Leaving home all over again

The following is my final column for the Reedsburg Independent, published in the paper dated February 28, 2013. To the left is my very first column. 

By the time you read this, I will be gone. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but it’s true; my last day at the Reedsburg Independent was Tuesday, February 26, after spending four and a half years working here.

My tenure has spanned an incredible time in Reedsburg’s history. Three weeks after I graduated from college and started at the Indy as an intern, the city was overcome when the Baraboo River jumped its banks and inundated the downtown area with water. I was at my parents’ house at the time on North Webb Avenue, and we watched the water creep up through the backyard toward the house as it had many times before. This time was different; the water also crept down North Webb Avenue and eventually surrounded the house. My parents were lucky as their’s was not included in the 20 homes and businesses condemned following the flood.

Reedsburg’s landscape has changed since then but its resolve hasn’t. The city has transformed in ways I never could have imagined growing up here. As a reporter, I watched as an empty corner of Nishan Park blossomed into a beautiful Veterans Memorial with the hardwork and dedication of dozens of community groups. I watched the downtown area transform with new businesses, new apartments, and new ideas. And I’ve had the privilege of watching my parents achieve their dream of starting up and running their own business, Jimmy’s To-Go, on North Webb Avenue.  

The past nearly five years has been an incredible time in my own history as well. Not long after I started at the Indy, I went on a blind date with my college roommate’s older brother, John, and we were married four years later in a beautiful ceremony in the Assembly Chambers of the Wisconsin State Capitol, the dome of which I see every morning from the bedroom in the house we now own.

So many events are contained in that one run-on sentence, so many things I never thought I would do. I never pictured myself as a homeowner or one-half of a marriage, two things I’ve become in the last year. For that matter, I never thought I would go to college; I’ve been a writer since I first put pencil to paper at age five, and at first I questioned whether writers needed college. My first mentor, Brian Pittman, a teacher at Reedsburg Area High School, convinced me they did, changing the trajectory of my life forever.

In college, knowing that people who are good readers tend to be good writers, I pursued and earned an English degree. At the time, I thought I would never return to Wisconsin, but three and a half years of living in Iowa convinced me otherwise.
After spending a year in high school writing for the Student Voice, I thought I would never again work for a newspaper. Deadlines were stifling, but in college, I learned to thrive on them. After graduation, I jumped at the opportunity to intern at my hometown newspaper. Four and a half years later, I’m still pushing to meet another deadline.

It is an understatement to say working at the Indy has given me a totally different perspective on my hometown. Despite having spent 16 years living here before leaving for college, I had no idea that so much was going on here. Artists, actors, elected representatives, farmers, business owners, movers and shakers, musicians, teachers, pillars of the community, local folks, parents, kids, students, hundreds of people over the last four and a half years have invited me into their lives, their goings-on, and let me tell their stories. I’ve enjoyed seeing how the wheels turn in Reedsburg and getting to know so many people with a passion for this community.

Now I’m feel like I’m leaving home all over again. I am sad to leave the Reedsburg Independent office and my coworkers Jeff, Carla, Karen and Dale. Collectively they have taught me that no person is an island; without the support of one another, we all will fail. They have led by example and demonstrated what it means to be dedicated, and their service to the Reedsburg area is unparalleled. But they do it all without bravado because as friends and neighbors to our readers, their investment in the community is more than just selling ads, writing stories, or answering the telephone. They are helping make Reedsburg a better place to live.

I could not have stumbled upon a better mentor than Jeff Seering. I have very early memories of seeing him at school events, and I can’t say that I knew specifically who he was, just that he was “that guy with the camera who is always at everything.” Now having been on the other side of the page, I can tell you that Jeff really is that guy who is always at everything, more than most of our readers could ever know or wholly appreciate. He has taught me everything I know about a job that I love, and by example, he has taught me so much about what it means to be a good person. When I walked into this office for the first time in May 2008, I had no journalism experience except for my high school newspaper and a stint at a magazine in college. I’ve still never taken a journalism class, but Jeff has always treated my ideas and contributions with respect. No longer being the beneficiary of his wisdom and guidance has been the hardest part of leaving this job.

I’ve decided to take a full-time position at MadCat, a store I’ve worked at part-time for over three years. We’re locally owned and operate three locations in Madison, and we are famous for our wealth of knowledge on pet nutrition and behavior. I am extremely proud of the work we do in the rescue community, and I look forward to dedicating more of my time to the relentless service we give to Madisonians and their pets. I am sad to leave the Indy and Reedsburg, but I am excited for the future and the new opportunities it holds.

Thoughts on Instagram

Scooter, a photo by meagan.wedgewood on Flickr.

I was sampling photography podcasts recently when one of them (can’t remember which one, sorry) made a very good point: if the inventors of square format cameras like the Diana or the Holga could see the technology we have today, like DSLRs, digital photography, and cameras attached to telephones that fit in our pockets, they would be spinning in their graves to know the biggest fad right now is Instagram. The point of all advances in photographic history, they argued, was that inventors were desperately trying to recreate the image they saw before them, in essence, provide the most accurate copy of a real-life scene possible. It’s the very meaning of the word capture - they were trying to take the scene before them, photograph it, and preserve it on film forever. Everything hipsters like about Instagram - the square format, the retro processing effects, those were features of camera from the 1960s and 1970s because that was the technology. That was the best that photographers could do with what they had. The podcast argued it would blow minds to know that we have so much technology now, the ability to faithfully recreate in a photograph a scene before us, and yet we choose to recreate the effect of cameras from 40-50 years ago.

Does that make your head spin? It’s something I like thinking about. It’s like a trend to write chiseling on stone tablets instead of using a computer, as I am now. Maybe not that extreme, but you get my drift.

