Return of the Macro
Visiting my sister Kassandra to watch her newest dance performed a few weekends ago, I decided to use the scenery on the road and in Pittsburgh to improve my photography skills.
Soon after turbines beckoned me forward,
I pulled off to examine cornstalks and admire the sky.
The next day, while Kassandra readied for the second show, I first searched for typography;
then for the Carnegie Museum of Art.
I was distracted by the light through the leaves and, turning to my left, suddenly felt as though I had wandered onto a set.
The flip side of downtowns made out of money is a wealth of antiseptic sidestreets; walking them reminded me of visiting eerie Grey Beach, Florida, where The Truman Show was filmed. Spying the requisite locally painted animal sculpture (are there triceratopses all over Pittsburgh or only across the street from the museum, I wonder?)
I crossed the street and felt nothing bad could happen to me going through a door like this.
Gazing up in the Hall of Statues,
playful letters peeked through the panes, making me wonder if, perhaps, I had entered Bembo’s Zoo.
Back outside, the windows looked soft, as though I were now in a Dali painting,
and I headed toward the most appropriate location for my photography lesson: the Cathedral of Learning.
The building itself is an imposing structure,
so I approached it from a slant.
A pair of old women cackled on a bench behind me, trading stories, guarding the gates. Something in their laughter and the sight of the flowers near the doors reminded me of the opening scene of My Fair Lady, when the women sit on curbs, gossiping while they wrap flowers to sell.
I thought they might turn me into a gargoyle, although I didn’t see any decorating the edifice;
fortunately, I remembered that red doors promise luck; mine held, and summoning the autodidact within, I entered this bastion of knowledge.
Inside, I was drawn to details: the brass gates, the linoleum,
before finding the bank of elevators.
Reveling in the faux oak panelling and burnished number panel, I stretched out on the worn carpet and pointed my lens at the fluorescent lights, to the bemusement of potential fellow passengers who seemed somewhat alarmed when the door opened.
Undaunted, I spun around to catch the triumphant formation of birds as I left and ran to record their flight over the museum.
I passed T’ai Chi practicioners in the park,
and spotted this crest of sorts with my grandfather’s initials in his kind of handwriting.
The official family photographer for years (he has graciously passed the title to my talented sister Katrina), I could almost hear the familiar clicking of his camera shutter between the pestering questions I have always asked at inconvenient moments; I thought about collecting images, pruning, and gardens of forking paths as I came upon a church.
How to convey the attachment I felt at that moment to past familial encouragement? I tried to choose the less obvious, partially obscured view.
Many hours later, I returned to Charlottesville and the afternoon sun on dandelions outside my neighorhood.
Dandelions are, of course, weeds in suburbia. Plucked, they sprout again, gangly, stubborn, defiant; illuminated by attention, though, even nuisances have moments of grace.
The entire image gallery is on Flickr.
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Posted Thursday, October 19th, 2006, 6:25 pm | Filed in Photography, Travel. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
