Angry Mob Mentality

What the hell are the Republicans doing at these campaign rallies? By yelling racial slurs and inciting violence, they are taking partisanship to an extreme and exhibiting Klanish behavior. Why is this acceptable behavior? WTF? I would love to see police in riot gear hose down a crowd at a Sarah Palin speech.

The Huff Post (of which I've vowed to be a more regular reader) quoted a former McCain campaign strategist this way:

John Weaver, John McCain's former top strategist, says the Republican candidate is making both a moral and a a tactical mistake by letting abusive hecklers have free rein at rallies:

"People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain," Weaver said. "And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive."

So guys, listen up. Not only is this mob mentality DANGEROUS, but it looks bad to the undecided independents. So despite your feeble attempts to call Obama a "good family man", and cull the anger, your crowds are out of control. What happens to that anger when Obama wins because the handful of indecisive voters see what a better leader Barack Obama will be over John McSame? Hide the guns, honey.

Image courtesy of Jason.

Portland v. Portland at Maine Roller Derby

Heather and I checked out the Maine Roller Derby on Saturday - my second bout ever. I went with Kas to a bout in New York this summer and watched the Bronx kick Manhattan's butt. Saturday was a mix of Portland teams competing, but still fun. I tried shooting it, but realized I will need a longer lens if I'm going to shoot any sports. My 28-70mm just doesn't cut it for these things. My thought is to get some sports shots in my portfolio in case I apply to newspaper jobs. It's not my favorite shooting to do, but necessary for any hometown newspaper. I think I'll try shooting a rugby or basketball game, or maybe ice hockey, since those are the sports happening now around here.

When You Meet Paul Bunyan...

...be sure to pet his dog.

I met a guy named Chuck this week, who has agreed to be the subject for my documentary project, and I'm elated. He's a Paul Bunyan-type, Renaissance man who has started a small farm on a piece of land he bought from a developer to prevent it from becoming lawns and new homes. He is determined to bring agriculture back to this area that hasn't been tilled since the 1960's, and to preserve the old way of life. He's building a barn that will be part museum, part educational center so the younger generations can learn from the past. He's a gentle giant, too, and this is his dog, Ace, an Australian Shepherd that likes to chase chickens.

I'll be posting more about Chuck and Ace in the coming weeks, but I don't want to reveal too much or post photos of him just yet. But let's just say, I'm totally psyched for this project. More to come...

Photo (c) Claire Houston/SALT, Ace at the Farm Stand, 2008

Pretty

This was the view from the ferry as it was leaving port today at 10:00am. So friggin' pretty!

Fall is Happening

Foliage is happening north of Portland, and it's GORGEOUS. I took a few shots out the window on the long drive back yesterday, and though it was overcast, the colors burst. I admit, I tweaked these shots a bit with brightness and saturation, but it's only to emphasize a point, not change the subject entirely.

We had a good day at the mill and UMaine, and we got an earful of things I never thought I'd ever need to know if life. We learned about things like, "forest products", acetic acid, cellulose (a food additive made of wood - think Wonder Bread!), and a whole slew of industry jargon and chemistry terms. We met with Dan at the Mill who used to be a mill worker for 28 years, but now acts as the HR manager. He also used to be VP of his labor union; it's an interesting story. This isn't the story I envisioned when I came to Salt, but it's not NOT interesting. I guess I'm interested in just about anything where I'm learning. Lucky me. We're still honing the story, but we've got a lot of information to start with, and thankfully, Larissa was recording the whole time.

Tomorrow, Marc and I are Damariscotta and Waldoboro bound in search of more winterization stories. I'll be sure to take more foliage shots for those of you who are missing the New England fall.

Vader Was Framed

Funny thing about Maine - they LOVE lobster around here. I've never been a fan myself, but I'm fascinated by these prehistoric looking creatures. They are some funky crustaceans. And moose. Lots of imagery with moose here, too. I haven't seen one yet myself, but I hope to, and hopefully not plastered to the windshield of my car.