It’s not something I personally focus on, but I wonder sometimes what makes a Flickr image get more views than others. This is how my thoughts on Instagram started. In skimming through my photostream, photos taken with my DSLR usually average somewhere in 40-50 views, and there are some anomalies, like my dunk tank picture that’s currently at 336 views. Can’t understand that one. But the Instagram photos I’ve posted are in the single digits. I’m no Flickr expert by far. I love posting my photos in a place online that actually makes them look good, and I love making contacts and stalking their work once in awhile, making comments, seeing what they’re working on, getting ideas. I love the community aspect of the site, especially being able to follow Madison photographers. I am by no means dedicated to getting more hits or comments or even making an effort to get more eyes on my photographs, but I do wonder - what makes a person look at that little thumbnail, click for a bigger view, and be counted?

The people I follow on Flickr are far more talented than I am, and for the most part they follow me back and leave nice comments once in awhile. Do they automatically dismiss the Instagram photos? It’s not like getting those effects takes any kind of skill; anyone can spend $100 on a Diana kit at your local Urban Outfitters. Anyone can download Instagram or Hipstamatic or any of the dozens of photo editing and sharing apps out there. I suppose it takes some intuition to decide which filter to use, and of course, composition should always be taken into consideration. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s not like those effects were achieve in post-processing, whether in a dark room or even Photoshop. It could easily be assumed that it does not take a whole lot of skill to produce a neat looking photograph in Instagram. What I’m asking is, is this a good or a bad thing?

I’m interested in becoming better at this art, but my progress is sort of floating along, taking a picture here and there, looking at other people’s work and learning more about my camera. I’m not very serious, and I’m not very social, so as a result, I don’t talk to a whole lot of other photographers. I think it would be easy to assume that a highly skilled person who has spent a lot of time learning their craft might turn down their nose at a new fad like Instagram. But who knows?

Not one of us is born with a camera in our hand. Not all of us take classes or study or learn anything more about our cameras other than the PSD button (Push Here Dummy). I probably would never have picked up a DSLR if it wasn’t for my job, and I probably would never have learned more about my DSLR if I wasn’t interested in being better at my job. My point - we all come into this hobby, art, profession, wherever you’re at - we all come into photography in different ways.

And that’s how I see Instagram. I assume that the vast majority of Instagrammers will take photos, share on Facebook, and move on to the next big thing as it comes along. But maybe there are a small few who will start with Instagram and want to learn more.

But even if they don’t - is that a bad thing either? If a photographer or any other kind of artist isn’t learning or progressing, is that a bad thing? If the ultimate goal of all photographers, of all artists, is to produce great work, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the image we come up with. Right? Or is it something more?

I had no idea when I started this that a few simple thoughts on Instagram would turn into a soul-searching, philosophical rumination on my own work and my own progression, so I digress. But it’s something I wonder about - is it enough to pick up a camera once in awhile, take a few photos I’m happy with, post them to my website and blog and be done with it? Is it enough to interact with other photographers through a few digital comments once every couple of weeks? I am constantly thinking about that question - is it enough? I have been told more than once that I worry too much. But I feel that without knowing yourself, there can be no self-reflection, and without self-reflection, there can be no progress.

United

United, a photo by meagan.wedgewood on Flickr.

Last June, This American Life had a story on the situation here in Wisconsin, focusing mainly on the contentious state senator recalls. The reporter, Ben Calhoun, said something that I thought rang particularly true:

"Wisconsin is a big rural state, but it is not conservative; its politics are in the middle, leaning a little toward the left. Organized labor has a long history in the state, and Wisconsin has gone Democratic in every presidential election since Reagan. Bottom line - it's moderate - polite and civil and moderate. That right there is really the break that Scott Walker has made. His plan, whether you love it or you hate it, was a big move away from the middle. He's pulled a pretty moderate state dramatically toward an extreme, and done something they don't do in Wisconsin - he's picked a fight. And he's forced a lot of people who don't like to fight to choose sides anyway."

After my husband and I voted, heading up to the Capitol Square seemed like the natural thing to do as we were only a few blocks away. We reached it right as the polls were closing.

I haven't spent a lot of time at the Capitol during political events since I hung out with the protestors in February 2011. On that day, it felt like everyone was there for one purpose; though there were thousands of people in the Capitol, they were moving together as one unit, all part of the same vehicle using their momentum to head toward the same destination.

On Election Night, the scene was muddled, contradictory, like a cell without a nucleus. There were singers and people with signs, of course. I saw a lot of people I recognized as students and journalists. But there were others who looked and behaved like they were there from out of town, just there for the show. I saw contentious arguments. I watched as an angry Recall supporter jumped in front of a local news camera, interrupting the reporter who was probably on his 18th hour of being awake and just trying to do his job. It was a stark and shocking contrast from the feeling a year and a half ago, to say the least.

Most of all I could feel the moment when the crowd deflated, when it the air changed from hopeful optimism that the initial results were only from a few small rural precincts to the realization that this was happening. This was really happening. It was like air being let out of a balloon as people quieted down, peeled off, and drifted away.

 No matter how you feel about the political situation, hopefully there's some empathy with the people who were disappointed that night, people who had worked hard for change only to be brought solidly back to square one in just one day.

"What happens now?" I kept asking my husband on our walk home that night. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a steep cliff, knowing that as a population we were going to have to move forward somehow but not sure how or to where we were going. I felt proud of my state, of all the people, Democratic and Republican, who had worked hard and fought for what they believed in, no matter what that was. But at the same time, I felt sad for everyone, not just the "losers," but everyone, as Ben Calhoun pointed out, who had to pick a side, who had the comfortable grey area pulled out from under them. In the past year and a half, my Wisconsin has become unrecognizable with blistering letters to the editor, people screaming at each other, people dumping beer on lawmaker's heads or tearing up recall petitions. Wisconsin has been and has felt divided, and as much as I love this state, that's not the Wisconsin I want to live in.

