Reflecting on Time - Rolls 216-220
I am constantly aware of the flow of time. This fact may be obvious to those who follow my work, as I tend to post photos in an observable rhythm during any given month, especially this year; first I share film photos taken during the same month of the previous year, then towards the end post a batch of images from my phone project, The World You Can't Contain/The Conduit. I have known for a while that time is one of the basic frameworks for my art, but only recently have I begun considering why that is. Several possible reasons have come to mind, chief among them the idea that being raised as a Seventh-Day Adventist gave me an instinctive sense of time thanks to the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest that members of the church structure their lives around. Growing up, the Sabbath was a blessing and a curse, a time both to set aside worldly things (no feeling guilty about not doing homework between Friday and Saturday night!) and reset spiritually (spending time with family, taking nature walks, going to church, etc.) but also a time where certain things were prohibited, like watching TV or going out to eat, which frustrated me when I wanted to enjoy those things on the weekend. Whether I liked it or not—and I'm not trying to be disparaging, as I do think a day of rest is indispensable for a balanced life—the Sabbath was always the immutable moment in time around which my life was ordered, which naturally instilled in me an innate awareness of time's passage. Even now that I don't keep the Sabbath as an adult, that awareness has remained, imparting a specialness to the markers by which we keep track of time; the beginnings and ends of months, of seasons, of years, all mean something to me and often give me a boost of creative energy with which to meet the moment. This is what happened last December, as the impending end of 2024 compelled me to make one last trip into the Ordered World and bring the year to a close on a strong note.
Another reason that I give such emphasis to time in my work is that my chosen medium of film intersects with this chronal awareness in a particular way. Unlike digital photos, images shot on film are naturally organized by the roll they are on; since I rarely begin and end a roll on different days, this is a grouping related to time as well as the physical format. Because I am hyper-focused on such things, I can't let a month pass without shooting at least a roll of film for the sake of completeness (I would hate to have no film to represent a month), which has helped keep me photographing even when I don't always feel like it. Thankfully, these photos I took at the beginning of December were not driven by such desperation. I knew I wanted to shoot something, of course, but I genuinely felt the call to enter the Ordered World once more as the year waned. Also, unlike our current December, the weather was very pleasant, which helped encourage me to get out there as well! Around Thanksgiving I had taken the South Shore Line to Chicago for the first time with Malia and her mom, and while on the train I had seen many different spots that caught my eye and looked worthy of approaching with my camera. This became the template for my route that second Sunday of the month, and I made my way through Ardmore, Lydick, New Carlisle (the most Pennsylvania-coded town I've ever seen in Indiana), La Porte, and Michigan City, before bringing the day to a close in the swamps of Beverly Shores. I don't think I've ever shot five rolls of medium format film in a day until this one, but I kept seeing one glorious thing after another, and I feel that I was responding to the wonder and light around me in the best way possible. I didn't shoot any more film after this day until the new year, and I wonder if that was also driven by my sense of time; these photos are the perfect coda to a year full of growth and joy, and they fulfilled my need to end this moment in a good and appropriate way. Looking back at that day from a dark and snowy present, I am thankful for the experience, and am confident that there will be many more moments like this waiting for me in the future!
Crumstown, Indiana.
Crumstown, Indiana.
Crumstown, Indiana.
Ardmore, Indiana.
Kenrose Motel, US-20, Indiana.
Lydick, Indiana.
Lydick, Indiana.
Carris Reels, Inc, New Carlisle, Indiana.
New Carlisle, Indiana.
New Carlisle, Indiana.
New Carlisle, Indiana.
New Carlisle, Indiana.
New Carlisle, Indiana.
Maple City Car Wash, La Porte, Indiana.
Holy Family Parish (Sacred Heart Catholic Church), La Porte, Indiana.
Holy Family Parish (Sacred Heart Catholic Church), La Porte, Indiana.
Fishtrap Lake, La Porte, Indiana.
Pine Lake Cemetery, La Porte, Indiana.
Pine Lake Cemetery, La Porte, Indiana.
Michigan City, Indiana.
Michigan City, Indiana.
Beverly Shores, Indiana.
Beverly Shores, Indiana.