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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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Friday
Nov282008

Thanksgiving Day, 2008 - Part 1: We are thankful that Muzzy is not lost, that good people shovel snow, and that Boxcar Bean is a cat

DateFriday, November 28, 2008 at 1:21AM

Before we headed to Anchorage to eat Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my youngest son and his wife, my oldest son and I took a walk with his St. Bernard, Muzzy. We soon came upon this sign. It gave me two feelings - one of sadness for the dog and its people, and one of thankfulness, on this Thanksgiving Day, that Muzzy is in good health and plain sight.

My heart and best wishes go out to Caramel and her people.

We walked up to the top of the hill behind the marsh, where a new, small, subdivision was recently built. There we found Bob and Samuel shoveling snow from their driveway.

Later, in the afternoon, we drove into Anchorage and entered into the home of Rex and Stephanie. There we found Boxcar Bean resting on a chair.

You can find the story of how Boxcar Bean joined this family on my other blog.

Boxcar Bean.

Boxcar Bean, Melanie and Kalib on Thanksgiving Day, 2008. It is now 2:05 AM on the day after Thanksgiving. I plan to put some images up from the feast that we all shared, but first I must get some sleep and do a few other things once I get up. I will then post the pictures as quickly as I can.

ISO 800, 100 percent clip.

All of these images were shot with my new pocket camera, the Canon Powershot G10, successor to the G9 that I started shooting after my injury and that I have built most of this blog with. I often visit photo forums such as DPreview and the official word there and other places seems to be that the high ISO's on the Canon G10 are worthless - "unusable" is a word that keeps popping; that one should not even shoot a G10 above 1S0 200. 

They said (and say) the same thing about the G9, but I often used it at high ISO's. So I have extended an invitation to some of those who don't believe you can shoot above 200 to come here and take a look and that is why I have pulled these two 100 percent clips from two of the above Boxcar Bean images.

Certainly, there is noise, just as there was grain in so many of the old films that I used to love, like black and white Tri-X and T-Max 3200, and certainly the high ISO images do not match the ones from the high end DSLR's, such as the Canon 1Ds III that I was shooting when I fell, but I find the high ISO's very usable. They allow G10 shooters to get images that they could never get if they stopped at ISO 200.

You can catch the mood, the feeling, the emotion, the action... it might not be so plastic smooth, but what the hell...

ISO 1600, 100 percent clip.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
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Reader Comments (2)

I agree with you on what you write about noise and high ISO. What you're able to achieve today digitally is just amazing, even with point and shoot cameras. A colleague and I were discussing earlier today how we 10-15 years back hesitated to use Ektachrome 400 and even 200 because of the grain.

Even a cheap point and shoot I own is better at high ISOs than these films ever were. But I guess it all boils down to what you were used to. If you're "native" digital, I guess it's easier to be picky about noise.

November 28, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJX

I'm guessing that you haven't had the G10 long enough to do a full comparison, but how does it compare so far to the G9? (My newest Powershot is the Pro1...great lens...so-so Sony sensor.) The depth of the G10 menu in comprison to the Pro 1 is beyond my expectations. Wish Canon could put some of those top deck dials on its bigger brothers.

The 28~200 equiv. on the Pro1 spoiled me and I passed on the G9, hoping for at least a 28~105. I had checked my EXIF data on the Pro1 and found I never shot beyond 140mm equiv., except at Oshkosh. Canon must have read my mind.

Got mine around the 18th, but with rainy weather and the latest bug/crud of the season haven't used it enough to get comfortable...just downloaded the ACR plug-in so I can play with RAW. Haven't tested anything over ISO 400.

G10 LCD punks my 1DIII's...no complaints so far. Great little camera.

Joe Sesto
Nipomo, CA

PS What is the taildragger at Lake Hood...and why the bulged plexi window in the rear...pipeline or powerline checking?

November 30, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJoe Sesto

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