passing through
by 2mccs

Comment by daisydavid:
One of my top picks, thanks for the dreaming.

passing through
by 2mccs

Comment by posthumous:
haunting. great colors.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by 2mccs:

Originally posted by ubique: Yours is the more ambitious - the more profound - of the two essays for that reason. ETA: yours is better also because it works as well, perhaps better, without words. Mine does not. So I bow before you a second time.

I'm flattered but I couldn't agree less. Any comparisons would leave me with the short straw. Your comments are very kind.

Paul, It is interesting that we had similar appearing essays and in a style neither of us usually tries. After seeing yours and Mauriuca's I had a stronger sense of how really depressing mine is. I couldn't even stand to stop the car to get out and take the pictures. California is one of the richest states in one of the richest countries and the scenes in my essay are more empty and depressing than the similar scenes in Africa and Mexico. Sadly, I could have taken 100's of similar photographs within a 50 mile radius. The whole area looks like this.

Message edited by author 2015-05-05 11:49:30.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by jmritz:
on a trip in a car, tooling along, not driving my head next the open window. i'm half seeing, images flash by. memory conjures up pictures of africa, Paul's, where there seemed to be people just out of frame. tidy well kept properties.
but here there is no one, maybe someone left behind, like a memory best forgotten.

thanks Marla

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by mariuca:
Oh, I've seen some of this "sunny California" - I was perhaps too young whe I saw Hollywood and these parts that you prsented to us, and I got scared. The weather was balmy with sometimes bad gusts of wind and deep cracks in the ground and I did not want to look closely of fear to find sun washed bones....
Someone has to show these places and you did it beautifully and economically in your sadness. Excellent.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by insteps:
Marla, sobering images with the current drought in California. This isn’t the California dream that so many seek. Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath” comes to mind. A landscape we barely notice as we arrow down the road.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by posthumous:
same palette as Paul's essay, but without the cosmetic surgery. The focus is on the middle ground, which is empty. This is an essay on emptiness, the antimatter of California.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by herfotoman:
Paul and you will have to explain this co-incidence to the Headmaster, I think.

You must be the expert on drive-by shooting, as the images are all beautifully linked in their framing, tone and subject matter.

Thanks.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by ubique:
Ha! We did almost the same thing, in almost the same way. Both eschewed our usual moody and uncertain B&W for more offhand conventional snaps, and both for the same reason. I enjoyed your essay for the same reasons that Sarah did: it's unexpected, and rubs against the grain of the popular conception of the location and society. Yours is the more ambitious - the more profound - of the two essays for that reason. It's awfully beautiful, and beautifully awful. Thank you.

ETA: yours is better also because it works as well, perhaps better, without words. Mine does not. So I bow before you a second time.

Message edited by author 2015-04-30 13:03:15.

_1--
by 2mccs

Comment by salmiakki:
I just scrolled through ubique's essay and haven't yet commented. Came to yours and found myself doing a double take. For me there are, at first glance, similarities between your essay and Paul's and yet, both are entirely unique.

Somehow, Paul's is less surprising than yours to me at least. We are so used to seeing the Hollywood California that somehow this disturbs the status quo. I enjoyed looking these images a lot and the find myself with lots of open questions. That's always a good thing in my opinion.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to see the Other California.