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Hexagram 18

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How do I tell this so that you know what I felt?

It was a cloudless Texas day. On photo-safari, I followed the railroad tracks to an interstitial stream that had carved out its path through rocks, about twelve feet deep where the short train bridge crossed it. Assorted refuse spotted the shoreline and snagged on the dead branches piled on the upstream side of the two narrow supports. Next to the bridge, just the top edges of an old pick-up truck and its front bumper showed through the dirt. It had been had been there long enough for the stream to cover almost all of it with earth from upstream, and now it sprouted some short, scrubby, unhealthy looking bushes. While my eyes could see it, there was no good angle to shoot it from that would let you feel it.

I saw a path into the vestigial woodland, and followed it past downed fences, just far enough so that I could no longer see the tracks. I came upon a homeless encampment. Though it seemed deserted I quickly retraced my steps. My curiosity drew me down a path on the other side of the bridge. Steeply sloped and covered with dry leaves, if I lost my footing I’d crash into the tumbled boulders filling the stream bed there. I grabbed at trees and branches and crabbed my way down and across until I found a place to stand. I stood on a flat boulder about four feet square, that tipped back and forth; there was only a few inches of movement but for a moment I thought the world was slipping out from under me.

A few seconds of deep silence came as I caught my breath, with no birds, no bugs or distant city sounds. The stream on this side was far less littered. I could imagine I was much further away in nature than a few hundred yards from a road, and houses.

All this time of course I had been looking for subjects and light worth making exposures of. Now, in the quiet, I turned off the camera. I breathed deeply, smelling old, dried, dusty mud from the rocks around me. I listened as the birds started up again and some small creature rustled in the underbrush. Suddenly I realized I was finished shooting, my creative energy depleted. I was thirsty, and so I decided to head back to where I’d parked.

I turned, slipped on the tippy rock and started to fall. I caught myself, crouching, just before my knee hit the rock - the wildly swinging camera on my neck came within millimeters of getting smashed. A couple of feet in front of me was an unlikely space created by several large rocks that leaned against each other. The bottom rock had ridges that looked like three steps. On top of that was a small, nearly cube shaped rock. With the enclosed area above it, it looked just like an alter. “That’s weird,” I thought. Then I realized that there was one more thing. Laying across the altar-stone was something familiar: a strip of 35mm film! It was as if someone had placed it there but, without having fallen as I had, no one else would ever have seen the angle of view that created the “altar”.

I picked up the film. It had been weathered for a long time. No emulsion remained, just the translucent film base. Cloudy from exposure to the elements, with dents and creases and even some traces of mud. I couldn’t begin to imagine the story of how it got there.
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(I scanned the film six different ways, as a transparency, a negative, a positive, a reflective object and so on. I took each scan and collaged them in PS Elements, using various blending modes. I created a background that seemed to enhance the effect I was getting, and added a black frame. I named it after the I Ching, Hexagram 18 : Work On What Has Been Spoiled.)
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al-evans's avatar
Jeez, the hexagram of my life! Beautiful story and beautiful work!