The photo above is misleading. I love the image of the bright Capitol building in the background, the center of our state government, bright and shining like the City on the Hill. The Overpass Light Brigade set up on the lawn, their signs declaring "The People United." The photo is idyllic, hopeful. But I can't help but feel less united as a state than ever before.

More photos from Election Night can be seen over on my Flickr.

Inked

I have several quotes taped to my computer at home, all of them centering around the same theme:

"Never confuse movement with action." -- Hemingway
"It's not like you don't have a choice because you do - you can either type or kill yourself." -- Anne Lamott
"Write first, edit later." -- (Probably Seth Godin)

and finally

"Inspiration is for amateurs." -- Chuck Close

It's easy to find excuses not to write. Cats nosing their way onto my lap, a house that desperately needs to be cleaned, the potato soup that's calling my name from the kitchen cabinet. I'm out of coffee, I need to go to the bathroom, my phone is ringing somewhere in the other room. And all of those are just within the last five minutes. Not even to mention the digital distractions of Facebook, Twitter, local news sites, emails from six years ago I thought Google had deleted when I deleted them but now I'm glad I found them because they're infinitely fascinating. Then I decide I can't write if I'm hungry, and I for sure can't write without a third cup of coffee, so I head to the kitchen, where I'm interrupted by a cat, then another cat, then my soup exploding all over the microwave that of course needs to be cleaned RIGHT NOW otherwise said soup will cement itself for all eternity. (Seriously, all of this just happened to me.) As I'm cleaning that, I notice how dirty the kitchen floor is, the living room floor, the counters, the sink full of dishes, all the cat toys everywhere, and by then it's too late.

Four hours later, the house is clean but the page is blank. I crack open a cold one, run a bubble bath, congratulate myself on the clean house and promise I'll do better tomorrow on the whole writing thing. That's how it goes, right?

The hardest thing to communicate to my interns at the Indy is that writing is not some magical thing that beret-ed and bearded people do in coffee shops between crosswords. Writing is work, hard work, most often accomplished without a stroke of genius and most often accomplished by inserting butt into chair and staying there for a few hours, churning out crap work, typing when you don't feel like it. "I get to my best work in the fourth paragraph," I told my last intern, Brian, and I swear his eyes got wider. Good thing I didn't mention that sometimes it's the fourth page. "But I know that 95% of people will quit if they don't churn out a brilliant first line or a brilliant first paragraph, and if I can push through those first three paragraphs, I'll be better than that 95% of people who quit."

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case." -- Chuck Close

My editor, Jeff, often says to me on sunshiney Thursday afternoons at the office, "I don't feel like working today." But you know what? No matter how many times he's said that, I can't recall a one that he's actually gotten up and left, no matter how tempting it might seem when looking out the window.

Writing crap is never a waste of time, although it might feel like it when the house is a mess and you haven't yet brushed your teeth today. If you want to write, you have to write crap to get to the good stuff. No writing exercise is a substitute for your neurons waking up, yawning and stretching, packing a Thermos and briefcase and heading out onto those little neural pathways in your brain that make our actions into habits. You can't write if you don't practice, and you can't practice if you don't write. This is the hardest thing for writers to overcome.

I got my tattoo in a shitty, hole-in-the-wall tattoo place off Canal Street in New Orleans. I waited two hours for a tat that took 10 minutes, and I didn't feel like explaining myself to anyone sitting around me or to the tattoo jerks who kept repeating the same four words over and over again, with an emphasis on "amateurs." The meaning isn't immediately obvious, I guess. I get it. But I needed the phrase on more than a Post-It note stuck to my monitor. I need to be able to see it when I'm getting distracted, when I feel like I'm going in the wrong direction, when the thought creeps into my head that I could be doing other, more constructive things right now. I needed it five years ago when I was struggling to write my thesis, amassing research that went nowhere, afraid on those late late nights that my thoughts and opinions had no meaning to anyone but me. I still feel that way on a daily basis. No one is forcing me to keep going. But I know I have something to say, and my tattoo reminds me that the only way I'm going to get to say it is if I sit down and get to work.

WWI Gear

WWI Gear, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

I am a notorious hater of museums, unless they involve dinosaur bones, then I'm all in. We went to dozens of them in New York, and now with in-laws who live in Washington D.C., there never seems to be a shortage of them to visit. I've probably been to every famous American museum you could think of by default, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful, it's just the idea of walking around and looking at stuff isn't really in my top ten. And don't even get me started on art.

I'm a tactile person. I have to physically handle things to be able to experience them. If I can't turn something over in my hands, hold it closer to my face to examine it, smell it, look at it from different angles, it might as well be a picture on a TV screen to me. It's not real until I can touch it, experience it. And museums, with all their artifacts behind glass and guarded, don't seem real to me.

The new exhibit at the Pioneer Log Village in Reedsburg is not like that. I visited recently with my intern Brian to do a preview article on the hard work volunteers have put into the exhibit, which was about to premiere the next weekend at Reedsburg's Loyalty Day. Maybe it was the fact that the Barb, the Historical Society President, didn't mind opening the cases for us so I could get a better photo without reflecting off the glass. Maybe it was because it was just the three of us, with no other guests elbowing in on our experience. Or maybe it was because these were all items connected to my home town, to people I knew, histories for which I had some kind of reference, not just facts and dates on a page like in history class.

Sure, there are some items behind glass. But there are many items in the new exhibit (and the Village itself) that you can actually touch, like old military uniforms donated by local residents. Barb knew the story behind almost every item, could reference who donated it and where it came from. And I was blown away by how many items there were, different items the volunteers had been rescuing from dark and cobwebby boxes over the course of a few months.

