then and now, and now, and now
cherry blossom sentinels
TL; DR: coppers, flappers, preachers, pre-ers, pee-ers, eaters…
Two cherry trees stand as sentinels in a field of cement, witnesses to the human folly, frivolity and phenomenally beautiful activities around them: weddings, shootings, celebrations, protests, romance, senescence…
Rephotography is where the same site is photographed from the exact same position at a later date to show changes over time — diachronic “then and now” views, which can highlight how the architecture, environment, economy, technology, population, social milieus and society has changed (or not) over time. You see an elegant ‘50s diner from the same corner shot 75 years later: it’s now a prosaic Tim Horton’s*.
Time-lapse photography in contrast tracks the changes of one particular event over a period of time, like say a flower growing from sprout to bloom.
The set of images from The Window in this post are a hybrid of time-lapse and rephotography — you see the changes over time (i.e. the trees bud, bloom, leaf), but the photos are more like “then and now and now and now” because they capture various changes in activity at one location over a period of time. (Short though: two years, the length of the project.)
The first set of photographs** for The Window project used the two trees as the focal point — the idea was to show the zeitgeist, but as it occurs on the periphery, like most history.***
Ansel Adams said this: “I have photographed Half Dome innumerable times, but it is never the same Half Dome, never the same light or the same mood…” Same said for The Trees.
Families walk their kids Sunday morning, the young boys and girls using the cement ledge as a balance beam. They are unaware that a SWAT team was at the same location 5 hours earlier looking for a gun thrown into the planter…
Later that day, a man with a portable speaker steps up on the 4” ledge and uses it as a pulpit to preach (in Chinese) to no one…
… and even later that day partiers “pre”, sneaking drinks beside the trees before hitting the club; then after midnight, a man urinates in the same planter, and still later a man who only walks his dog at 3 am lets his dog defecate there just before arguing with the police…
…while the next morning city workers might plant prairie grasses in the same spot…
… and just a few hours after that an older woman unrolls her sleeping bag for a hard nap and a change of clothes in the exact place that an NBA star, four hours along, would step into his $500,000 Rolls Royce.
Ansel had seasons and light and mood.
What he didn’t have was activity.
NOTES:
-*I’m sure there’s a poetic Tim Hortons coffee shop out there somewhere, but whatever
-**The photo of the Scottish/Sikh wedding parade above was the catalyst for The Window as a single large durational portrait composed of smaller individual portraits (and as a representation of the 21st century city moving through cultural, economic, technological and environmental shifts.
-***Locations other than the Trees eventually crept it — the Crosswalk, the Stairs, the Sidewalk — but I kept returning to the trees as a centering device throughout the series.
PREVIOUS IMAGE POSTS:
Berst of 23 (and a second after)
U-haul Psalm
BONUS PHOTO:
