Bicycling America I, A View of the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument on a Frosty, Early November Morning, 2015. This was my first night camping after leaving Annapolis two days previous (I stayed with a friend of a friend in D.C. my first night.). I was camped in a very obvious location, so did not setup my tent, right along the banks of the Potomac, just across the Arlington Memorial Bridge. It was a cold morning, but an extraordinary one: the colors, the movement of the fog as it was carried off in tiny shreds by the gentle wind,;the quiet; the stillness; the birds gliding over the water like spirits; the feeling of aliveness that the frosty air brought....
Bicycling America V. Train Tracks and Setting Sun in North Carolina. Somewhere between Carrboro and Sanford, or Sanford and Star. I don't recall which. I was in a wooded area, and as the sun was getting lower the light was growing dimmer. But this is still December, and once you find yourself in shade you notice the temperature drop real quick. Despite the season, I wasn't all that prepared for cold weather. The intent was to go south to Savannah, GA, and we were having an extremely mild winter, at least to start, so I really didn't want to carry around a bunch of bulky winter gear once I got further south where the temperatures would be more moderate (nevermind the fact that I could obviously box it up and mail it home....), so at this point I was getting a bit uncomfortable, and of course as it was getting darker I was in need of a place to pitch my tent. More vignettes to come when I get around to posting those pictures.
Bicycling America VII. American Flag in a Neighborhood in Charlotte, North Carolina. I forget on what day this was. I stayed in two places during the Christmas week that I spent in Charlotte. One night was at a supposed friend's with whom I used to work at a local cafe here in Annapolis, and the other was four nights at a very lovely woman's who I didn't actually meet as she wasn't in town (acquaintanship made through the WarmShowers cycling app). Flags displayed so prominently, or at all, to me are, well, complicated symbols I guess you might say. For myself, I can't ever imagine waving something so proudly when I think about this country and its relationship to the world beyond its borders, and when I think of the profoundly misguided, and often deliberately toxic, destructive, malign, and subversive policy that is put in place at every level of government office in this nation. However, I am fascinated by the flag and the sort of cult attitude of some that attends to it. It can be a symbol of propaganda, or it may simply be a symbol of one's pride (pride for what, I couldn't say). And of course there is the evolution of the flag from the country's founding down to today. In all of this I find a curiosity and fascination with this thing, this flag which embodies so many differing philosophical ideals. It is a symbol of hypocrisy and contrariness, but it is (to some extent) a symbol of inclusivity. There is much work to be done there, however.
Bicycling America X. Somebody's a Prophet in South Carolina. Continues the theme of the previous photo. I took this in December of 2016. Either someone is a time traveller, or they understood Trump a lot better than I. And to think this is South Carolina, too!
(Mostly) Bicycling America XXXVI. Three Landscapes III. Cotton Field, Somewhere, South Carolina, 2015. This was taken on my first day in South Carolina after leaving Charolotte, NC earlier that morning. Cotton fields. Cottony clouds. Made, and still makes, me think of nineteenth century French landscape paintings.
(Mostly) Bicycling America XXIII. Two Women at a Bus Stop, Savannah, GA, April, 2016. I posted a black & white version of this photograph ages ago, but I think it bares re-posting what with all the turmoil, pain, anguish, and suffering we've all seen this year. Obviously I don't know whether these two women sat like this intentionally. Maybe they both just wanted to be in the sun, and not in the shade of the bus stall, and aside from sitting side by side on the same small bench there was no way to do this other than in the manner shown. I have no idea. All I know was that I was walking along on the opposite side of the street and knew I had to take the picture. It's too emblematic of this country's past, and sadly, its present. Whenever I look at this photo I think of a part of a recording of a sermon that M.L.K. gave that is played at the beginning of a song by the hardcore band Good Riddance: "Modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance. We've learned to fly the air like birds, we've learned to swim the seas like fish. And yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth like brothers and sisters."
I was recently going through some photographs from my bicycle trip kinda two years ago, updating and re-editing certain ones while updamy portfolio site. Just thought I should share some here since they likely won't see the light of day otherwise, and too, perhaps they can act as a portal for you, my viewers, into a new and unfamiliar world. This is Annie D's, in Buena Vista, Georgia. I stopped here for a tasty and very southern lunch while on my way to Columbus. The photograph reveals enough about the simple menu and lack of adornment of the place (dare it be called a restaurant?) that I don't need to add anything here. That said, I note that there is something very profound in this plainness and lack of embellishment and sophistication here, in that it's the hearts of the people that fills the room and coats one's eyes with a velvet sheen thus tinging everything with softness, warmth and charm and beauty. Oh, and the banana pudding is to-die-for.