Brian and I spent longer than we probably should have at the exhibit. We were supposed to be working on a story, taking photos, talking to Barb and gathering information. We shouldn't have stayed there longer than a half hour or so to avoid imposing on her time and ours. But I just couldn't help it. Every time I turned around, there was something more to look at, something I hadn't seen before, something my photographer brain wanted to capture from every conceivable angle. To say that the exhibit is well put together is an understatement; not only is it extremely professional but it encourages the kind of exploration (read: time-wasting) that kept pulling me back in that day. And who could ask for a better host than Barb, who volunteers so much of her free-time revitalizing the Log Village and gave us so much information and access that day that I just couldn't tear myself away.

The exhibit is only a small part of the larger Reedsburg Historical Society Log Village. The grounds are beautiful, and each cabin and building is full of artifacts from Reedsburg and the surrounding area. I spent a great afternoon there with my dad a few years ago, exploring each of the buildings. The site is one of Wisconsin's hidden gems and well-worth the trip if you ever have the chance.

Vacancy

Vacancy, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Someone once told me that oil paint never dries, and though I'm not a fan of art, it's one of those weird facts that's always stuck with me. I saw a lot of Van Gogh when I lived in New York, and I was fascinated by the realization that his paintings are actually three dimensional, swoops and peaks and valleys of oil paint, all still drying, all in a state of flux for hundreds of years and for hundreds of years to come. I thought about that as I was working on this photo; the next time I see this sign, it will have decayed a little more, and a little more the next time; until someone removes and discards it or it finally crumbles into the banks of the Wisconsin River, it will always be a work in regress, slowly undoing itself.

I've long been fascinated by anything falling into disrepair, the patinas of metal, the peeling of paint. I wonder about the backstory; for someone minorly obsessed with maintenance and "taking care of things," it is amazing to me when anything is neglected for so long, so long that it is actually showing its neglect, and how sometimes that neglect can produce beautiful results.

The morning I finally stopped to capture this, the fog was rolling off the Wisconsin River in an early March that hasn't quite yet figured out who it is or what it's doing with itself season-wise. The sign jutted out of the trees and fog, menacing, like a prop in a haunted house. And unlike the past three years I've passed by this sign, I stopped immediately, knowing it was now or never as soon that mess of trees would start to bud out with green. The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of my car was a much newer, much nicer "No Trespassing" sign that I made sure to stay on the right side of. And swarms, swarms of little black bugs circling each other.

Photos of signs are difficult to make interesting, especially when you have a sign that's interesting all by itself. I've taken quite a few of them and have my favorites, but every one is a new challenge. For this one in particular, I knew I couldn't take a straight-on photo from my five foot tall perspective and call it a day. I wanted to capture that fog, that desolation, some of the road in the background. And I knew I wanted the photo to be filled with that tree, like those brambles go on forever. It wasn't until I got closer that I realized the "NO" in "NO VACANCY" was scratched out, and that became my focus.

Those trees have started to bud out now with the warm weather and the photo above just wouldn't be the same. I had a small window of time until Mother Nature ruined my shot until October or so, and I'm glad I took it.

Cook Shanty

Cook Shanty, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Took an unsuccessful trip out to the Dells earlier this week as part of my long-term project, Strange Landscapes. I drove around for a long while and the photo above ended up being the only shot I took during the hour or so I was there. The sky was that steely, early Wisconsin spring grey; I kept looking at it through my office window all day thinking it was going to make a perfect backdrop for my photo excursion. But when I got there I drove around without inspiration, and the light faded, and I left.

I think a cloud was hanging over me while I was there. I kept thinking about the body that was pulled from the river a couple weeks ago. I'm sure it was not the first and unfortunately not the last. The body had yet to be identified and as I was driving around, I kept wondering how long it must have been in the water for it to have become so hard to recognize. A gloom settled over me, and it made it difficult to be receptive to inspiration, no matter how hard I thought I was looking.

Structural things in the Dells don't really change. I still knew my way around even though it had been a year or so since I'd spent any time there. Most of the time the roads won't move on you. What struck me was how different things on either side of the road looked wherever I went. Several scenes I photographed just last year were no longer there, such as Storybook Gardens (the no trespassing signs are still there but the rest is just a scorched piece of earth) and Riverview Park (surrounded by a fake castle wall, I have heard this is set to become some kind of zoo). The Dells is constantly changing, resetting the stage for the next show, and who can say whether this is a good or bad thing.

I've never eaten at Paul Bunyan's though I've heard a lot about it and known several people who've worked there at one time or another. I turned onto Highway 13 from Cty H and was immediately assailed by several signs encouraging me to "Turn Here! Turn Here! Turn Here!" so I did. To the left was a lot for tour buses; directly ahead was an overgrown mini-golf course and to the right was Paul Bunyan himself, accompanied by a sign that urged me to fill out a job application. The acres of parking lot were completely empty except for me and Paul. I snapped a few quick photos and left.

There are a little more than two months now before the tourist season starts. With daylight saving, I will soon have more daylight to work with so we'll see what happens.

Prim.

Prim., a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

My camera has been holed up in my purple padded case, waiting for spring. Any other season I'm toting my camera around constantly, snap happy, wanting to linger for extra minutes and hours outside. This time of year I'm a hermit, snug on the couch in my Snuggie with my brandy watching marathons of House reruns. It is difficult to find any kind of motivation these days with less light, sprinting from home to car and from car to work. And yet perusing the Flickr accounts of my friends and peers, I get a little bit jealous. Well, a lot jealous. Everyone else likes to take more winter walks than I would ever care for and they're the ones winding up with the amazing shots of hoarfrost and frozen lakes and things covered in snow.

Inside the house, attempts to learn lighting have been discouraging. Caught up in making wedding invitations and putting the finishing touches on our upcoming nuptials has left me little time for anything else, and I know that's no excuse. Days turn into weeks turn into months and my poor camera waits anxiously in my bag, hoping for more than just photos of check passings and ribbon cuttings. I hate blogs that apologize and make empty promises, disappear for months and then come back with excuses. I won't do that. I've been lazy. I'll do better and not for anyone else but for me and what I enjoy. That's all.

