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Location: Pedestrian Bridge.
For the project I chose to shoot on a pedestrian bridge which connects Perth station to Northbridge cultural centre, ie the 30m interstitial space.
The pedestrian bridge acts as both functionally and metaphorically, ie Perth City's desire to connect the two hubs, Perth CBD and its more lively, bar and cafe filled neighbour Northbridge. The two areas were physically divided by a railway line, which has now been sunk and put underground in order for a new development approriately called the "Perth City Link" This pedestrian bridge is one of the few points which you could see the development, at a high point.
This pedestrian bridge is also one of two which allows pedestrians to bypass the street below and directly connects them to the cultral centre. As such the bridge acts as the inbetween space, where all sorts of characters walk by, arriving from the trains, on their way to either, the art galleries, cafes or bars. Mix this with the homeless people using the cultural centre as a place to sleep at night . I would like to capture the narrative of the City and its characters through this bridge.
Equipment: Pentax K1000, 50mm and my Canonent QL17 GIII 40mm (for a slightly wider focal length)
Fuji Superia 400 for consistency.
Had a trim earlier in the month, the ends look better now :)
Used Feye's self-trim method for a slight u-shape.
Circle of Cups: Mugs Awaiting Stories: A wire rack of mismatched mugs, inverted after washing, waits to be refilled by another round of conversations. The mugs, each with a different history and sticker, are silent witnesses to learning, laughter, and new ideas. Using personal and shared mugs instead of disposable cups saves resources and shows VIC's commitment to an eco-friendly campus.
NIKON D200 | ISO:160 | Focal Length:300mm | Aperture:f/5 | Shutter:1/2000 | Metering:5 | Exposure Value:14.9
Thursday June 11th 1998
Today certainly has been a “varied” day. It started off by me waking really, really early due to this time change thing. As a result I was in Tucson at around 6:30am. That meant I had to hang around for a while before things began to come to life in the city. I found a nice bench outside a public library and curled up with my pack, looking at the sky.
I will run through some of the things that happened today, because there are others that I want to write more about. Lets see - I met two guys from Berkeley California who were out here bird watching in the desert. I met another guy my age from Rochester, NY out here doing the vagabond thing - living in hostels and traveling by Greyhound. I shot some portraits…which brings me to my first discussion. There was one homeless man who I talked to for nearly two hours. I don’t even know his name but some of the things he told me really stuck with me. First of all he was a Vietnam Vet. Drafted in ‘68 - as he put it, he was torn away from his life and shipped thousands of miles off to fight another man’s war. He was there for only five months when he was shot straight through the fibia and tibia bones of his leg. This left his one leg an inch shorter then the other and laid him up in the hospital for a long time. Upon his return to the states and “normal” life it quickly became apparent that his injury had disabled him, he was no longer able to work a normal job without being in enormous amounts of pain. He went out on disability and Uncle Sam promised to support him. A fair trade for having served his country. Well these days that means that he gets a check for $400 once a month - not nearly enough to maintain an apartment and survive off of. He also has personal problems that account for a big portion of that $400. This has left him homeless and sleeping in the desert fringes of Tucson. He told me stories of the Salvation Army mistreating and denying homeless people food and shelter. As he put it - “sure they take in all of these donations, and then they use the money to buy themselves Cadillacs, they don’t give a damn about us.” I bought this man something to eat and walked off in a daze.
America? Yes it has been good to a lot of people, but what about those that it has left in the gutter? Do we ignore them? Deny they exist? Or do we reach out and attempt to lift them to a level of dignity? It seems many can’t be bothered with this burden - they would rather plead ignorance and avert their eyes when they walk down the street. I guess I’m trying to bring people face to face with reality. A reality that is everywhere, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, in every state, county etc. Something needs to be done.
After my encounter with the vet, I really didn’t feel like hanging out in Tucson much longer so I got back on the highway towards Phoenix. I decided to stop at a campground on the city limits for the night, as it was quickly getting darker. This is where things got really interesting. Here I met a really fucked up guy named Bill - or G.I. BILL as I refer to him. Anyway, to make a long story short he’s a self described “Survivalist, militia-man and gun runner / dealer”. I can’t make this stuff up. He pulled into the camp slot next to me decked out in full military fatigues. He struck up a conversation with me as I was setting up my tent and at one point asked if I had any weaponry. I answered no. He popped open the trunk of his rental car to reveal a full arsenal of handguns, shotguns and rifles - not to mention a lot of knives. I didn’t know what to make of this guy so I backed off and sort of stammered something about how tired I was, and that I didn’t feel I would need any killing power on my journey. He shot back that he was on his way to a gun show in LA and that this was his “vacation”… I went and hid in my tent as the sun began to set - and here I am - this tiny green vinyl tent has never made me feel so vulnerable. I made one last trip back to the Jeep and grabbed the dagger that I keep under the seat - not like it will do much but at least I feel a bit safer.
_______________________
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give?
Ooh, they only answer more! more! more!
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If your wondering what the heck this is all about, go here.
To keep track of progress on a map - here.
