15.

     More pictures of my mom...these are all from my camping trip. They're quite spastic and all over the place but I think they appropriately display what I see of my mother during our trips to Maine. She really loves it, I wish I could say that I did too. 

14.

     I do not often photograph my father and when I do I decidedly make him out to be this big woodsman. It's not very hard, seeing as he is this big woodsman but I know that I exaggerate it a bit.   He is so in his element in the woods that photographing him in it is quite easy and he doesn't seem to mind. I have come to find myself quite miserable in such places for long periods of time, don't get me wrong - I love the woods but I love the woods in the fall and in the spring and for no longer than a matter of hours. That being said, I find it odd that my father would be so comfortable. I know how to be in the woods, I have experienced it and I grew up with it, it is just that I would prefer to be elsewhere. Maybe it's a generational thing.... 

13.

      But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.  The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought. 

The Old Man and the Sea

12.

     Camping is quite a barbaric practice. Why, if we have the technology to do otherwise, do people choose to go live as if they were lost in the wilderness? I mean, it was fun when I was young child, but now I really can't find the appeal in sleeping in the muggy woods, going to bed dirty and smelling of lobster (not exactly complaining about that) and smoke. I LOVE the smell of campfire but not on me as sleep - not when smelling of it was the easier/cheaper/potentially cleaner option for the night. I understand the monetary motivations but I would prefer to just go up to Maine for a day trip or to stay at an inn for less time and a highly nightly charge. I love Ogunquit, but no one in Ogunquit love those who aren't properly groomed and how is supposed to properly groom themselves in a campground? She's not. That's the point. 

      We always go camping for my mother's birthday, that is why I go. She calls it vacation. I call it that time when I have to bathe in public restrooms for $0.25 a 7 minutes of a shower - the temperature of which is constantly fluctuating from very hot to very cold. It's fun for the three or four day spouts that I am allotted from work, anything more would woefully unamusing. I'm glad my mother enjoys it, I'm glad that I'm home. 

      This trip was strange in other ways too. I kept feeling like I shouldn't be there - like I should be doing something productive, but I can't think of what I would have been doing....

      Oh, and this camping trip broke my iPhone. -___-

     

11.

     My mother picked her blueberries in the dark. "It's the only time I can get to it," she said running out in her new purple scrubs after dinner. It was actually sort of strange. She talks to herself, Bernard, me or the plants themselves - one of us, all of us, I don't know. "The birds - they go in the bushes and pick my berries," or "Watering the bush I'm picking from is not the smartest idea," as she pretty much sprayed herself with the hose she had set down by the base of the bush. Maybe that's the trick to a health garden - talk to the plants, care for them as people. No formalities but certainly no neglect. They are close friends. I think maybe some times she thinks of them as people. 

     "Look at this guy - ugliest one of them all but he has the most fruit. That's a good metaphor for life."

     "How so?"

     "Well, you know, you underestimate the ugly ones but then they bear the most fruit - they do the most good."

     Some times I feel like I'm the only holding the camera and I'm recording a senile old woman for AFV or a child for Kids Say the Darndest Things. I should probably help pick stuff next time but I might miss these nuggets of Charlotte-isms. 

HA, so many pictures of my mom. I need a new subject.

10.

     I love my mother's yellow eyes. I think the sentiment behind these pictures is better than the pictures themselves. My mother hates/is horrible at getting her picture taken - especially without make up. Today she let me. Luckily for me this decision fell on day of good light....Although, most of the time she was looking at herself in the reflection of the lens so she may have been a little too close, but hey - I like 'em. Third one down kind of looks like HBC. I love it. :D

9.

     There is not much to say about these images other than: I love snap peas they are - literally - one of my favorite things about summer and my mother is the only person you can find to garden in scrubs. I definitely probably should have helped picked some.

8.

