This black rat snake, likely chased from the den during our recent floods, has discovered a better vantage point for surveying onlookers. I've seen a lot of confused animals over the last couple of weeks, turkeys walking in circles, fawns looking unsure of their next steps, and snapping turtles dragging themselves through high ground.
Now that the awards season is over, we've decided to make our own films. Here's a short film we made to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Blue River Watershed Association. It's a field portrait of people who either live, work, or play in the watershed.
Film notes. The picture frame that everyone holds was found buried in the river bed while looking for benthic invertebrates, which are aquatic insects. Although it looks like wood, the frame is plastic from the late 50's or early 60's and it had been in the river long enough to acquire a nice patina, but not long enough to be destroyed by high water. We cleaned the mud from the frame and immediately began to take portraits of out-standing-in-their-field colleagues.
We then took the picture frame to various community events being held in the watershed over the course of about 3 months. The events ran the gamut from community gardens, to river clean-ups, to educational events, to bike helmets-for-children giveaways, to city celebrations.
At the community events, the frame was handed to folks with the instruction, "I'm taking field portraits of people in the watershed". Instructions on how to frame themselves or how to pose were not given to participants. This approach allowed them to focus on constructing their own self-portrait and not on the camera. Some were staid, some were clownish; most were not shy.
We were only turned away once. That was by Pro-Football Hall of Famer Bobby Bell, dressed in a ceremonial kilt, and who after seeking the advice of counsel (his attorney just happened to be at his side), said NO! Bell's big. I argued politely, then said, OK.
Some of my favorites where art students who had a knowledge of the history of portraiture and wanted to play around with that notion. Another was a former county executive, who was under federal criminal indictment at the time and came up to me at an event and literally grabbed the frame from my hands, saying to me and her friends standing nearby, "take my picture, I was framed." She was subsequently acquitted of the criminal charge. There's a young brother and sister who are charming together - the awe of the older sibling apparent in the younger one's eyes, the mayor and his wife playing along, and many, many others. You may find your own favorite among the images.
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Special thanks to the Wilders who contributed the music, Pedro @ T2 for editing and special effects, and Bill @ mfarm for post-processing.
Here's Rookie A, minutes after completing a 50-mile kayak/canoe race on the Kansas River from Lawrence, KS to Kansas City. That's the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers and the skyline of Kansas City in the background (photo by Andrea Zanatta, Americorps via the Blue River Watershed Association). Dubbed the Gritty Fifty: 50 miles of sun, sand, and sorrow, the inagural race would have been more aptly subtitled: 50 miles of rain, wind, and sorrow as it was held in a steady downpour and headwind, the sorrow still applicable as a certain degree of suffering was inflicted on everyone who entered and raced.
Why do something like this? For the serious ultra-marathoner, which Rookie A is decidedly not, it is to win, to test the bounds of human endurance and physical prowess. The winner of this race, West Hansen, an ultra-marathon paddler from Austin, TX finished in 7 hours and 4 minutes. The official race distance is 50 miles. Another racer, who logged the meandering, sinuous Kansas River route showed 52 miles. So West, who claimed not to be in top form this day, was moving at 7.2 miles per hour. By contrast, Rookie A, estimated his speed to be about 5 miles an hour. Rookie A is clearly in the cruiser category. Cruiser reasons for ultramarathoning are quite different than winning, which is not an option. Dawn Stewart, aka Sandy Bottom, articulates some of the cruiser reasons for ultramarathoning on her web site http://sandybottomkayaker.blogspot.com/ .
Rookie A would tend to disagree with her contention that to not finish is total failure, that failure is not an option. Failure is always an option, just not the preferred one. Unless you are setting a world record you are failing, and even then as soon as your record falls you will have failed again. Since everything we do is failed in some sense, in order to view any competion as a successful one, we only have to set goals, work hard to try and achieve those goals, and then live with the results. This includes living with the goals that we meet, and the goals that we fail to meet.
Rookie A's goals for this race were in order of most to least important.
1) Finish the race (has medal and photo to prove it!).
2) Finish the race in under 10 hours. (Don't have the official time yet, but believe it to be ~10 hours 30 minutes. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME SUCKA.
3) Win. In truth, Rookie A expected to finish in the middle of the pack (26th out of 50 overall), but if for some reason everyone except Rookie A punched a hole in their kayak, then Rookie A might make the podium come sundown. This did not happen.
Of the 3 goals, only one was met. Rookie A is ok with that.
