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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
Apr022010

Time to quit wasting time and to go find a pretzel

DateFriday, April 2, 2010 at 8:21AM

Folks, I'm sitting here just being a dummy. I don't mean here in the picture, where Andre Jacobs is giving me rabbit ears at an excellent and rowdy Sushi house as Cherie McCabe takes my picture with my camera after I had gone around the table photographing everyone else.

I mean right here, at the desk where I sit in the Alaska House guest house typing as morning turns to noon. Being as how I got to bed at the not-unusal-time for me of 3:00 AM, I did not get up this morning until a few minutes after nine. I then went out and found a nearby dinner, where I ordered an omelette that was not all that good.

I then returned to this desk, did a small amount of web-surfing and afterward began to edit last night's pictures from my Alaska House presentation and those from the little gathering that followed. I was invited to that gathering by a group of Alaskans from the Bethel - Hooper Bay and a young Navajo medical doctor who is doing her internship at a hospital here in New York.

But folks, I am in New York City! Time is passing.

Outside, believe it or not, the sky is not only clear and blue and the sun shining with an intensity and warmth that I have experienced in a good seven months, but the air is clean and pleasant to breathe.

Yes, right here in New York City.

So, rather than waste any more of these few, precious, daylight hours working on this blog, I am going to take a shower and then go out, roam the streets of New York City and see if I can find a pretzel somewhere.

Late tonight, when it is dark and the sun is gone, I will make my report on last night. Anyone who is interested can see it tomorrow.

Unless, of course, I find my night self swept into the ever-bustling, energetic crowd that flows through these same lively streets night and day.

Once again, I have violated my policy of only using photos taken by other people after I take a picture of the photo on a computer, phone, printed paper or whatever.

I just don't want to take the time to photograph the image and then transfer that back into the computer...

In fact, why am I evening taking the time to explain...?

I'm outta here.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Reader Comments (4)

Just a pretzel?

April 2, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterJfH

can't wait, hope you found s prezel

April 2, 2010 | Unregistered Commentertwain12

I think NYC is the most exciting place on earth. Have a great time & we will wait for the recap.

April 3, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMichelle

Go Bill, Go!

April 3, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterMGSoCal

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