(Mostly) Bicycling America XXIV. Edmond Pettus Bridge, Selma, Alabama, December, 2018. The structure calls to mind linked arms or hands to me. Unity. One can't travel through the south, the deep south particularly, without thinking on the Civil Rights Movement. Obviously when I crossed the bridge on my bike at the end of 2018 things were, at least superficially, different than they are currently. I say superficially because underneath the quiet exterior there was anger and resentment stirring, waiting for a trigger to set it off, and rightfully so I might add. According to Wikipedia the bridge is named after a Confederate general, who also happened to be a U.S. Senator and head of the Alabama chapter of the KKK. I did not know this. I did however know that it was the sight of a number of confrontations between unarmed demonstrators and state police, all of which resulted in the police attacking the demonstrators, most notably on what's come to be known as Bloody Sunday, on March 7, 1965, when the demonstrators planned to march from Selma to the state capital, Montgomery, some 50 miles away. This was captured by news cameras and newspaper reporters and led to the Voting Rights Act. It wasn't until March 21 that demonstrators were able to peacably march the distance over the course of four days to Montgomery, protected by National Guardsman.
History Is A Long, Slow-Moving River, The Future Is A Horizon Never Reached, And The Present Is The Continuously Moving Point Of Understanding Where The Two Meet, Tombigbee River, Gainesville, AL 2016
America II.,Homeplate On A Street Corner, Oxford, MS, 2016
Old Route 66, West of El Reno, Oklahoma, 2016
Bicycling America XIX. Rafters on the Rio Grande, Taos, NM, June, 2016. I spent a fair bit of time in Taos during the month of June. Taos, then Santa Fe, then Taos, then Santa Fe. Between Taos and Santa Fe was where my knee bothered me to the point of having to stop cycling. If you've read a few posts back you will know that I bought a car around this time. While in Taos I made it a point to check out the Rio Grande Gorge, as well as the nearby messa, and the community of earthships also nearby. I was lucky to have a met a very cool woman who I am still in touch with today in fact, who was happy to allow me to stay with her at her friend's place whom she was housesitting for. I met this friend of hers through a gentleman I stayed with, her ex-husband, in Las Vegas, NM (not to be confused with Las Vegas, NV). Peculiar chains of relationship become sort of normal, I've discovered, when one allows oneself to be vulnerable, and therefor more available, to these episodes of serendipity. Something about the tao, the universe....
America I, View From The Cadillac Inn The Next Morning, Lovelock, NV, 2016
Desert Shores, California, 2016
After the Aftermath of Hurricane Michael: Mexico Beach
Bicycling America XI. Cardboard Cutout of Donald Trump amidst an Assortment of Stuff in a Shop Window on the Outskirts of Pensacola, FL, December 2018. I took this photograph leaving Pensacola after spending a blissful and relaxing two or three days there at the First United Methodist Church I do believe. The man running the youth program there had done several bicycle tours in the past, and had a WarmShowers profile offering space in one of their buildings for travelers to stay, though, either he is no longer there, or they are no longer allowing that, since I'm not seeing the profile on WarmShowers right now. Regarding the photograph, I just thought this was an amusing, nonsensical collection of compositional elements, and being as our current president IS basically a cardboard cutout in mind, body (well, maybe not body) and soul, this just feels timely and right to post. Also, surrealistic picture, surrealistic presidency.
(Mostly) Bicycling America XXXXXV. First Evening on Dauphin Island, Alabama, December 23,2018.
(Mostly) Bicycling America XXXII. Oil Rigs in Gulf of Mexico, Dauphin Island, Alabama, December, 2018. Well, as per my last post, this was shot while I was on Dauphin Island. There was a beach near where I was staying (well, there was beach everywhere, as the island was quite narrow) with a bunch of these large, covered gazebos that were up on stilts, which gave one a heightened view of the surrounding beach and waters. I used the railing, roof posts, and bottom edge of the roof as framing guides for this shot. Turned out quite nicely I think! Words can not explain at my shock at the number of oil platforms out there (not just in this picture); they're EVERYWHERE, and at night light up the horizon like the lights of small villages seen from a mountain pass in the distance.
New Orleans, December 2019, XI.
