man & nature # 80 ~ here today, gone tomorrow
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 01:08PM 
Castle at the Land Of Make-Believe ~ Upper Jay, NY • click to embiggenOK, OK. I get it. Not only do you not want to entertain the notion of responsibility in your picture making, you have no opinion on what kind of pictures, in these perilous times, might be more appropriate than others. So, let me give at least one suggestion about what kind of pictures might be called for.
It seems to me that over the next couple of years there will more than ample opportunities to make pictures of things that are disappearing. Things that used to be. Heaven knows we've got lots of examples of those things that are already littering the landscape here in the good ole US of A but I have a sinking feeling that their numbers are about to dramatically increase.
Take our village hardware store - part of a NE chain of hardware stores - that was there on this past Sunday but gone on Monday. It was Main Street's biggest "anchor" tenant. The wife and I patronized the place on fairly regular basis, even to the point that during our recent home renovations we regularly received thank-you cards in the mail signed by the local staff.
The hardware chain's home office - the chain did not fold, just our store - has promised that they have not abandoned our village and that they will explore the possibility of opening a smaller store. Only time will tell regarding that pledge.
However, that said, the problem will be that of a big hole on Main Street because the chain owns the building and has announced its intent to sell it. That may be a bit of wishful thinking in the current state of real estate affairs so we may be looking at a big hole that just sits there for a long time.
In any event, you can read about the castle pictured in today's entry here.
Reader Comments (9)
As soon as I saw the castle I knew at once what and where it was. Back in the 50's my parents made many summer trips "up north" on Rte 9 from Poughkeepsie to places like the Land of Make Believe, Storytown, Frontier Town, Indian Village and the North Pole and because someone took the time to take "snapshots" of "Things that used to be.", I now have bags full of pictures and negatives of my time as a child and places that are no longer there, that my family sent me when my mother died.
And I could not agree more of how important it is to document these things.
I take pictures of things that are disappearing. Anywhere from "just ceased operation" to "right before gone forever." I don't do it out of a sense responsibility to anyone or anything. I don't personally buy the whole "saving the memory of this place for future generations" crap. That's all fine and well, but it ain't my reason. I do it because these subjects fascinate me. Yeah I could write a big essay about death and entropy and all that, but I like it better when I don't have to. I like it better when I find a location and get there at the right moon phase and weather conditions and make a great photo and print it and look at it and think to myself..."damn, that car/plane/building/etc. was crazy cool and what a lot of fun I had."
To be honest having to do with old things is a bit of a nightmare, at least here where I live, you can't even take a walk without having to consider the time in which something has been built or made in 3000 years (and sometimes even more). But I have to agree that taking views of how it is now, before some conservationist comes in to mummify it restoring its supposed original appearance, could make a sense.
Instead of the "saving the memory of this place for future generations" how about the "be warned lest this happen to you" angle?
I definitely buy the wghole "those who don't learn are doomed to repeat" and therein lies a job for the photographer.
Of course there is another angle - we just don't matter. I've been checking out the images at Astronomy Photo of the Day. Now there's a collection of images to make you feel like less than a mote on a speck.
Eventually history forgets us, we don't matter much. maybe there is a responsibility to issue that reminder.
Martin you reminded me this Monty Python song.
Women's suffrage took several hundred years of work and abolition took several hundred years as well. We don't have several hundred years to turn global warming around. It's already here. At this point even if we changed everything right now all we could do is not make it as bad. I think as individuals we are too scared and selfish to change. As a government/society we are to corrupt and timid to change. It's the problem of the commons. Everyone is going to graze as many sheep as possible before the square is turned to sand. Damn our children.
We are doomed.
So, every photograph is a picture of things that are disappearing. The big question is what's to replace it. Are we going to bounce down the same path pretending that recycling a little plastic and paper is going to save us, or are we going to make big fundamental changes to save our grandkids.
You know, in some way I think we deserve what's coming. But what about the future generations. And what about those in this world that haven't lived a greedy consumerist lifestyle, those that we've impoverished to make our wealth, those living simple lives in other parts of the world. Do they deserve our fate. And what good will our responsible pictures do them.
I have often thought of my pictures as in a long line of pictures of the disappearing. I see my landscape pictures within a line of exploration of the land. You could go back to the expedition pictures of the west from the likes of Jackson, the exploration of the wild landscape. Then we have the New Topographics, the exploration of mans effect on the landscape. Now we have my photographs and others like me, the exploration of natures effect on the manmade landscape. You see, ever changing, ever disappearing. What will appear in it's place?
Bill, the planet's not doomed - if anything it's the comfortable environment that supports human life. The planet and life will go on nicely without us. Like I say, we're insignificant in the big scheme of things.
After my posts I watched this George Carlin interview and and at the 18:45 mark his discussion relates to my posts and Martin's posts.