      My Ma Tante has a little patch of green down the street from her home. Somewhere in between the old mill city and the new, somewhat shanty, city is this raspberry bush. I know that by the time I'm her age it will not be there, her home probably won't be, her street may not be but I will have the memory and the picture of that little raspberry bush.
     Is it strange that one of the only reasons I want so badly to photograph now is so that in 50 years I can show the young people of that generation what it was like for me? I am that kid that enjoys talking to old people, maybe even prefer it to people my own age, and learning what life was like in a different time. I want to be that old lady some day. I really can't wait for what I know now to be antiquated. I want to talk about the raspberry bush in the middle of one of NH's biggest cities. I want to talk about how people would hang canadian flags for the fourth of July. I want to tell them I remember when Kate married the prince.
     Everything is going to change - it must, which is nothing but frightening. I have a tendency to live in the past and I feel like I am already living in the past in the present from the future. That totally makes sense in my head. The point is, I really have to start living in the present for the present from the present.

7.

     I did pretty much nothing today. It was marvelous. But, I did make the most delicious gluten-free cookies I've ever had. I don't think that I've made cookies with my mother for years. That used to be our thing: cookies. Well, I guess I pretty much made them today. She was cooking ribs or spaghetti sauce or something but we spent some time in the kitchen with each other, which I guess isn't uncommon either. But I guess that is something she has with the 19-year-old me - cooking. Rita REALLY can't cook. Oh, the simple life.

6.

     I took these right after my little cousin ran around in the pouring rain. A new, but not surprising, subject I'm drawn to is children.  I genuinely miss the days when it was okay to run around in the rain. To be completely honest, I haven't left those times behind me. In most respects I am a child, so maybe my inclination to run around in the rain is one that I will grow out of, but I doubt it. I guess it is my wish that I do not grow out of it. Kids are not affected by societal bias - I love it. I am not saying that I believe that adults should be acting like kids and running a muck all day, but I think 'grown-ups' could learn a lot from children - how purely they live and think.

5.

     I really like and miss black and white. I have to start shooting with it again (a film camera would help, eh?).
     I can't help but attribute my love of black and white to my complete obsession with the early 20th century and the photographic/motion picture work to come out of it. But in its oldness, that some would consider outdated, there is also classic appeal and simplicity that I think really works for what I like to do. I can't decide whether I have to stop and live in 2011 or live in my delusions of 1943.

4.

     My first blog consisted of only photos. On this one I plan to do a lot more writing. After going to school I realized that photos without meaning, without thought can be empty. Although photographing beautiful things for the sake of beauty is equally as acceptable, something behind it is necessary, some personal connection.
      So, this blog will have not only my photos but my thoughts. My images will be accompanied by stream-of-conciousness blabber - most likely poorly articulated and improperly punctuated. I tend to think choppily and neglect to proof read. Any way, Tyra said that those who keep journals are better people. I don't know why or in what aspects of their life, but, I mean, it makes sense - so this will be my online journal that all of you can read. Yay you.
      Also, there is most likely be a reduced number of posts - I plan on only posting images that I deem internet-worthy and explanations of why I like them and/or what thoughts these images conjure out of my admittedly bizarre mind.

3.

     My older stuff can be found on my old blog, Snapshots. It goes all the way back to junior year in high school with the daily blog posts. #goodtimes
this should have been my first post....oh well.

2.

     Every 4th of July my family would go to my father's side camp down on the river. This year, neither my sister nor my father wanted to go. Maybe it is a desperate attempt to hold on to prematurely fading youthful ignorance, but I like the 'tradition' of the holidays. I like to see the people, I like to go to their homes. As I grow, I realize that people do many things with little joy and vacant smiles. They get together on the 4th of July not because they want to, but because they have to. This may be the one of the most childish things I've ever said, but if all adulthood is, is because-you-have-to and never because-you-want-to, then I do not want to grow up.  And I don't mean work, I know that we all must work, I mean living. I have come to realize that I don't think I know many truly happy adults. Am I diluted to think that people can be happy? I really hope the real world does not suck as much as I think it does. 

I love the holidays. 

and my dad washes his dog in the river. I don't think that's legal but hey - this is New Hampshire.