Chattanooga Parking Lot
An extraordinary view from an ordinary place
Saturday, October 15, 2015
I’m waiting for the sky to darken to achieve a balance of light between subject and sky. I’ve practiced this a thousand times before: set up the large format camera, and wait, wait, wait. I took up a habit of keeping a written record of my experiences during these times, when observations are not quite ready to be suspended…
It’s mid-October, but the breeze, more like wind, and the milky grey sky feel as if it’s late November.
Second day out of New York City and my mind has been all over the place. I know what I came here for but my trip has no purpose yet.
Up here on a parking lot roof in Chattanooga–the Choo Choo right next door, the sign jutting up into the sky, quite assertively. I am feeling pangs of isolation. The faint numbness of uncertainty — I’m not sure what this trip holds yet… it is 5:52 and the day is closing. I have a habit of questioning my purpose on the first couple days of heading out to photograph. I get so tired sometimes of having to pass through this stage of disinterest, to get into the feeling of working, but wasn’t it Diane Arbus who said that the “Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination…”?
I can relate to that. Whether one is working in the studio or landscape, it is the process of working that becomes the driving force. Steaming through those hours or days of frustration in order to achieve a decent picture, or a line of text.
Assertive choo-choo, indeed.
