I have a miniature schnauzer named Pepper. We got her from the pound after my dad's old dog Rebel died. She was a few months old and had been found in a parking lot with a broken paw, so we had to keep her in a little doggy cast the first few months we had her (which was, by the way, pretty much the most adorable thing I've ever seen).
Very quickly she became, quite obviously, my dog. We did some research and found that it's been observed that schnauzers as a breed attach themselves to one person. In my family, I was the favorite, and she was pretty much my best friend. One time she actually jumped up onto the bus as I was getting home from school because I didn't get off fast enough.
She's getting older these days, but my parents still joke that I'm going to hide her in my suitcase when I run off to college.
My dad is a contractor, and that giant white mansion/house up there is the home he designed for my four-person family in Conifer. It ended up being too big for us in the end, but we lived there for four years, and it was amazing. My room, I remember, was only accessible if you braved the top-floor catwalk, and it had its own loft and walk-in closet--heck, thinking back, my closet had its own loft. And balcony.
Anyhow, the point is, it was pretty darn huge. Another catalyst for my overactive childhood imagination. And my dad consistently had jobsites constructing homes similar to it, and he would let me tag along often. I would walk through his construction zones like they were second homes, and when I'd grown bored of those, I'd wander off and explore the surrounding forests with my trusty companion Pepper.
For the first decade of my life, I lived in the mountains of midwestern Colorado: first, in Evergreen, a beautiful, sprawling mountain town set in the surroundings pictured above, and then in Conifer, overlooking a valley that stretched to the barely-visible Pike's Peak in the distance. It was a gorgeous land to grow in; I'm certain that the many adventures I went on, hiking with my dog and looking for bear caves, kickstarted my imagination into overdrive.
Ultimately, though, it was rather unhealthy concerning my social skills; my closest friends lived a forty-five minute drive away, and the school bus took as long to get to my elementary each weekday morning. It didn't help that I was naturally shy from the very beginning. The isolation of the mountains turned me into a hermit. I became painfully, horribly shy, and lacked self-confidence.
So when we moved to Suburbia, Colorado (first Erie, then Louisville), and my social skills finally had a chance to develop, I had to work hard to overcome my own uncertainties.
This picture is super interesting to me. It's abstract. But as soon as I look at it I find myself wondering what more there is to it; who is this woman? Why is she on a beach, staring out at the ocean? Why is she carrying an umbrella, when clearly it is not raining? What's up with the stuffy jacket and long pants? (She is on a beach, after all.) Is she alone, or are there others off-frame? Who made all the other footprints in the sand? What is this girl like? A bit eccentric, we might presume, judging from the flowered-and-ribboned hat and the polka dot umbrella. What is about to happen? What brought her here?
To me, this picture is narrative photography simply because of all the questions it presents. Each question provides an opportunity to write a story in explanation. You could create an origin and a backstory for everything in this picture, and decide what the future will bring after this captured moment. Maybe the story is actually about the journey of the umbrella she holds? Or maybe it's written from the ocean's point of view, reflecting on how many different kinds of toes have dipped into its waters.
So, I chose two slam poetry videos because I couldn't decide between them.
The first one is by a girl named Kayan James:
I love this because she's so young and so unafraid to challenge the ideas of beauty and the values we hold. As a teenage girl, every line she speaks can relate directly to me. It's amazing and resonating, to listen to her beautifully accented voice blaring out that "Weaves and facades will not hide you in this transparent world," and, "If Covergirl would have made identity, she would have used it too... but they didn't, so she covered girl like the title." She is wise and witty at the same time, and the final line is super convicting:
"Are you an image, or a reflection?"
The second is called "This is for You."
I chose this because I think it's really interesting that there are three performers, and you can just tell they all really believe in what they're saying. There is so much passion and anger and apology, it takes your breath away, and I'm not a feminist, but it was really refreshing to hear how much respect they have for and are trying to communicate to women. And even though I don't agree with everything they say, they way the main performer performs almost makes me want to change my mind. It's aggressive and uplifting and really well done.
"No matter how low your self-esteem is, you do not jeapordize their existence."
"Crazy, sexy, from the petite sisters to the big mamas, sexy and fuckin' crazy to think you have to do anything to change that."
And only now, after I've posted them both one after the other, do I realize that their messages are totally tied together: one is about abandoning the shallow ideals society has set for us, and the other is about accepting and respecting and abandoning the idea that we should have to change ourselves for the sake of shallow society.
