Photo Project

I used to take a lot of photography classes in high school and they required me to photograph my environment on a daily basis. So i don't think that this project caused me to experience my environment any differently or see it in a different way since its something i always used to do. However, I think taking photos makes me see things differently than others do. Im more observant, i think about things in terms of how they would appear on camera and I think that in general I am much more observant than others.

My favorite photograph is the picture of my roommates cat lying on the couch upside down. I came to Iowa state this year sort of on a whim and didn't know i was coming until the start of the summer. I had to find a place to live very quickly and looked on craigslist. I ended up finding an apartment with two nice girls my age but one of them had a cat and i had never lived with a cat before. The first semester she bit me a lot and was aggressive and i thought i hated cats but she calmed down and I got used to her playfulness and now i'm really happy that we have a pet in our house, so i thought this photograph perfectly embodied what i wake up to each morning, and the newly discovered nice side to our cat, Yoda.

I like the way that Yoda is looking directly at the camera in this shot, it took me an hour to get the perfect shot where she was looking at me. The light was just right and i thought the blur of her fuzzy body against the fuzzy sofa creates this relaxed feeling that suits the look that Yoda has. She was peaceful and the lighting supported that feeling.

This was also the most difficult photo to obtain, i wanted yoda to be looking at the photo and she is very uncooperative so it was not easy. I think this is also why i like this photo the most because when i look at it, I see all of the effort and trouble i had gone through to get the photo. I have found through my many Photography classes that animals and young children are the most difficult subjects to photograph.

Looking at the photograph which I had mounted, of the small white and pink flowers which had just blossomed on the tree branch, I think it represents my environment well. I am from the east coast, and we have much calmer winters than the past one I experienced here in Iowa. I walked past that same tree every day on my way to school and it was frozen and gloomy and looked dead. So after three months of nonstop snow and wind and just absolutely awful weather, I loved to see those first few flowers bloom on that tree and was eager to capture them and show the environment I had been waiting for all winter. I chose to photograph that same tree that I always see once it looked nice instead of as it looked for the first half of our photo project.

Writing like Annie Dillard

Giving the puppy a bath was always so fun because he loved to play in the soapy bubbles and of course he loved the attention. John and I would put on our bathing suits and hop in the bathtub with him to play and get him smelling like that soft fuzzy puppy he was the day we brought him home all over again. On this particular night though, Jake was acting funny, he wasn't as excited for the bath as he used to be and he was lying on the cold off white bathroom tiles as if he couldn't get up. I went over to see what was wrong, hes a puppy, they get tired, maybe it was just too late in the day to expect him to have energy. I scooped up the little 8 pound fuzzy strawberry blond Golden Retriever puppy into my arms and thats when i felt it.

Right behind his collar there was a thick round yet flat at the center bump. I freaked out as most new mothers do. I thought it was a tumor and my little jake was going to die. John told me to calm down and took the pup in his arms. We inspected the area and found that the bump was a huge, gray, engorged tick. It must have been on the poor puppy's neck for days sucking his blood like a vampire in a ghost story. This being my first dog, I had NO idea what to do. John, more level headed, grabbed the tweezers and asked me to hold the little guy while he pulled the dirty parasite off my baby boy.

So there i was standing in my pepto-bismol pink bathroom, in my rainbow striped bikini, holding on to this tiny ball of fluff while john tried to pull the bug off of him. Jake dug his nails into my bare belly as john tried again and again to pull the bug out. It was so gross looking. Its whole body was fat and full with my innocent unsuspecting puppy's blood. It was the grossest shade of gray that one could imagine, looking strained all around from the amount of blood it had taken in. The worry was that if we pulled it out too quickly, we would break the tick, the blood which was now contaminated and disease carrying, would go everywhere, and the tick's head would still be stuck in my poor puppy's neck. I had to close my eyes because the sight of the parasitic leach was making me feel faint.

John eventually got the tick off, and Jake had a great time playing in the bathtub with us. But I couldn't look at the tick once it was in the tweezers, with its sharp face and gross body. My mom put it in a plastic bag to show the vet so they could identify what type of tick it was.

