In my work in restoring the site content for the upcoming WordPress conversion, I’m currently working on Photography sets from 2002 – everything done after “The Schumin Web Photo Essay Blitz” that was done in March 2002. That means I’m working on Old Town Alexandria, Protesting the World Bank, Autumn Leaves, The Iwo Jima Memorial, and Botanic Garden. So this encompasses the last of the material from the original Mavica period, and the beginning of the Big Mavica period.
The last two photo sets that I mentioned – Iwo Jima and Botanic Garden – were both done a DC trip that Mom, Sis, and I took on November 29, 2002, while I was home from college for Thanksgiving. Big Mavica was still really new to me, so apparently I was taking more photos than usual just to get used to the equipment during the time home. I came back to the CD that these files were on when locating the source material for those two photo sets for purposes of restoration, and got lost in all of the other photos from my time in Stuarts Draft in late November 2002. I apparently really went to town on photos, and some of them, particularly at my parents’ house, were ones where I was looking at them and thinking, why in the hell did I take this photo? I just have to remember that this was the work of a much younger man, and with nine more years’ experience, well… there you go.
So here are a few gems in the what-the-hell category:
This is the light in my parents’ dining room. My parents have had this stained glass light fixture since before I was born. They got it in New Jersey, we brought it with us to Arkansas where it was on a very long chain from hooks in the ceiling and down the wall to a plug, and then since 1992 it has hung in our house in Stuarts Draft on a much shorter chain. I don’t understand the significance of this light fixture to this day, but they did pass up a new modern fixture when the house was built in order to use this one. Why did I photograph this, though?
And then this is the laundry room. Maybe I was testing how well the autofocus worked? Big Mavica used a crosshatch pattern with a laser for low-light focusing (see it here), and so apparently I was testing that, since this was apparently taken with the lights off and using flash. Still, weird.
I believe this is the ultimate in why-the-hell-did-I-take-this photography. Yes, that is the toilet in the downstairs bathroom. I will never understand why I took this photo, but there it is. And apparently, I thought the bathroom was important enough to take a second photo…
The other side. Yeeeeeeah. It is worth noting that this shows one unfortunate aspect of the decor in there at this time. Mom hung all “people” pictures on the wall in the bathroom. I hated that decor. Even though I knew that these were paintings, I don’t want them all watching me when I’m trying to pee. When Mom redecorated in that bathroom a few years later, she took my advice and hung landscapes in there.
And then there’s Greta. No explanation needed, because she was adorable, here at eight years old, even if this isn’t a particularly great photo of her.
So there you go, I suppose. I’m still trying to decipher what I was thinking about when I chose some of these subjects. And they’re not even particularly good pictures, either. I’m just trying to figure out what was going through my mind at that time.