TRIPLE.
Adding another photograph to the Signs of the Times collection.
West Broad Street in Richmond, Virginia.
A neon pool rack from what looks to be an old pool club, now a hipster restaurant.
Don’t Look Back specializes in tacos.
This place is definitely on my list of new places to try.
Film scans arrive on Friday. It’s an emotional roller coaster as I swing between joy and disappointment. I allow for as much “partial credit” as possible, celebrating the small wins and the simple fact that I am trying. Film photography is unpredictable (at least for beginners like me) and this is the source of both the discomfort and the pleasant surprises. I’ll call my friend Kate for help and reassurance, and in the meantime, I’ll load another roll into the camera.
The air feels almost tropical, dripping with moisture. The temperature reads 93 on the car thermometer. I’ve had this internal debate about whether we should take a vacation. The truth is I’m not good about vacations. I grew up in a family that worked really hard—like never take a day off hard. And I just never learned how to relax. I’m practical by nature and can easily reason that the money we would spend to stay in a hotel could be put to better use to pay for the new roof. This is true. But it is also true that we haven’t been on vacation in over a year and maybe we need to play.
It’s really hard to take a photograph of the Virginia native perennial pokeweed. Towering alongside a field of corn and a no parking sign near the Spotyslvania Battlefield, I tried composing a scenic view into the evening sun, hoping to highlight the berries. It might be a bit easier if I wait for the berries to ripen and turn deep magenta in August and September. And it would, of course, be much easier to photograph the wondrous pokeberry plant if I could cut a few branches and arrange them into a still life vignette. But—and I just learned this—pokeweed is poisonous to humans. According to my reading, birds, insects and many animals are immune the toxins of pokeweed and so the plant is a great source of food for wildlife.
I took this photo with my Pentax K-1000 using Kodak Portra 400 film. I’ll try again later this summer and into early fall. It’s a photo worth pursuing. Like mimosa, orange trumpet vine, milkweed, and roadside daylilies, pokeweed is part of the rich landscape of Virginia flora.
It is through place that we put out roots . . . —Eudora Welty