Fiona, always the prim and proper cat, perches above on a shelf in our house. Cats are so random but purposeful, an amalgam of joints and limbs and reactions with a little OCD thrown in the mix. Their routines are fascinating. I always wonder what's going through their tiny cat cerebral cortexes, so packed with neurons, making them sixth smartest animal on earth, twice as smart as dogs. And all that intelligence sometimes focuses on the most minute detail, like lining up all of one's toes on the edge of a shelf just so, arranging a tail just right. What else is life for if not positioning one's self just perfectly for a long nap? Maybe they've got it all figured out.

Recall efforts in Reedsburg nearly done, city enacts building use policy

Another story Jeff and I collaborated on was posted on dane101.com today through our content-sharing partnership with the site.

Check it out: Recall efforts in Reedsburg nearly done, city enacts building use policy

The article is also available in this week's Reedsburg Independent.

City moving forward with building use policy draft

A story Jeff and I collaborated on was posted on dane101.com today through our content sharing partnership with the site.

Check it out: City moving forward with building use policy draft

Epic Points of Light

Epic Points of Light, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Who wouldn't love to work in a place like Epic? My fiance has worked there four-ish years and through my comings and goings picking him up from work or seeing a new office he's moved into or giving unofficial tours to relatives, I've seen quite a bit of the campus. But it changes constantly; every time I pick him up from work I feel like I'm taking a different road, even if I'm going to the same place.

We always offer visiting relatives a tour of John's office, which makes it sound banal when you put it like that. I think the visiting relatives think the same and initially agree just to be polite. And then they see the place and know what we're talking about. I try to take my camera every time we go on an extensive tour as there's so much of the fantastic incorporated into the buildings. A fifties diner in the cafeteria, a waterfall, an Indiana Jones-themed hallway, a treehouse, a replica of the NYC subway, a Dungeons and Dragons-themed building (John's old office), just to name a few. It is a severe understatement to say that someone put a lot of thought into the campus. Literally no stone was left unturned in crafting this environment in the middle of a Verona cornfield; it is a sight to behold and difficult to describe unless you've been there. The campus resembles a theme park more than a medical software company and I hope the employees never stop appreciating the thought and wonder instilled into design of their workplace.

Anyway, I never go without my camera but I find it's difficult to take fantastic pictures of something that's already fantastic, you know? How do you find a good angle, something that's not already obvious? On Flickr, giantmike does an amazing job of capturing even seemingly mundane aspects of the campus and making them beautiful.

I snapped the above photo on a quick jaunt to see John's new office in Pluto. Yes, Pluto. They moved him in as soon as the office space was available, so there wasn't too much decor yet in the labyrinth of hallways leading to his office. I noticed the light fixture as we were leaving Pluto through the hallway that leads to the training center (I think). What could otherwise be a plain but perfectly acceptable hallway had four or five of these lights about midway up the wall on either side. The walls themselves were painted in what can only be described as a light-speed-ahead-triangle-pattern, complimenting the lights perfectly so that when one stopped to look full on at the fixtures, you were left with the image I took above.

It's just another example of how everything at Epic is thought about, every detail considered. Ordinary light fixtures and ordinary paint jobs probably have a cheaper, ordinary price. But I'm sure whoever is in charge over there also recognizes the incredible value in small moments of joy in discovering what I did above, all those perfect points of light.

Thoughts on Christmas Cards

Under the Mistletoe, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

My minor obsession with miniatures and making my own holiday cards continued again this year with the next installment of my Christmas Card Photo Shoot.

I received a lot of positive feedback from last year's attempt, mostly about my photos of Oscar el Gato (one of which even won a contest). But more than that, I get a lot of joy throughout the whole endeavor  for a couple reasons.

I strongly believe that sending and receiving mail is a lost art, and it's easily buried under the process of addressing and sending holiday cards the way we modern folk do it. As a kid, I used to help my mom send Christmas cards. I remember feeling an enormous pressure to get all those cards out, plopping down with a bargain pack of 50 cards most likely bought during sales following Christmas the previous year and going through everyone in the address book. Every card had a pre-written message so it was easy enough; "Dear Aunt Somebody and Uncle So-and-So, Merry Christmas, Love, the Porter family." Sometimes I wrote out our names. And sometimes the cards already said, "Merry Christmas," so I didn't always have to write that. But I was an efficient little assembly line of card messaging and addressing, a task that catered perfectly to my love of my own handwriting and my obsessive need to complete lists.

As an adult, undertaking the societal rite of passage in sending my own Christmas cards for the first time, I remember standing in the aisle at Target in early November, unable to settle on the right holiday greetings or even sufficient holiday greetings. For some reason it felt like a big deal; I was frozen in indecision; I couldn't just grab a box and be happy with whatever I got. I can make cards better than this, I thought, nay, I will make cards better than this.

Which leads me to the point I quickly realized as I set about my task: handmade cards don't come with pre-printed messages. When you forgo the 50 pack of bargain cards, it forces you to handwrite the names of your recipients, handwrite a message, and handwrite a closing. It forces you to think, to really think about all the names, all the individuals in your address book, or at least I do while I'm writing. It forces you to actually communicate, to make a connection beyond the act of checking this person's name off a list once per year. I'm not trying sound holier-than-thou. There is nothing wrong with the assembly-line method of messaging and addressing Christmas cards, if that's the way you prefer to go about it each holiday season. But having tried the alternative, our new modern tradition just isn't for me.

In addition, let it not be taken lightly that there is something immeasurably satisfying in taking one large, seemingly insurmountable project and breaking it down into a series of tiny tasks. Plopped down in the middle of my living room, affixing photos with double-sided sticky tape to cardstock folded in half, buffing off fingerprints with a soft cloth, writing messages on the inside, over and over again, one at a time until each is done.

