The weather forecast for this weekend is snow, but how much we will get no one seems to agree on, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I am hoping for a lot of it, as I really like snow! We are already into our third month here in 2019, even though it seems as if it just started, and though I am ready for spring, winter is loath to let loose and allow spring its time. One sign of winter is gone, though; the skating rink closed on the 28th of February and will not open again, even with the climate change induced new ice age, until next winter.
I once again got to the park a bit on the late side, having gone to see some of the young people I’ve been working with as they performed the musical Chicago at their high school. It was a great performance with one of our shy girls bursting out of her shell as Velma Kelly, murderess extraordinaire. A project such as I have undertaken in Forest Park 365 is quite a challenge (which is why I am doing it), requiring me to think each day about where I will go, what I will photograph, and what my theme will be. I find, just as I did when I did this in 2009 - http://www.forestpark365.com, that serendipitous adventure tends to happen by happy accident, and very little that I plan works out as I plan it.
Walking where I have walked before tends to reveal new things, sights I have somehow overlooked in the past. It also demands from me a closer look, a more thorough inspection, and a reimagining of just what it is I am look for and at. So far there has been a certain sameness to the scenery, particularly on gray, overcast days (and we have had a lot of those). When spring arrives, though, the scenery will start to rapidly change. These trips to the park require me, however, to drop my preconceived notions and just look. I am not always able to successfully translate what interests me into a concise image, an image that either brings harmony to its elements or achieves dissonance in a visually arresting way. But that is what I am trying to do.
I always seem to be at the intersection of Art & Life.