"... ceases to grow and, with us, heads toward oblivion"

I Recently was reading a wonderful article about the demise of Polaroid to digital photography in The New York Times that got to the root of what many of us love about Polaroid so much. You can read it in it's entirety here. I especially enjoy this quote, "... that was part of the beauty of the Polaroid. Mystery clung to each impending image as it took shape, the camera conjuring up pictures of what was right before one's eyes, right before one's eye. The miracle of photography, which Polaroids instantly exposed, never lost its primitive magic. And what resulted, as so many sentimentalists today lament, was a memory coming into focus on a small rectangle of film." 

This past fall I was on a mini adventure to Cape Cod when we pulled off the road to make a photograph of two wonderful plastic chairs in a stand of trees. After I snapped a few and was getting ready to head back to the car I spotted this jaw bone stuck in one of trees. It clearly had been placed there by someone, very carefully wedged in. I really enjoy the way that people interact with their landscape creating markers of their home. The human interruption of nature, when their touch is connected and calculated, that is what makes it so wonderful. 

Jaw Tree © Amanda Kilton 2008

Hay!

Haystacks at Giverny Claude Monet (pencil on paper)

Driving around any country landscape, big fields everywhere are dotted with a large variety of haystacks. Hay is grown for many reasons, it’s most prominent uses is as animal feed, particularly for grazing. According to the site Mother Earth News, you can expect a cow to eat about 35 pounds of hay a day during cold weather and a horse will eat 44 while sheep and goats will get by on a little over five. The intricate history of hay can be found on Wikipedia, but basically early on in farming's history it was noticed that in the spring fields produced more hay then could be consumed by the animals, so by cutting it, drying and storing it for the winter saved the domesticated animals from digging though the snow to feed and provided them better nutrition.
Haystacks, Evany Gruwald Bela

This all was to be done by hand cutting the hay by scythe and then gathered up into large bundles called sheafs with the development of technologies, this was latter done by horse drawn implements and then latter with machinery such as the tractor and the baler. Large rectangle bails or more commonly huge rolls of hay we see drying in the fields; they are markers of the places we inhabit and part of our landscape. Artist for years have been examining them and their function in our space. Harvest in Provence, Vincent van Gogh

This brings to mind the a quote from John Huddleston, “A photograph that appears almost ordinary and yet evokes a sense of truth and beauty is all the more meaningful. The mundane makes up most of ones life and it is to everyday life that we need to feel more connected.” Perhaps that is why artists such as Monet, (who painted and sketched many versions of the same stacks though out his career), and countless others including Van Gogh and Bela felt compelled to produce work featuring the haystack. This past weekend when I was home photographing I was visiting a local farm down the street from my grandmothers house the owner showed me several stacks of hay that her husband and children had done using traditional methods.

East Street, Hebron CT © Amanda Kilton 2007

Brownells

Part of what makes up place is how it changes over time. Last winter when I was out photographing with my Father we happened to be in Moodus. He and my Mother use to work at a factory called Brownell co. and hadn’t seen it in years so we set out in that direction. Brownell was Founded in 1825 to supply twisted line and fiber ropes, cords and nets to commercial fisherman; now they produce everything from archery chord, tennis nets to cargo nets for helicopters. When we first turned into the ice covered driveway just in front of us on the left was two strange metal structures covered in brittle vines. As it turns out these structures were built by my Father to test cargo nets. After a little digging Dad found photo of them in their hay day being used.

Going Home

My favorite thing about photographing in the area around where I grew up, which happens to be a small town, so I’m sure this is similar for any one who frequents those types of towns, are the people and their stories. Their personalities and hearts that are part of making up the landscape in which they inhabit. Every time I get in my car and just drive in circles around dirt roads that I’ve seen for years but never driven down before searching, when ever I stop I meet some of the most kind spirited, and interesting people. If it were not for them and their consistent reworking of their land, and desire to hold onto the life that they have always known in this place as it is rapidly changing and more houses and roads are being built, I would have no one to go home to.
This particular photo of the wood stacked on the front porch, belonged to an older gentleman, who grew up in this house. He now lives there with his elderly mother and a nurse who helps him care for her, both of which only speak polish. When his mother, who was just a child and his grand parents emigrated here from Poland they bought this farmhouse in the mid 1900 (it was built in 1812). He told me that it is built of chestnut, and will never have to be rebuilt, because, it’s the strongest wood there is and it will never rot. The farm is still in operation and he hays the land and sells firewood; he also keeps a beehive.
Photo: Route 207, Lebanon CT © 2007 Amanda Kilton