And so, finally, we arrive at what this blog is truly about: the photography. There's something calming about photographing miniatures. I tend to lose myself faster in the work than just about any other project I do, in the process of constructing a set, positioning lights, breathing shallowly as I try to stay as still as possible. Hours pass. I am impatient in almost every single other area of my life but this one, shifting figures fractions of inches, watching where the light falls. Click.

Last year I remember trying to go for a vintage-y Christmas look with the ornaments and didn't concentrate so much on the miniatures. But the miniatures were my favorite photos from last year, so that's what I focused on this year. I didn't try to go for any certain "look," but in reviewing the series it feels like the photos are darker. I managed to make a snowman look sinister. There were some photos that look like they were barely lit. I can't say that I was going for a certain feeling or other during the photography process. But looking at the pictures now, I feel like I captured the holidays' essential moments: picking out a Christmas tree, building a snowman, caroling, kissing under the mistletoe. Simple and classic.

Another point to consider: every image in this year's series was in color. I have been trying to figure that one out, as I did so many black and whites last year. What changed? I didn't convert any of my images to black and white in the editing process; I don't remember feeling a need to, though I don't doubt that some of them would look good in black and white, maybe even better than in color.

Overall I'm happy with the result. And so, hopefully, will be the people on my Christmas card list.

Recall petitioners allowed to stay in Reedsburg Rec Center - for now

Another story I did for the Indy this week was posted to dane101.com through our content-sharing partnership.

Check it out: Recall petitioners allowed to stay in Reedsburg Rec Center - for now

City of Reedsburg allows Recall Walker petitioners to use Rec Center

This isn't specifically photog-related, but an article I wrote for this week's Reedsburg Independent has been shared with dane101.com through our new content sharing partnership.

Check it out: City of Reedsburg allows Recall Walker petitioners to use Rec Center.

Pretty cool.

Rules of the Gallery

Rules of the Gallery, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Taken just outside the Wisconsin Assembly Gallery, September 2011.

Sign reads: Rules of the Assembly Gallery, In accordance with Assembly Rule 26 the following are Not Allowed in the Gallery: eating, drinking, smoking, loud talking, mobile phones, laptops, video cameras, photography, newspapers, wearing of hats, signs, posters, placards, leaning over the railings, sitting in aisles or on the floors, standing in aisles, outbursts (cheering, jeering stomping). Contact the Assembly Sergeant at Arms concerning Gallery policies.

I'm a sucker for photos of signs. So when we visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in September, I spent some time trying to get a photo of the sign above with the background in the mix. I thought the sign was funny as it forbid the "Wearing of Hats" - not so much the rule itself but how it was worded. With the light streaming in from the stained glass ceiling in the Assembly itself, it was pretty difficult to set up and capture the shot the way I was envisioning. But I managed to get my settings right and stand still enough to capture the above shot.

There was a big hubbaloo on Twitter last night about something going on in the Assembly. I'm a little ashamed to admit that despite being a reporter, living less than a mile from the Capitol, and being currently betrothed to someone very interested in state politics, I am usually pretty ignorant as to what goes on up there. I catch snippets from Twitter and one in particular from dane101 last night stuck in my head: "Staskunas talking about signs with Assembly rules, Speaker says, "Actually a number of them have been stolen."

No matter how you feel about the current situation in the State of Wisconsin, stealing is just not nice. Even if you disagree with them, taking the sign isn't going to make the rules go away. But I'm sure it's a case of the actions of only a few reflecting on the many.

I Do Two

I Do Two, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

I recently undertook round two of our Wedding Invite Photo Shoot. Although round one was pretty successful, trying again has been on my to-do list for awhile. I'm still not sure exactly how these images will work into the final product of our save-the-dates and wedding invites, but they're nice to have around just in case. I'm definitely excited about the possibilities.

It took me so long to get around to round two because I was so happy with what I conceived for round one that I was unsure if I could come up with any new ideas. The process of round two seemed to go better than the first. The first time I relied heavily on my iPhone and Hipstamatic app to produce cool images. This time around it was all me. I set the camera to manual focus and took a lot of time getting things positioned to exactly where I wanted them to be. Those are the good things that happened.

I thought the shoot was a success until I uploaded the photos and saw what I came up with on the big screen. The lighting seemed wrong. I didn't diffuse any of the lights pointed at the set because, to my eye, it looked soft. But the hard copy proved otherwise. The light was harsh and all of the wood tones in the props had orangey glow. Maybe I should have reduced the number of lights. Maybe I should have turned off all the overhead lights in the room to control the ambient light bouncing off surfaces. Maybe I should have diffused the light. I don't know. Additionally, John's ring was so shiny that it was difficult to find photos without my reflection, something I hadn't contemplated when shooting. I also could have used a tripod, something I don't currently own. Trial and error.

I'm happy with the images that I eventually got but -  a lot of the originals were unusable. And the ones that survived required more editing than I'm comfortable with. Live and learn, I guess. I'll have to do more research, keep trying to figure out that dang lighting.

View the full set on my Flickr. Additional photos from the shoot after the jump.

View of the Forevertron

View of the Forevertron, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

And now for something completely different.

John's parents visited for a few days recently. Mary said to treat the both of them like tourists, as they hadn't spent any significant amount of time in the area since the 1970s. I appreciated the opportunity to share our home with them, our geographies, and the off-the-beaten-path Wisconsin that I love so much.

I'm not sure what Richard and Mary were expecting as we trekked from Madison to the Forevertron, just outside Sauk City. I had shown them Tom Every's biography and website, explained the Forevertron as the world's largest scrap metal sculpture, but how do you really adequately describe something so vast and intricate, beautiful and strange?

