When I saw it at the flea market, I was drawn to it like a zombie to whatever zombies are drawn to. I saw nothing else. It was a worn, weathered wooden box with all sorts of torn labels on it. Small, but it weighed a ton. Four metal rods with bolts held the whole thing together at the corners.
It didn't matter what was in it. It looked amazing and it felt most impressive.
As a little girl, I was attracted to pirate chests, boxes, the mysteries of what might be inside. Jewels? Gold? Maps to buried treasure? Childhood memories welled up as I gazed at this incredible box.
Chris (luckily — or not — a fellow boxophile) and I fumbled at the bolts, quickly unscrewing them to lift the lid and see the contents.
It was a box of glass slides. Glass lantern slides. An educational travelogue from the 1920s or 1930s, designed to be shipped to educators here and there, to show students photos of other countries. Included in the box was a typewritten script, on onionskin paper, for the lecturer to follow as the photographs appeared on the screen.
The glass slides depict scenes in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Naturally, I would have preferred a set of slides depicting America's national parks, but frankly, the slides were a bonus! It was the BOX that was magical.
Yesterday I began photographing the outside of the box. Oh, man! Peeling paper. Crackled paint. Numbers. Letters. Torn postage stamps. Grunge.
As an aside: When I begin a photomontage, sometimes I purposely start with a square format. In this case, I began with a rectangular format. When I do this, however, I always look to see if the piece would be more effective as a square. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. In this case, I just don't know. I like the horizontal sweep of the rectangular format, but also like the impact of the square. What do you think?
It's something for you to consider with your own work. Just for the heck of it, try squarifying some of your photos to see what happens. Using the crop tool, create a second — square — composition just to see what happens. You might be amazed.
But not as amazed as I am right now with this funky old wooden box, I'll wager! Treasure without. Treasure within. And more to come. ©Carol Leigh
Misty morning our first day on Sanibel Island -- just gorgeous. And then snowy egrets wade in the surf while pelicans roost in the trees, catching the morning sun. The trees were FULL of pelicans! Sometimes as many as 24 in one tree. Cabby, was thinking of you while seeing all this. More to follow -- Internet access has been spotty and my photo processing extremely rudimentary. Have experienced no-see-ums for the first time. Ha! Having a swell time. Wish you were here. --Carol Leigh
To give you an idea of where I've been shooting the past week, here's an overview of the pot yard in Newport. There were fewer crab pots there today because a lot are now being loaded onto the boats. The games begin the day after Thanksgiving, when they head out to "soak" the pots. Wish I was going to be here to photograph as they head out to sea, but nope, will be on the road by then.
As I wandered around the pot yard in Newport, it began raining harder and harder and so we left to go to the library. Then, during a brief break in the weather, we headed back again so I could shoot some more. Chris had plenty to read, and I had plenty to shoot — perfect combo. (And it doesn't hurt that Chris has plenty of patience!) The skies were fairly dark and the buoys just gleamed.
A brief window in the weather opened up and we headed north to run some errands. We stopped at Seal Rock, however, because the sky was turning BLACK! I scrambled up a little hill to take some shots and was almost blown over by strong winds, but oooh, a rainbow! Along the historic bayfront in Newport there were crab pots stacked up against a Moby Dick mural, so naturally had to shoot that. And then on to the pot yard, where I've never seen so many crab pots and piles of buoys -- everything ready for crab season that begins next week. Photos of the pot yard to follow. ©Carol Leigh
