Same day.

On 7.24.10, I took this random picture of a dead bird in Portland, ME. On 7.24.11 in Manchester, NH, as I was sitting and reading on my lunch break, a small bird being chased by a crow flew between my feet.  He sat there for about 20 minutes, until the coast was clear and I had shouted away the crow. I felt almost dumbfounded and found something entirely admirable in his choice.

I've been trying to think of what to do with all the photos from my cell phone, maybe it lies somewhere in correlations of dates such as this.

Mile Markers.

The three of us went to art school together, before we all split directions: Meghan went home to Florida, before settling in Portland; Anthony tried moving to Salt Lake City to study under a master painter, coming back home low on money, then leaving again; I ran away to documentary school as fast as I could and since then haven't sat still too long, usually only keeping in touch through postcards.

We all regrouped in Portland last winter for a few days, before Tony left again for the west. While looking at this image, I realized that the two of them have become a sort of mile marker for me. Despite my ability to disappear from contact, our friendship has become one of the main ways too trace distance, growth, and time both through my photography and life.

Anthony and Meghan, Portland, ME. 2011

Anthony, Manchester, NH. 2010

Meghan, Manchester, NH. 2009

Brief encounters.

    I've always struggled to accept that some people will pass but only briefly through my life. I grew up in a rural town, population about 1,000, so most figures were relatively consistent throughout my childhood. As I began to branch into the surrounding world, brief acquaintances would put a stranglehold on my emotions.
    As I grew older it grew easier, but to this day having a conversation with someone on the subway for five minutes leaves me feeling anxious as we part ways. It's a long ways from the kid who would choke up at the quick kindness of strangers, soon to disappear, but still such a curious thing.

    I met Marie in Brooklyn over winter-break, as she couch-surfed at some friends' apartment. An avid cyclist, early in the week she mentioned her desire to have a portrait taken in Times Square with her bike. As the week progressed, the more we discussed this opportunity and the more I, too, felt engaged to the idea.
    We wound up heading to Manhattan just as the sun set, as Marie had specified, with another surfer named Annette. By this point, I'd spent all week envisioning our quest, and felt no reserve in shooting an entire roll of film or having to eventually pay for the processing. I'm not sure if the end result is what either of us had hoped for, but I'm quite fond of this photograph, regardless - as I am of the time I was fortunate to spend walking Brooklyn with Marie, and the other irreplaceable people I've met there.

    As far as photography factors into this,  I'm not sure if I'd forget an image or a memory first, or if one unnecessarily, if at times uncomfortably, lingers due to the other. Does being able to photograph any fleeting thing simply just smear nostalgia across the board and prevent the inevitable acceptance of the ephemeral?
  

Marie, Times Square, NYC

Along for the ride.

    I feel as though I've spent much of my life sitting in the passenger seat, or stuffed in a bus/train. Especially over the last few years, most of the film I get back contains images of the back seat or out dirty windows. This one takes the cake, though.

I-95 through ME, near Portland.