I can't remember how old I was the first time my family and I visited the Art Park, trespassing our way onto the property through the junkyard behind Delaney's Surplus. I was young enough that Delaney's seemed to stretch on forever, junk piled upon junk. We reached the back of the lot where a well-traveled footpath was cut through the brush, Secret Garden-esque. On the other side of the tall weeds loomed the Forevertron, unexpected but expected, like all of Delaney's junk had gotten sick of laying around and assembled itself in a way that sort of made sense. Despite being several stories tall, the Forevertron was completely hidden from the highway; we must have gone past it a hundred times and never knew it was there. We didn't know anything about "art" or "sculpture." But even as a child I had visions of a madman starting in one corner of his property and working his way toward the other, physically manifesting the heroes and monsters and creatures in his mind until they all were quiet. Isn't that what art is, anyway?

Thankfully the park was open the Friday we visited, as the man himself was there, Tom Every and his wife Eleanor. I was too intimidated to talk to him; having wondered about him for most of my life, I was paralyzed by inadequacy. But John's dad Richard had a long conversation with Every, who was pleased that he wasn't an engineer or social worker from Madison.

I ambled around purposelessly with my camera, not intending to take pictures of anything but knowing that I would kick myself if I saw something and didn't have any equipment. I took pictures at the Art Park last year, and The Camera Company Photographers group has been there at least once. I was skeptical that there was anything in the park that I hadn't seen or that I could see in a new way. But if there's anything I'm learning lately it's that photography is counterintuitive to my whole nature in that planning only gets you so far. There's a point where my conscious mind turns off, loses interest, stops trying. But that's when my subconscious mind takes over, quietly taking notes and making lists and once in awhile making me stop when it sees something particularly interesting. I've learned that it's better to have my camera around when that happens. Click.

The rusted out car was parked in overgrown weeds in the northeast corner of the park, seemingly forgotten. I crouched down next to it to get a better look at the inside and realized that I had a perfectly framed view of the Forevertron through the dingy driver's side window. The perspective reminded me of another photo I saw a few months ago (that I can't find despite all my Googling) in which the photographer was crouched behind a car, taking photos through the window of soldiers passing by. It had the same foreground in which one could see the interior of the car and the steering wheel, and the sense of the photographer's cowering position created so much tension that I couldn't take my eyes away from it. I tried to recreate that pose in the photo above. I'm not sure if I succeeded in this particular photo - I would have done better if not for the noon light shadowing the inside of the car and blowing out the background. But the car's state of neglect and the outline of the Forevertron through the window give the photo an apocalyptic feel. I'm pleased with the result, and maybe I'll try the same shot again sometime in better lighting.

More photos from Dr. Evermor's are on my Flickr.

Thoughts from a Plane Crash

Accident Scene, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

At the scene of an accident, it's not a good sign when the frenetic pace slows, firefighters begin lifting off their helmets, paramedics draw farther away. The plane, bent in wrong directions like a broken bone, was laying where it had crumpled and came to rest against the side of a storage shed.

I was standing in tall grass between Jeff and a rusted out washing machine when a fireman approached us. "It just dropped out of the sky," he said with a combination of astonishment and exhaustion.

His voice dropped off. "They've passed," he said.

We don't respond to accident calls often. I don't know how to succinctly explain it - other papers like to publish accident photos from time to time, and it always gives me a bad taste in my mouth. It's just not nice.

The plane crash was different. There was no debating whether or not we were going to respond, no looking up addresses while questioning if it was worth our time to drive out there. A plane crash. I sprang up, haphazardly predicting what I needed to bring to the scene like gathering possessions to rescue from my burning home. Jeff was already out the door. Nate the intern trailed behind.

We drove like maniacs across town, and it seemed like everyone with a police scanner was headed in the same direction. I called my dad. "They're trapped," he said, relaying what he heard on the scanner. "They've started CPR."

We parked behind the VFW Hall and a man in a station wagon was telling a guy with a baby stroller that he had seen the whole thing. "Go talk to him!" I yelled to Nate, struggling to keep up with Jeff.

I felt blindly pulled like a magnet toward the accident scene, ignoring fences and driveways. Jeff led us the long way along the road, scolding me for trespassing. "That's private property," he yelled behind him.

As we approached the scene, a sheriff with a white handlebar mustache and brown uniform was pulling police tape across our path. My stomach dropped.

The sheriff looked up and saw us. "Did you get a good picture yet, Jeff?" he asked, lifting the police tape so we could go under. "I know you won't get in the way."

As we approached the scene, the reporter part of my brain started to take over, filing away facts and details, making lists. The red barn and red fire truck standing stark against that clear blue summer sky, calm and still. The plane, looking fake like a movie prop, wrong in the scene before us. Firemen swarming everywhere. The jaws of life.

Jeff, with a surprising knowledge of airplanes, relayed technical details to me as we stood several yards away. "That's an ultralight," he said of the plane in front of us. "You're more secure in a Ferris Wheel." We stood back, trying to decipher what was going on in the scene before us, trying to make sense of all the people and objects that had converged in this ordinary trucking yard. The only thing that was obvious, the thing that later played through my head over and over, was the moment when all of the emergency people gave up, slowed down, and stepped back.

Back at the office, my adrenaline still pumping, I flew into reporter overdrive. I got on the phone and called every person I could think of who would have information, an ultimately useless task as the tragedy was still new. No one knew anything, least of all me, and I had no idea what to do next.

I didn't go to journalism school, but I don't think there's standard procedure for handling a tragedy. I put off writing the front page article until a few days later, forcing myself to talk to those involved, forcing myself to go over the events one more time. As a reporter, I have always felt that my responsibility has been to make things make sense, and more than my grief over the event itself, more than my disbelief, more than the images playing over and over in my head, I think what bothers me more than anything right now is an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. I can't make this make sense. I can give you the facts. I can describe what happened at the scene. I can provide photos. I can find things out. But I can't make them make sense. I just can't.

Additional photos from the scene are linked from my Flickr earlier in this blog. A full write-up of the story will be available in this week's Reedsburg Independent, on newsstands Wednesday and in subscriber mailboxes on Thursday.

Caz

Cazenovia Parade, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Sunday was the start of an extreme heat wave here in Wisconsin, and John and I ventured from Madison to Cazenovia to catch the annual Caz Celebration parade. It was about an hour and a half drive north that took us through Reedsburg; as John commented, "There's no road that goes straight there." We followed 12 then 33 then 58 from LaValle to Caz, which has to be one of the prettiest roads around, through the bluffs of the driftless area in central Wisconsin.

Caz is a very small town with a very big spirit. Despite the heat, Sunday's parade was no different. With temperatures stretching into the 90s, I was afraid that the parade would be cancelled, but the people of Caz, and John and I, soldiered on. But I've never seen so much candy thrown in a parade and so few kids willing to run for it.

We parked in a field by the American Legion, trooped up to the main street running through town, past the gorgeous Lee Lake (picturesque doesn't even begin to cover it). We met some nice older ladies willing to share a shady bench with us ("As long as you understand that any M&Ms thrown this way are mine," one sternly told us) and the parade commenced.

Working for the paper, my role now is more documenting the parade than chasing after candy, and you never know what kind of images you're going to wind up with. It's impossible to set up something you know will look good. You can anticipate what you think might be in the parade, and there are a few default shots you know you can count on just in case something goes wrong. I generally have no game plan, and that's both exhilarating and terrifying. What if I don't get a good shot? What if I've spent all this time and I wind up with nothing? I guess you could have those anxieties about any photo you take, but I feel like with parades (and similar events) the stakes are higher - it takes nearly the whole day and there are no do-overs. And with my job, I know a photo from the day will go into the paper that week. Better make it a good one.

Pretty much the only variable you can control is where you stand, and I typically run up and down the street the whole time. I get anxious and have trouble staying in one place, but most of all I want to make sure that I'm not in anyone's way. On Sunday, I lost myself and forgot about everything except taking photos, which was nice to be immersed and focused, but not so nice if you are running back and forth in the middle of an intersection in 90+ degree heat with your back to the sun. The parade lasted about a half hour or 45 minutes, and at the end, I was beat.

At one point, I did snap out of it long enough to realize that someone had thrown a bag of M&Ms at my feet. I promptly delivered it to John's benchmate, who was tickled pink. "Life is good!" she exclaimed, and I agreed.

Wisconsin parades are pretty much the only parades I've ever known, except for the ones I've seen on TV, and I still get excited for them. How many parades feature all of the fire trucks and tractors in town? The Caz parade wasn't as long as the Butterfest parade, but they are still the same kind of deal - floats, people walking, tractors and vehicles, candy and Super Soakers. It's an amazing thing that from a city as big as Reedsburg to a village as small as Caz, the parade serves as a showcase to the many groups and businesses that call that town home and the community coming together to recognize them. It was a celebration in the true sense of the word.

In the photo above, I was trying to get a creative photo of the Caz firetrucks; we typically don't put the parade firetrucks in the paper because it's hard to get something other than an angle shot of the whole truck. And while I knew I took a close-up photo of the driver, I didn't realize how perfectly the shot was set up until later. The photo above captures that day exactly - you've got the fire truck at the right with the gold "Cazenovia Fire Department" lettering, driver with a handlebar mustache and pink fuzzy dice in the window. Behind him you can see an Old Style sign from one of the many bars that line the main street of Caz. As your eye travels to the left, I love the bright flags popping out against that hot blue sky, the tractors continuing the parade into the distance. Far off in the distance you can see one of the gorgeous bluffs I was talking about earlier. I would love to take credit for this image, but I think in this case, it was just pure luck.

Reflected

Reedsburg's Veterans Memorial, a photo by meagan.porter on Flickr.

Maybe I'm getting a little sentimental in my old age, but I'll admit to tearing up a bit last Monday at the dedication of the new Veterans Memorial in Reedsburg.

It really seems like not so long ago that Jeff and I went to the groundbreaking. It was one of only a handful of events we've ever covered together, and I was only an intern at the time. The speakers then focused on a grand vision for that tiny corner of Nishan Park, and I had a hard time picturing it. As they stood there with their ceremonial shovels, posing for photos, the completion seemed so far off in the future, still a someday, still a dream. Three years later on July 4, the Memorial was finished.

I've visited my future in-laws in Washington D.C. a few times now and have hit up most of the touristy monument stops in the area. But I have never been moved the way I was last Monday, viewing the Reedsburg Memorial in its finished state for the first time. The glossy black granite panels display scenes from the US's past and current conflicts and fittingly, they also reflect the viewer. I went back early on Tuesday morning to get some shots of just the Memorial, including the photo above that I put on the front page later that day. Sitting on the warm cement in the exact center of the site, the environment was calm, quiet, meditative, the Memorial and flagpoles looming above me, stretching into the sky.

I grew up in Reedsburg, and I constantly marvel at how working for the Indy gives me a totally different perspective on my humble hometown. In the last three years, we've covered every fundraising effort for this Memorial, every Vet Fest, every raffle, every donation, and the Packer Tailgate that came to town last year just to name a few (of many) off the top of my head. Had I been just a citizen, I might have been too wrapped up in my own life to notice what was going on in that corner of Nishan Park, and how the citizens of Reedsburg were tirelessly working to make that dream a reality.

I've had very few profound moments in life, where everything seems to move slowly, where time stops, as though the world is in a vacuum and centers on that one moment. The last time was the June 2008 flood, walking away from Pineview Elementary, clutching my flood clean-up kit. This time the experience was positive. On Monday, a few hundred people came together to welcome this Memorial into the community, listening to speakers, exploring the grounds, celebrating the hard work and dedication of so many people. On Tuesday, I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with the Memorial, taking it in, observing and photographing and experiencing the stillness of the place. It was a privilege to cover this story over the past three years and to see the Memorial come to fruition.

More photos on my Flickr.