circles, loops, round shapes. . . with barbs
My kids continue to surprise me, even into their adult lives. . . the other night I watched the Olympic women's discus throwers. The woman from the US won that particular heat with a throw of 212+ feet. I called my daughter to see if she was watching. . . I wanted to see what she had to say about the appearance of some of those women, who were barely distinguishable from men, particularly the Chinese and Ukrainian women.
Back in high school, for some reason I completely forget, my daughter was on the track team. She threw the discus and the shot put and did pretty well. She held the school record for a time and she went to the state track meet a couple of times, too. She was also a volleyball player from about the fifth grade, and a basketball player from maybe around fourth grade, through high school, and went to the state tournaments several times. I had no influence on her decisions to play anything. . . those opportunities had not been available to me when I was a kid and I had no frame of reference. So, basically, if she wanted to play, it was fine with me. It kept her busy and happy most of the time and out of mischief.
So I'm talking to her about the Olympic women discus throwers, and out of nowhere, in complete seriousness, she basically says "I coulda been a contender" . . . that had she continued to train and throw, she could have qualified for the Olympics at some point. She said she threw the discus 200 feet in practice one time. It floored me. . . but knowing Stef, she probably could have been a contender. She always worked so hard at accomplishing anything she wanted to do. And she still does.
I will also say, just for the record, that Stef and the Ukrainian and Chinese women discuss throwers bear no resemblence to each other. Stef is gorgeous: tall, slim, blonde and beautiful. To see her, you would never think she had dreams of competing in the Olympics in the discus. I see her all the time and I had absolutely no idea. . .
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2 comments:
I'm enjoying your photographs of patterns and shapes. I am always curious with this type of work whether you go out shooting with the intention of finding abstract patterns like this, or if you gather them along the way and then, in looking through your images, find such "series" of works.
Since photography tends to be such a process of stumbling upon things that catch your eye, it often works in the latter fashion.
Bob, I'm definitely a stumbler. When I go out with my camera, I'm just looking for interesting texture, shapes, colors, rust, decrepitude, trash. My best photos come from dumpsites, junkyards, constructions sites. alleys. I like to shoot discarded or abandoned stuff, too. The round things I've shown lately are just pictures I have found in my photographs that happen to show my circle obsession, of which I was actually unaware until self-taught artist Paula pointed it out to me. How about you? Do you set out to capture certain subjects or are you a stumbler, too?
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