Ghost tours Annapolis

The sunset was stumbling right down main street at just enough of an angle to create some interesting shadows. The harbor area of Annapolis always screams wealth and privilege to me. Yachts anchored in the harbor calmly bouncing along the waves while people playing music and chatting with friends or family. Pedestrians shop or eat out at some of the fancy restaurants. The Naval Officer Cadets can be spotted here and there in their dress whites, like sharply dressed spirits. You can hear cars rolling over cobblestone streets, like vibrations accented with a satisfying clink of brick on brick. I always feel a sense of not belonging when I walk the streets. This feeling persists despite having plenty of friendly conversations with people who stop and ask questions about my 4×5 field view camera. I am happy to chat with them, they usually want to ask about the camera because they themselves use to be a photographer. Street photographers mostly try to be ghosts, unseen by the people they photograph. Street photography with a large format camera is an act of being both very visible and completely invisible. Most people don’t notice, or chose not to see me. They walk by afraid they will end up in my frame or they have no idea what I am doing. They stare as they walk by, averting their gaze when I make eye contact. I am like a ghost, invisible, to all but those who choose to see me. Photographers are the only ones it seems, who notice the ghost standing on the corner with a victorian era camera. Or at least the only ones who would be willing to approach them. Maybe next time I really try and sell the bit, dressed in full 1870’s fashion.

If you do look closely, really take in the scenes of Annapolis, you see the beauty and wealth but you also begin to notice some things that don’t quite fit the aesthetic. The paint chipping on a parked car, stickers covering a light pole, a spray painted trashcan or a walking “Ghost tour” led by a teenager tiredly explaining the history of the buildings and their deceased inhabitants. Those on the tour look towards the old windows in hopes of seeing a ghost staring back, but they aren’t really looking, if they were, they would notice the ghost with the camera, listening to the tired teenager as he fiddles with his frame.

That begs the question then, in the photo above, the man in the street, what does he see? what is he looking at that made him stop in the middle of Francis St. Does he see a ghost in a window? Maybe he is trying to take a photo on his phone? I like the thought that maybe he sees the light splashing against the side of the buildings and the top of the Maryland Statehouse. Another photographer would notice that - that I could relate to. Maybe he just had an epiphany, or maybe he is simply lost.

When I took this photo, I remember the guy in the white shirt who almost spoiled the frame, I remember the paint chips on the car and the way the flag was shaped by the wind. I remember the trashcan and the smoke-shop sign, the way the tree branches were splintering across the white building like a shattered pane of glass. The way the streets were shaped like a funnel, channeling the light down towards the harbor. I remember that all these details are part of why I clicked the shutter, but I don’t remember seeing that man standing in the middle of the street.

Yosemite

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.... Once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured. And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature, his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.”

— Lyndon B. Johnson

John Muir and Lyndon Johnson successfully lobbied Congress to establish Yosemite as a National Park on October 1, 1890. Part of this success was due to a photographer named Ansel Adams.  Adams portfolio of the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite were very influential in their efforts to argue for a protected wilderness. 

For the past couple years I have been obsessing over Adams photographs, as well as some instagram accounts of photographers who have traveled to this "Mecca of landscape photography" When Meredith surprised me with a map and airplane tickets to California I was beyond words. I have seen just every photo there is of the Valley and its surrounding granite peaks. So when I tell you that seeing these photos Ansel or any other photographer has taken does not do the park justice, believe me. There is something about your peripheral vision which cannot be captured in a 2x3 frame of a camera that allows you to take in the scale of where you are standing. When you can walk up to the base of El Capitan and look 3000' straight up the granite wall you are left with a sense of wonder. The majesty of half dome, as the sun sets from almost anywhere in the valley becomes electric. The water rushing down Yosemite falls crushing the rocks below fills you with a sense of fragility that only nature can bestow.

If I could leave you with only one idea, it would be to value these National Parks. To allow them to operate efficiently, through proper funding and management so that You, I, and everyone from now until eternity can visit these parks, and share in the sense of wonderment which I have felt. 

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