where i stand sunday

If you've hung around the blog for any length of time, you'll be familiar with this kind of post. If you haven't, let me explain why you're looking at a photo of my feet.

When I started my blog, I was eager for two things: (1) a way to build a regular blogging habit and (2) a long term project. My true desire was to (and still is) to have a daily project but I find it too difficult to keep up with - studio time is sparse during the week. So I settled on a weekly photo essay, one that focuses on slowing down and observing the word both through the picture and a brief piece of writing to explain the picture.

I chose to take pictures of places I stood throughout the week because how often do we really take a moment to pause and observe the ground we tread on? Not often. It's the thing that supports us as we move through our days, it seemed like it was time to give it it's due.

I did the photo essay for five years here on the blog and then felt as if I ran out of things to say. Life became more compressed and I was going fewer places and thought it had simply run it's course. Recently a friend asked me about it, had I considered picking it back up. In truth, I had been. I missed the writing, the habit of forcing myself to look where I was stepping through the week.

So I'm picking the project back up. Starting today. Each week I'll post a photo with a mini essay beneath it. I'm going to supplement it a bit, though and give an eye level view of where I stood as well if it offers anything interesting to look at. It feels good to be doing it again, to be looking where I step.

 The weather here in the mountains does not match the calendar, moodier even then my beloved Michigan. My feet have trouble finding purchase on the heavy packed snow and I grip the guard rail tightly, worried that even though the gap is narrow I'll somehow find myself falling down the side of the slope. I feel small here, truly insignificant in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Their beauty is suffocating in it's immensity, a collaboration that speaks to my human nature in a most basic of ways.

View of the Rocky Mountains from Where I Stood.

Where I Stand is an ongoing photo essay examining the different places I spend my life standing. Too often we take for granted the everyday places we spend our lives walking on. The ground we tread on has its own stories to tell.