Tomorrow I'm headed up to Old Town (true name) and Orono to do some research for my other collaborative project with Larissa. We're touring the Old Town Mill and interviewing some professors of forestry and engineering at the University of Maine. With a two hour drive each way, it's going to be a long day. I'm bringing my camera, but I'm skeptical that I'll get any good shots yet. I'm trying to keep an open mind. The writers can get more excited about their subjects early, but as a photographer, I've got to see it first before I can get excited about the project.

I loved this guy's shirt in the seafood store. He offered to pull out "a big one" to show me - how could I say no? He calculated that this lobster was (9) years old, based on its weight of 4lbs. NINE!? His shirt made my day.

Photo: Claire Houston/SALT (c) 2008: Vader Was Framed

Photos from the Common Ground Fair

Common Ground Country Fair

Yesterday, we bombed up to Unity, ME in Emily's grandma's car, the car her family made her give up because she's now too old to drive it. We stopped to take photos of wind turbines past the fields and farms along the way. We parked and walked through the trails, past the composting toilets and into the fair laid out in concentric circles. We got there in time to hear the keynote speaker, Gary Nabhan, talk about the loss of heritage breeds and species and the importance of organic farming on a small scale. He read two poems. Arch had sticker shock from the price of the food at the stands, and though some of it looked good, it didn't taste all that great. The falafel I had was bland, even with the tahini sauce and hot tomato and cilantro salsa. It made me miss Mamoun's on MacDougal.

It was a great fair though, with interesting people, exhibits, music, livestock & vegetables. I bought some local wildflower honey from a vendor. She said they haven't seen a drop in bee population this year, and I wondered if Maine had somehow avoided Colony Collapse Disorder that is panicking the food industry across the country. The honey is delicious...

We spent a good amount of time checking out the "tables" - the different organizations who table and give out information and promote themselves. We saw the Maine Socialist Party, Peace Action, Maine Public Library, Pagans, Planned Parenthood, community radio, Veterans Against the War, etc. One table I had never seen before, but I had heard of the organization: Project Laundry List, which promotes using clothes lines instead of dryers. That's something I can get behind.

Chebeague Island

My writing collaborator Marc and I took the 6:30am ferry on Saturday morning from the wharf to Great Chebeague Island, and being the genius I am, I left the map at home. To our great fortune, there are only a few country roads on the island and a nice man named "Spec" picked us up and gave us a ride to the church. We made it on time for our appointment to check out their "weatherization workshop", which proved to be both interesting and visually compelling. A group from the church spent a few hours making simple wood frames with plastic on either side to prop into their windows for extra warmth in the winter. Apparently these suckers work pretty well. Marc recorded audio and took notes while I shot, thinking of what different publications we could pitch this to. It's a sweet story, but also a relevant one for people living in rural areas in the North. These people are not only rural, but they live on an island, with limited resources and dependent on the ferries to transport goods. We ran into the mail carrier on both routes to and from Portland, and she told us a story or two herself. Chebeague is so darn pretty, and we were lucky - it was another gorgeous day in Maine.

Wednesday Night Tango Lessons

On a lighter note, I stopped in and watched students at a Tango school tonight after the movie and mediocre Mexican food. This is one of my favorite shots.

Photo : Claire Houston (c) 2008, Tango Lessons #62

Potluck Conversations Inevitably Turn To Politics If You Invite The Right People.

Last night, I hosted the first of what I hope to be several potluck dinners at my little country home in Portland. The idea came up during our "man on the street" session with Jenny and Tasha, so they of course, were invited. I also invited Heather & Jud, but he couldn't make it, and Arch invited Emily Eagle, who I later found out is a "Marketist" (not a Marxist - I'll explain). After a helping of rotini with a homemade pasta sauce, fresh salad and some good wine (thanks Moet), the conversation inevitably turned to politics. Emily was talking about the "Libertarian camp" she attended when she was younger (I didn't know such a thing existed), and was sizing up the young Libertarians and why they'll most likely vote Obama rather than McCain. She went on to describe her belief in the "Market" to promote innovation in areas of Science & Industry and shouldn't be regulated (i.e. held back) by the government. That's all well and good, but business is, by nature, a moral. The bottom line is about profit, regardless of worker's rights, social programs like pensions and health care, community, the environment, etc.

