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A blog by Bill Hess

Running Dog Publications

P.O. Box 872383 Wasilla, Alaska 99687

 

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Wasilla

Wasilla is the place where I have lived for the past 29 years - sort of. The house in which my wife and I raised our family sits here, but I have made my rather odd career as a different sort of photojournalist by continually wandering off to other places to photograph people and gather information, which I have then put together in various publications that have served the Alaska Native Eskimo, Indian and Aleut communities.

Although I did not have a great of free time to devote to this rather strange community, named after a Tanaina Athabascan Indian chief who knew Wasilla in the way that I so impossibly long to, I have still documented it regularly over the past quarter-century plus. In the early days, my Wasilla photographs focused mostly upon my children and the events they participated in - baseball, football, figure skating, hockey, frog catching, fire cracker detonation, Fourth of July parade - that sort of thing. 

In 2002, I purchased my first digital camera and then, whenever I was home, I began to photograph Wasilla upon a daily basis, but not in a conventional way. These were grab shots - whatever caught my eye as I took my many long walks or drove through the town, shooting through the car window at people and scenes that appeared and disappeared before I could even focus and compose in the traditional photographic way.

Thus, the Wasilla portion of this blog will be devoted both to the images that I take as I wander about and those that I have taken in the past. Despite the odd, random, nature of the images, I believe they communicate something powerful about this town that I have never seen expressed anywhere else. 

Wasilla is a sprawling community that has been slapped down hodge-podge upon what was so recently wilderness of the most exquisite beauty. In its design, it is deliberately anti-zoned, anti-planned. In the building of Wasilla, the desire to make a buck has trumped aesthetics and all other considerations. This town, built in the midst of exquisite beauty, has largely become an unsightly, unattractive, mess of urban sprawl. Largely because of this, it often seems to me that Wasilla is a community with no sense of community, a town devoid of town soul.

Yet - Wasilla is my home and if I am lucky it will be until I grow old and die. Despite its horrific failings, it is still made of the stuff of any small city: people; moms and dads, grammas and grampas, teens, children, churches, bars, professionals, laborers, soldiers, missionaries, artists, athletes, geniuses, do-gooders, hoodlums, the wealthy, the homeless, the rational and logical, the slightly insane and the wholly insane - and, yes, as is now obvious to the whole world, politicians, too.

So perhaps, if one were to search hard enough, it might just be possible to find a sense of community here, and a town soul. So, using my skills as a photojournalist and a writer, I hope to do just that. If this place has a sense of community, I will find it. If there is a town soul to Wasilla, I will document it. I won't compete with the newspapers. Hell no! But as time and income allow, it will be fun to wander into the places where the folks described above gather, and then put what I find on this blog.

 

by 300...

Anywhere within a 300 mile radius of Wasilla. This encompasses perhaps the most wild, dramatic, gorgeous, beautiful section of land and sea to be found in any comparable space anywhere on Earth. I can never explore it all, but I will do the best that I can, and will here share what I find and experience with you.  

and then some...

Anywhere else in the world that I happen to get to, such as Point Lay, Alaska; Missoula, Montana; Serenki, Chukotka, Russia; or Bangalore, India. Perhaps even Lagos, Nigeria. I have both a desire and scheme to get me there. It is a long shot. We shall see if I succeed.

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Thursday
Oct022008

I drive to Anchorage to visit the doctor who took my shattered shoulder and gave me a new one

DateThursday, October 2, 2008 at 1:02AM

 

I had to go to town today to see the good - and I mean very good - Dr. Duddy, who took my shattered shoulder and replaced it with a new one. Shortly after we left Wasilla, we passed this Sarah Palin supporter.

Margie, Lavina, and baby Kalib dropped me off at the door and then went and parked the car while I checked in. Not long after I took a seat, they entered.

Kalib and Margie, as I wait to go in to see the doctor. The report is good. I am healing well. Still, he said, I can't go cross-country skiing until after the new year.

Damnit!

I was thinking about going real soon - next month, maybe.

We had lunch at Taco King. One of Lavina's co-workers was there. She adored Kalib.

As we wait for dinner, Kalib plays with one of those little things that you can put sauce in, and jalepeno peppers.

I had a meeting to go to after that, but not for about 45 minutes. Margie and Lavina took off elsewhere to go shopping, and I just started driving, wondering where I would go to. Soon, as always seems to happen, I found myself headed toward Lake Hood, and the airplanes.

I was thrilled when I had to stop at a railroad crossing, because that meant a train was coming. So I rolled down the window, knocked off a frame of the approaching engine, then remembered that I still had the camera set to the high ISO that I had used indoors. 

So this is what I wound up with, after I put the completely washed-out image into Lightroom and Photoshop for just a tiny bit of tinkering.

I just love trains. I do. I took lots more pictures of following cars. I could string them together and make a train of pictures.

As I drove along Lake Hood, this Cessna came in for a landing. Pretty soon, the floats will go and the skis will come on.

Soon, I drove by this WW II T6 trainer, shooting as I went. Just ahead, the road would turn, providing another view.

I could not look at the airplane as I navigated the turn, so I just held the camera out the window and, without even taking a glance to my side to see what it was seeing, pointed it in the general direction of the airplane and snapped, hoping that I would get what I got. Yes, a little more prop and nose cone would be nice, but when you drive-by shoot, you get what you get, and you can't be too picky about where the edge of the frame is, or just where the focus point falls.

Please don't try it. I'm the only person in the world who should do this. Not because its dangerous - it could be, but I take care to make certain that it isn't - but because it's my project, not yours. Oh, well. Do what you will.

At a stoplight, as I drive away from Lake Hood. I went to my meeting. It went well. More than that, I can't say right now.

The aftermath of what appeared to be a minor accident.

Back in Wasilla, we stopped at the Post Office. Margie went inside. Kalib and I stayed in the car. His mom had left us to go with his dad to see a movie.

So it was just Kalib and I, and he was asleep.

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