I think this is why i hate bugs and walking outside so much.

Buffalo for the Broken Heart

How Does "Buffalo for the Broken Heart" fit into the larger "nature writing" canon?

"Buffalo for the Broken Heart" was a good read to place after the many short stories and poems of American Earth, and the amazingly vivid poems of blood dazzler. It showed a calmer side to nature than Blood Dazzler, as it was more of a story, and not focused on one specific tragedy. Yet it was more exciting and held more life than many of the writings in American Earth, as there was a true plot to it. This is not to say that the majority of American Earth writings were not exciting, they were just more reflective than they were story telling. I liked the storytelling aspect of this book. O'brien teaches his reader about the land and the buffaloes and the way wildlife interact. I certainly didn't know as much about the science and specifics in owning a rach as I did after reading this book.

How does O'Brien relate to his environment?

O'Brien relates to his environment in a way that would be expected of a ranch owner. He has such an understanding of the environment he lives in and is surrounded by. He describes the wildlife with such admiration and interest, coupled with this overall sense of control. He is not just a keen observer. He is involved, he is working with the buffalo, he is familiar with the birds and critters that frequent his ranch, and he is however impressed by their beauty and the way that they live, in charge. At least this is the sense that I got when reading the many descriptions of the buffalo and the wildlife on the Broken Heart.

If you were to make one suggestion to O'Brien, regarding his land use, what would it be?

Being a New Yorker myself, I do not know much about the natural environment and the world untouched by man. In fact, the most I know about these things has come from the readings and explorations we have done in this class. Therefore, I find it quite difficult to make suggestions to such an expert on how to use his land. But, keeping in mind my ignorance and limited understanding of these things, I guess I would suggest that O'Brien grow crops. This is something that most impressed me in moving here to Iowa. The usefulness of having cornfields near, and the idea of eating food that was grown mere miles away from where you live impresses me beyond belief, and seems to me like the only thing that O'Brien is missing out on in his vast experiences on his land. (However, Im not even sure about crop growth and whether it would be possible in this environment. But its just a thought.)

Biking in the Bambesch

When I was 10 years old my father moved my entire family from New York over to Luxembourg. We didn't speak a word of french and my sisters and I had never left the country, not even to go to Mexico or Canada. We grew to like it there, but the first 6 months were a real culture shock. My dad tried to keep up with familiar activities that would make us feel more at home even though we were all the way across the ocean from it. One thing we had done at home was go on bike rides, me, my dad, and my little sister Katie. Emily was too little at the time. So my dad found a cool trail through the woods that is really popular to walk and ride bikes on which was called the bambesch. We went all the time and loved it. At first we were unhappy with the dirt underneath the wheels as compared with the smooth concrete of our driveway back home. But we got used to it and were very excited to go out each weekend.
Well one weekend we went riding the three of us and I got over confident. I Thought that I could ride far ahead of my dad and sister since I knew the way and I was getting so good at riding. Well, needless to say, the front wheel hit a twig. I fell off my bike, and opened my eyes to see that the bike had fallen on top of my tiny ten year old frame. An attempt to move showed me that my handlebar was sticking out of my neck. it slid off me and i put my hand to my neck and saw blood gushing over my shirt and hands from my neck. I was scared by this. I screamed for my dad but it took him some time to get to me as he had been so far behind helping my little sister. I tried to walk the rest of the way home while pushing the bike but the pedal had scraped up my knee pretty bad and it was hard to walk on it.
I remember sitting in the dirt, with the sun going down amiss the trees in the bambesch. I was crying and hurt and scared, and waiting for my dad. It only took him five minutes to get to me, but it felt like an eternity, waiting there in the wilderness. I think that may have contributed to my disinterest in the outdoors now. I am very city oriented. I would rather spend the day in a shopping mall than in the woods, and I am completely turned off by bugs and dirt. I have an appreciation for beaches and i like having trees around, I just don't want to live directly in the woods. However, I do see the beauty in nature. And I know i was fortunate to get to live in Luxembourg and bike in the bambesch.