HP just announced layoffs of 24,000 workers, mostly in the U.S. which accounts for about 8% of their workforce. This was necessary to stay competitive with IBM, according to one news source. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gp10gghHwMG5030paEBbVQMH_RwQ. If I understood these bailouts better, I'm sure I could draw some comparison here, but I'll save that for another post.

Now I don't pretend to know all of the Libertarian platforms, and in her defense Emily didn't claim to be a Libertarian, but I imagine what she was saying is not far from the party platform. I admit, also that my first intro to this political party was a completely negative one. I had a roommate in college named Jim, the fiance of a friend of mine from Spanish class, Jean. Jim was a staunch Libertarian, and at the time I knew nothing about it. He gave me a book to read about it, and within the first 3 paragraphs, I knew I was reading a paranoid conspiratorial theory about how the government wants to raid your home and take your guns away. I wasn't impressed. And Jim creeped me out. He was always so angry at the world and I remember he had a "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" bumper sticker on his old car. I will never understand why Jean, a beautiful, intelligent, funny girl, would marry an idiot like him. Needless to say, I wasn't invited to the wedding. And I've been skeptical of Libertarians ever since.

I saw this bumper sticker today. It was the only sticker on the car.

Photo : Claire Houston (c) 2008, Iraq/n

Gary

Gary's nickname is "Media Mike" because he acts as the spokesman for the Fire House. He works part-time as a policeman as well, but says he prefers working as a fireman.

Photo: Claire Houston/Salt (c) 2008, Gary P.

Portland Has Small Town Values

(I hope you've all had a chance to see the hilarious (hi-larry-us) clip from the Daily Show about how much Republicans know about small town values. And if you haven't seen it yet, please watch this first:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSha0CqPfc

Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, you should know that Portland, ME, actually does have good small town values. We (a group of Salt students) walked up to the fire house on Congress St. in the West End around 10am yesterday and asked if we could hang around, talk to the guys and document. We spoke to the Deputy Chief who had to run it by the guys, who agreed that we could. They were the nicest guys. We spent the day shooting, recording & taking notes on what happens in a fire house when there is no fire. The answer, we found out, varies, though mostly it's anything to ward off boredom. And what happens when they do get a call? We all jump on the truck, of course. (With their permission and instructions, of course.) They get a lot of false alarms apparently, and the first call we went on was just that, but it was at the hospital around the corner, Maine Med. What I found out later from reading the news was that the governor of Maine and Barbara Bush (As in George W's mom, not his daughter) were there that day dedicating a new wing of the pediatric ward. We missed them, unfortunately. I would have loved to have gotten a shot of Barbara.

I went on a second run to a housing project - an elderly woman had fallen the night before and was feeling shortness of breath. These guys arrived before the ambulance took her away. They're all trained in medical emergencies now, since there aren't as many fires as there used to be. All those years of fire prevention have paid off.

The group shot above was taken toward the end of our day with them. We've got to put all the audio, writing and photos together into a cohesive story to present to our peers and instructors for next Friday. I'm also making copies of the group shot for each of the guys, which I'll bring them next weekend along with a batch of cookies, or something like that. Because, despite the fact that I've lived in New York for the last 10 years, I've got small town values, too, gosh darn it.

Photo: Claire Houston/Salt (c) 2008, Bramhall Fire House 2008, Portland Maine

(A note about the photo: the man in the middle who is not in uniform is named Jimmy. And although he's not technically on the squad, he has been visiting that firehouse every Saturday afternoon for the last 35 years. He's 57 years old, and played us a song on his harmonica.)

A New Old Bike For Archie

Archie bought a bike today. I had just walked out of the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art with Selena and Lydia. At some point, we were separated from Arch. I called him and looked around, sensing that he was nearby. He answered just as I saw him, or least the back of his head.

"Is that you on a bike?" I asked. Archie doesn't have a bike.

It was him, mid-purchase of a new used bike. A girl's bike. A white bike with a new seat. A very cool bike. Twenty bucks.

