more professional signage. Knowing this, and being completely clueless as to what else to photograph this week, we went to our nearest strip mall and took pictures of the variations of signs informing customers of the need to mask up. The result was marginally interesting. Some were adamant with a “do it or else” tone. Others gave a, “hey, it’s not our fault,” message. A couple came at it from the perspective of personal responsibility, not that Americans have a clue what that is.
What we ended up with is some of the most boring pictures I’ve ever shot. Really. Grass growing in the front yard would be more exciting. I tried adding some artistic nuance to them in the processing, but even that feels too much like a giant, “UGH!” How many different ways can one say, “Hey stupid, wear a mask!” None of the ones we saw were imaginative to any degree. Dealing with my own reflection in the glass doors didn’t help any, either. Still, there is some, perhaps minimal, documentary value in recording how we’re (not) handling this situation. I apologize for not being more exciting this week. Maybe next week will be better.
[tg_masonry_gallery gallery_id=”17179″ layout=”contain” columns=”2″]
A Stark Reminder Of What We’re Facing
The state of Indiana may say it’s re-opening but downtown Indianapolis is a very different picture.
Yes, I do still have a good camera. Yes, I still remember how to use it. Having not shot anything new since February, though, I had to dust it off and clean the lenses before taking everything out early Thursday morning and venture into downtown Indianapolis. I was itching to shoot something, anything, and after hearing about all the protests downtown and the Arts Council’s project for painting boarded-up shops, I was fairly certain I would find littered streets juxtaposed against incredible murals.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I hit downtown at 8:20 AM, right smack in the middle of what should have been one of the busiest times of the day. Instead, I encountered practically no traffic at all once I was inside the mile square. I parked less than a block North of the Circle. The place was empty.
Sure, there were some construction people doing construction things, but there were no pedestrians, no one rushing to get to work on time, no one grabbing that last cup of coffee before trudging into an office, no police, no lingering protestors, nothing. Almost everything was boarded up but most the boards were still bare and the few on the Circle that had been painted were amateur attempts at prettying-up a hard message: Black Lives Matter. The streets themselves were perhaps the most clean I’ve ever seen them. No sign of the previous night’s protest remained. Even the trash cans had been emptied.
I walked south out of the circle to Washington then west to Illinois. Seeing Circle Center Mall boarded up was surreal. Even more unnerving, though, was being able to stand in the middle of an intersection, multiple times, and take my time framing my shot without having to worry about being run over. Traffic was practically non-existent. I walked on down to Georgia Street where a lone couple sat snuggling on one of the concrete supports. There was some utility construction nearby, but beyond that, everything was quiet.
The one image that stands out in need of comment is the statue of Governor Oliver Morton with what appears to be bird poop squarely down his face. I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate. Morton, on one hand, got the state of Indiana through the Civil War without it being torn to shreds. He fought off white supremacist groups and made Indiana one of the most supportive states in the Union. Sounds like a good guy, right?
Hardly. While he might be applauded for his support of the Union, the methods he used in the process were nonetheless detestable. He illegally borrowed millions of dollars in federal and personal loans to support the state budget because he wouldn’t let the state legislature meet. He hired thugs who beat up, kidnapped, and allegedly killed political opponents. When Confederate troops crossed the Ohio River into Indiana, not only did he illegally call up the state militia to fight them but he had them ransack and burn the homes and barns of any Hoosier family who displayed the flag of the Golden Circle, a group sympathetic to the Confederacy. Perhaps difficult times call for difficult measures, but seeing bird poop on his face still feels appropriate.
Seeing the city this way was a reminder that regardless of what other issues we might face there is still a pandemic to fight. While people out in the suburbs might be reckless and running around without a care, the few people who were downtown were taking matters seriously. Mosts wore masks. They all avoided getting too close to anyone else. And the whole place felt a bit like a ghost town.
I can’t say the following photographs are exciting. If they are interesting it is on a documentary level as we consider where we are and what is really taking place. While it was nice to get the camera out again, I must say that I prefer more lively subjects. I kept looking for tumbleweeds; at least they would have been interesting.
[tg_masonry_gallery gallery_id=”17086″ layout=”wide” columns=”4″]
Share this:
Like this: