Adam Graham Photography

Photographs seem to work with memory in a couple of ways. Firstly, a photograph can be a document of an event or thing. Photojournalism is the primary example of this. Photographs are a visual record and can become historical documents. They become resources for our collective memory. Personal photographs also become documents. Putting them into an album or slideshow turns them into a sort of photographic autobiography. The emotive quality of photography makes it a very useful tool for sharing information about events. The odd relationship that this type of photograph has to memory is that they create a type of false memory in the viewer. The viewer can feel like they have a sense of what occurred, that they remember it happening, when their experience is only of the photograph of the event. The photograph that the photographer, of all the possible photographs of the event, chose to take. In photojournalism this is then one step further removed by the editor choosing which of the photographs to publish.

The other relationship that photography and memory have is as a signpost for those who did actually experience the event photographed. This is the experience of looking back through your own photo album. The photograph reminds you of your actual experience of what is in the photograph. The odd thing about this is that it is a censored memory. It’s censored initially at the time the photographs are taken. Certain things are prejudged to be worthy of being remembered. From those photographs, certain ones get then picked, for whatever reason, to get saved. This is not always a bad thing. It is even a necessary thing. It’s the nature of photography to selectively record. It’s the nature of memory to selectively record as well. The thing I find most interesting about this interplay between these two selections is the way that one affects the other. The photo album can spark the memory to recall things that were previously forgotten. But it also makes sure that some things are not brought back to memory.

Any day now. Sherrie’s darn proud of her stretch marks. I think she would have been disappointed if she didn’t get any.

“The camera must be able to make a quantity of photographs which no photographer can ever hope to take. A well-programmed camera can never be wholly seen through by any photographer, nor by all photographers together. It is, in the largest sense, a black box. It is precisely the blackness of the box that challenges the photographer. It is true that he loses himself within it, but he can dominate it nonetheless. He knows how to feed the box (he knows its input), and how to make it spout photographs (he knows its output). The camera does what the photographer wants it to do, although the photographer does not know what goes on in the interior of the black box.”

- Vilem Flusser from ‘Towards a Philosophy of Photography‘

We’ve had to get a few trees taken down since we moved into our house. There were the cedars by the front step that were ruining the porch roof. There was a small fir that was dead and falling over. A couple pines that had been choked out by their sun-grabbing neighbors. This winter we decided the cedars that were shading our kitchen’s south facing side, keeping light and ever-important heat from reaching us, had to go. And finally, because its base was rotten halfway through, we had to professionally have removed the mammoth trunk that was regrowing the canopy that had previously been cut off. It was a looming danger to our shed or the neighbor’s grandkids.
I find it hard to make the decision to get a tree cut down because it feels like trying to erase history. Each of those trees had spent more time here than I have. In fact, most of them had spent more time living than I have. The biggest one probably predated our 120 year old house. All of that history was trucked away in a few hours.

I’m planning on making amends. In fact I’ve already started. We’ve planted a tree that was a souvenir from Sherrie’s parents’ trip to British Columbia last year. And yesterday a red maple arrived that was given to us as a baby shower gift. It will grow as our little one grows, gaining more history as we do.

‘In some areas this plant is considered among the worst of weeds, readily spreading over large areas of ground by underground roots. A variegated form is grown as an ornamental plant, though with the advice to keep it isolated.’ (Wikipedia)

I can attest to the ‘readily spreading’ part of that description. I’ve been trying to carry out a campaign against the goutweed in our garden this year. As you can see from the picture, the roots can be quite long (Although not nearly as long as the roots of the leafy spurge whose ‘vertical roots are very long and extend deeply into the soil, going to a depth of nine meters.’ 27 feet!) . Goutweed roots are also fairly brittle, leaving pieces in the ground to sprout as soon as you turn your back. I’m not happy to know that it may have been intentionally introduced to our garden as an ornamental. That’s a decision that lacked foresight.
It isn’t even that I mind weeding. As frustrating as it can be at times, on the whole I find it relaxing. It gets me out in the sunshine, gives tangible results, and gives me time to think. I love the smell of the soil and the sound of the birds as they chase each other around our yard. My problem with goutweed is the lack of hope I have in complete removal. It’s a foe that I will probably never overcome. Gerard (I think St. Gerard who gave goutweed one of it’s names, but it’s not clear from the source.) says of it: ‘Herbe Gerard groweth of itself in gardens without setting or sowing and is so fruitful in its increase that when it hath once taken roote, it will hardly be gotten out againe, spoiling and getting every yeare more ground, to the annoying of better herbe.’ (link) His last statement sums up my feeling about goutweed. It’s a party-crasher. I don’t like it annoying the invited guests.

Besides, there are a lot of weeds in Nova Scotia that are much worse. We could have Tansy Ragwort (Symptoms of seneciosis include loss of appetite and condition, paling of the mucus membranes, and a staggering gait or walking in circles. Cattle may develop a mania and charge persons in the vicinity, while horses may become very sleepy.), Thorn Apple or Jamestown Weed (Ingestion causes serious impairment of the central nervous system, producing severe hallucinations usually lasting for several days, extreme thirst, delirium, violent behaviour, and potentially a comatose state. Poisonings from ingestion of the plants are quite common.), or Yellow Nut Sedge (It is considered to be one of the five worst weeds in the world. . . and is particularly troublesome in potatoes because its tubers will grow right through the potato.).

I took a very similar shot last year. I think that this one is a bit of an improvement. It’s more dynamic and the composition includes a bit more movement in the background. It’s really interesting to me to see the difference between shots of the same subject from one year to the next. We’ll have to see what next year’s version looks like. Here’s last year’s shot for comparison.

I’ve added a new essay to the Features section of the site about how growing up in Saint John, New Brunswick helped shape the way I see. It was originally published as a part of Utata.org’s My Town section.

I grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, on the eastern coast of Canada. The Bay of Fundy, stretching between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, is one of the foggiest areas in the world—and Saint John is one of the foggiest places on the bay. Being situated on the harbour where the St. John River runs into the bay turns Saint John into a natural fog machine. The city sees fog for at least some portion of the day on a full one-quarter of the days of the year. Throughout the year there are different types of fog: some hovers in an ironic bright gloom, some only hangs in wisps over in the water in the morning, and some switches back and forth all day with rain. My favorite fog, though, is the kind that rolls in thick and fast on summer nights. A blanket of gray quickly covers the city, quieting noises and muting colours. Although I do not live there now, spending my youth in Saint John left me with a few key photographic tools and a love for nature—now the subject area that interests me the most.  (continue reading)

Sherrie counted well over a hundred tulips in our yard before they bloomed. They bring so much life and colour to the garden. And because the sun is actually shining today I have to cut my post short to get back outside.