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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
May222009

Traveling the highways of south India

DateFriday, May 22, 2009 at 12:11AM

We have been traveling, traveling, traveling - traveling the highways of south India and seeing many wondrous sights, both old and new. We have met countless people, almost all of them friendly, warm, and happy to greet us.

We have eaten and eaten and eaten and it has all been delicious, even though we have eaten too much and have sometimes suffered the consequences.

What we have had very little of is internet access, and when we have had it we have not had much time to use it, nor have I had any time to sort through the steady stream of images that have poured through my lenses onto my sensor and into my compact flash cards.

Yesterday, as we traveled, I thought that, at the very next opportunity, I would post one image from the day and I decided to make it the very next one that I took, so that I could go straight to it with little loss of time. Then this little lorry came driving the other way and I shot it through the windshield glass.

One day, on a return trip to India, I must experience this method of travel.

We leave early tomorrow evening, which, factoring in the time required to get to the airport well ahead of schedule, really means mid-afternoon tomorrow.

Perhaps I will be able to crank out one more short post before we go; perhaps not.

But, after I get home, I will devote several days to making posts of my India snapshots, even though I will be right back in Wasilla, Alaska - but only for a very short time before I travel again.

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

Thanks for the photo. Have a safe trip back. Please allow yourself several days to recover from your long journey.

May 22, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMissSunshine

This is an awesome pick! I loved it the most! Oh! All your pics make me speechless! Very detail-oriented....

May 29, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSoundarya

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