Photography: The Spirit of the Place
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2010
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8
16
Trip End
Jul 26, 2010
New York, United States
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Even streetscapes that aren't conventionally beautiful can surprise you with what's just around the corner. The busy boulevard of 125th street in Harlem, near where we live, is not a particularly appealing scene. Low-end clothing shops and discount retailers compete with fast food chains, hustlers, and street vendors hawking cheap sunglasses and watches. The streets are filled with trash. But somebody decided to paint a mural on the side of the H&M building testifying to Harlem's history as the cradle of the Civil Rights movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and Jazz, and reminding this bleak stretch of street what it once was and might one day be again. You see it and remember that there's more to this place than what it's become, or what it appears to be on its surface. Maybe that's the whole point of such public art projects. If any city should have an opinion about the issue, it's Medellin, Colombia, which is bursting at the scenes with public art, from the Rubinesque "gorditos" of Fernando Botero to murals painted by obvious acolytes of Diego Rivera. But the cleverest of them all definitely has to be this mural of a sea of shanties, painted on the side of what seems to be just another shanty. It seems to be making a point about urban expansion, but the greatest thing about it is that it's a trompe de l'oeil of what surrounds it. Looking at it, it so perfectly blends into the scene that you're passing on the light rail it abuts that you almost don't realize it's a mural. It captures the spirit of its place by mimicking that place ironically, almost mockingly.
Of course, there are some places you don't visit for the streetscapes or the public art. Santa Marta, Colombia definitely falls into this category: its tourist strip, with high-rise industrial-looking condos filling every available space, illustrates the worst excesses of unregulated urban development. But nobody goes to Santa Marta for the city. You go for the natural beauty just a stone's throw away from it, and for the beach. And when you see this photograph of two fishermen paddling past the sunset in their canoe, you understand what defines Santa Marta beyond its touristy side. The same can be said of Florida beach scenes. Much of St Pete Beach or Ft Myers Beach consists of condos, hotels, cheesy fabricated beachside "villages," amusement parks, and McMansions. But when you get to the beach, all of that disappears. You feel calm, peaceful, soothed. That's the spirit of Florida's beaches -- the one that this photograph of me by my husband perfectly captures.
And now for my favorite of the group: this long-distance portrait of a blacksmith at work in Colonial Williamsburg. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Colonial Williamsburg is a living history museum where actors and artisans in period costume behave like colonial Virginians. This blacksmith plied her trade while her fellow blacksmiths took audience questions. The photograph captures her obliviousness to the crowd, her intense focus, her quietness in what was otherwise a noisy scene. I love everything about this photograph -- the play of shadows and light, the way the color of her hair matches the ruddy red of her apron, the strange alienation that distance produces. But most of all, I love how it feels, when looking at it, that we're privy to a quiet, private moment. We're voyeurs, in a sense. This photograph places the viewer in a position that exactly replicates the position we're meant to assume in Colonial Williamsburg, where we're encouraged to "spy" on our ancestors in order to encounter history in a unique way. In that way, it perfectly captures the spirit of this place.
