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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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Tuesday
Jun232009

Oh, no! The day just ended and I did not make a post! I feel as though I have squandered my whole life away

DateTuesday, June 23, 2009 at 12:12AM

Here's why I didn't make a post - because this damn guy blocked the road in front of me and I had to sit here for 59 hours today and so I did not get a chance to post.

Actually, that's not true. I would like to blame him, but I can't. What happened was, all day long I have been working on a little project that I targeted to complete at 4:00 PM. I am nowhere near completion and now I hope to have it done by 4:00 AM.

But I doubt it.

And then, just before midnight, I could not find a picture that I needed and then my computer froze and then I had to do a restart and by the time everything was up and running again, today was over and tomorrow had begun.

So I did not make a post today, and now it is tomorrow, so I can never make a post today. Yet, it is today and here I post.

I did break away for just a little before today became yesterday and I crossed the bridge over the Little Su, doing 197 mph, and as I came around the corner, this is what I saw in front of me.

I had to act lightning fast and stop on the spot, or I would have crashed into this thing, been killed and I never would have taken this picture.

We photographers live dangerous and challenging lives.

I should also note that I spent the entire day by myself, I had no conversation with anyone, except for the cats and all they wanted to do was argue. They outwitted me every time.

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

My Dear Bill...

It's not about 'photographers live dangerous and challenging lives'... It's that you've not maintained the speed as per rules on the lanes...

Hey! Someone out there...give him a ticket for speeding, will you?

Grrr....

June 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterSandy

Don't sweat it. I've been pretty busy too, and my internet connection was down for almost a week, due to my modem forgetting it's IP address during a lightening storm. Or something. Computers can be pretty finicky.

June 23, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterMissSunshine

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