It's the kind of bike where you have to backpedal to break. Now he can bomb around Portland on his new bike.

Photo: courtesy of justbicycles.com

Meaningless Sound Bites and Hallow Propaganda

First of all, I'm avoiding the RNC on the media. I can't stand the circus and the insanity of it all. I can't watch it anymore, and I'm disgusted that the political process has been reduced to meaningless sound bites and hallow propaganda. Pure theater, as A says.

But back to Salt. Today we debated documentary photography, and whether Shelby Lee Adams' work is "true" documentary. The discussion after the video was lively, but few seemed to understand the simple fact that this is art, with an artist showing his perspective. Yes, it's documentary in nature, but it can not be true documentary only. There really is no such thing. I may start some fires by saying this, but I firmly believe that you can not be present in a situation to document it (either by digital, film or audio), and not influence the situation with your mere presence. For that reason, it is not and can not be "true". You change the situation as soon as you show up to document. So why not create something beautiful out of it?

In one scene, the photographer asked his subject - a boy - to stand a certain way for a portrait. People seemed to have issue with this, as if it was too manipulative, but I understood why he was doing it - to better frame the shot. Would the boy have stood that way on his own with out the prompting of the photographer? Maybe not. Does this make this photograph "untrue"? Absolutely not. Is it staged? Isn't every portrait?

I realize it's hard for non-photographers to understand the art of directing your subject for a photo, but it's in the interest of a well composed (and lit) photo, and therefore more compelling. Shelby Lee Adams is absolutely a documentary photographer (and so is Mary Ellen Mark, who was also in this film, Modern Appalachia), but he is also a portraitist, and a fine art photographer. Here is a link to some of the work he showed in the movie: http://shelby-lee-adams-napier.blogspot.com/.

Photo: The Hog Killing 1990, by Shelby Lee Adams

It Helps To Be A Dork

Luckily, I consider myself a dork. By that I mean, I don't really care what people think me, so I'm free to act as I want. It's not that I don't care AT ALL, but I care very little. (Anyone who tells you they don't care at all what others think is LYING!) Enthusiasm and confidence will also come in handy. I'm referring to approaching people on the street for an interview, something I did today for the first time.

At 5pm, I met up with two other women at school to try out the new Sony digital recorders by doing man-on-the-street interviews. We chose the topic of, "How are you preparing for the coming winter with gas and oil prices being so high?" We had more than a few interesting responses. When it was my turn with the recorder, I found a woman who had just sat down on a bench in the square, and as it turns out, she had just gotten off of work.

The first thing she told me was that she was a good person to ask this question of since she just moved here from Colorado where they have forced hot air heat. Jackpot! She mentioned the landlords were replacing the windows in the house she was renting, and a neighbor was forming a collective to try to buy oil from a company "en mass" or in bulk for a cheaper rate. She was budgeting about $500 a month for heating oil. She didn't seem too bothered by it all, whereas some people looked and sounded exasperated at the mention of it, some refusing to discuss it, saying didn't want to deal with it (note to self: not a good approach in life). I felt the 3-4 minutes it took me to conduct this mini-interview went really well. I'm not able to judge if it's good or "worthy" enough yet, but I liked how it went, so that's a good start. I listened to (A)'s first interview of the day (his first also), and it was INCREDIBLE. He asked about the significance of a black candidate for president and the response his first interviewee gave just blew me away. He used the term "sexist poaching" when referring to McCain picking a woman as running mate. He had some really thoughtful ideas, and really impressed me. I just wanted to keep listening to him to hear more of what he had to say.

I loved doing these interviews. It's kinda funny because I'm here to do photography. I'm not jumping tracks, so-to-speak, but I want to learn as much as I can about recording and editing audio. Many people have advised, including a few people at school, that being MULTIMEDIA is where it's at. I have to (gladly) supplement my skills in photo with that of audio and video (note to self: learn video and editing next). I'm here to drink it all in. I feel like a dry sponge and luckily, I'm living near the ocean.


Photo: Claire Houston (c) 2008, Jenny's first interview on the street.