Floyd, aka Spiritwalker, in Leicester, NY.
I realised today that i have yet to really speak about my photography - how i am approaching everything that i have been talking about. There's a reason for this though, and the reason is that i still don't really have a clue what i'm looking for. Now, don't get me wrong, i have been photographing; albeit probably too much. My friend Thomas Brannigan advised me before we left that i should not get too trigger happy. He advised to think about what i'm looking for before wildly pointing my camera at something. This has proved difficult though. Partially due to my uncertainty with what i'm after, and also because i'm still enveloped by America's cliches - a motel sign here, a gas station there. I'm hoping that by obsessively shooting these, i will tire quickly and move on to more interesting subject matter, but this hasn't happened as quickly as i had hoped. Hitting New York brought on a whole new world of visual motifs that i recognise through cinema and television; the yellow cabs, the towering buildings and the steaming manholes. It's hard to move past as it's these symbols that i have clutched onto closely all of my life; having never been to America previously, my identity has been formed on experiences i have appropriated from the media.
So, what have i been photographing? I guess most of it falls under the vague genre of street photography, although this can be a misleading term. Often, it suggests playful compositions, humour and is frequently more about the single image rather than a larger narrative. The images i've been taking tread a line between this and social documentary. I've also been forcing myself to speak to people. My previous work has always had a certain distance between myself and the people in the frame. In City Stories this was because of social anxieties and an interest in telling untruths about the people in the frame. When i went to Russia, i was distant to the people in Four Hours East because of cultural and language barriers, but i didn't push myself too much to try and overcome these. I enrolled myself on the MA at LCC partially in an attempt to push myself forward with this, to overcome my anxieties and find out more about people. As i've heard many a photographer say, the camera is a passport into people's lives, a sentiment i had always been sceptical of but soon believed after meeting people in the USA. Although Americans are so friendly that i'm not sure the presence of the camera actually mattered.
Tonight (and i'm skipping ahead a bit with the story here, but i will catch up) we pulled over in the small American town of Leicester, NY. Bekky had been driving us through the evening whilst i scanned the horizon for things to photograph. We coasted past a trailer park - one unlike i had ever seen portrayed on television. This one was pristine, well maintained and attractive. In front of the trailers was a group of people cutting down a tree; brimming with the excitement of being out of America's cities for the first time, i shouted to pull over.
Susie, Leicester, NY.
'Fancy helping?' said one of the ladies as we walked closer.
'Sure!' i replied, although i was quickly assured that she was joking, laying down her tools to come and chat.
'I'm Susie, this is Margaret and Floyd'.
The three of them were sad to be cutting the tree down, it sat outside Margaret's trailer and had provided shelter through many year's of burning summer sun. Unfortunately, it had died and began rotting - one of the branches fell off a couple of weeks back, damaging the her roof. The risk of a larger branch falling meant that it had to come down.
The conversation changed away from the tree when Floyd began telling us about a festival going on near them at the weekend, The Stone Tool Technology Show at Letchworth Park. Floyd would be involved in leading a workshop on carving tools out of bone, a hobby of his that he has turned into an art form. He cared a lot about spiritual means of living and had a lot of respect for the native Indians that lived there before himself. He once found a peace pipe churned up by the farmer's plough which he donated to the Indian Heritage Museum. The smaller of the sisters, Margaret, ran off into her trailer, coming back with three unusually shaped rocks.
'These are real, Indian arrowheads.' She told us how they were likely made in the 1700s. Her and her husband had found these again in the churned up, ploughed farmers fields. 'Whatever is on the surface is meant to be found'.
She passed them to us to inspect. There was no doubting that they were arrowheads, they had suffered a bit of damage but their shapes were intact. It then dawned on me that i could be holding something that once killed a man.
'You can have them!' she told us, to our amazement. We couldn't believe the generosity of someone we had met thirty minutes previous. 'We have loads, don't worry.' Margaret quickly disappeared again, this time returning with her husband. He told us some more details about their hobby before noticing Bekky's jumper - a deep blue holding the US Navy crest, he had been in the Navy when he was younger. Having known little about Joey's experience of the navy, i asked him a few questions about his time - he served on an aircraft carrier, much like my grandfather. This was the first of many weird little coincidences; i allowed myself to believe that these were a sign that we were on the right track.
Susie and Margaret, Leicester, NY.
Just before setting off on the road again, Floyd brought the topic of conversation back around to the festival. He suggested that we come along, persisting in trying to convince us by telling us about the home-grown marajuana and moonshine that would be available there. All you need is one cup of watermelon brew and you'll be on the floor. As amazing as this offer was, we didn't have enough time in our schedule to hang around for the festival. We made promises of keeping in contact via email/Facebook and suggested we would try to attend next year - i really meant it as well. As we walked to the car, Margaret stopped us for one last question - 'Have you met the Queen?'.
This was the first encounter that we had with amazing people from a completely different walk of life to our own. Cities are cities at the end of the day - as different as it was to be in Boston, an all-American metropolis, it echoed a similar pace of life and values as Manchester or London. To be out in rural America was amazing. I couldn't believe how welcoming these guys had been, this experience gave me a hunger to speak to everyone i saw.
