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
