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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
Feb242011

Two studies of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light: I go up the hill, I go down the hill

DateThursday, February 24, 2011 at 12:02PM

Study of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light, #1: I need to get to the top of the hill just beyond this light, but the light turns red and I must stop.

So I take a picture of the peak while I wait for the light to change.

Study of Pioneer Peak shot with a telephoto lens while stopped at a red light, #2: Having made two purchases atop the hill, I turn around and drive back down the hill. Again, I get stopped by the same red light. So I take another picture - this time of the peak as it appears in my left-door rear view mirror. 

That is why everything looks like it is backwards. That is why all the people appear to driving on the wrong side of the road. This is a mirror image.

Of course, for my family and friends in India, it would look to them like the people are all driving on the right side of the road - the right side being the left side in India, just like it is in England.

Now, I have no time to blog any further today. I have a difficult problem to solve.

I didn't even have time to blog this much, but I did it anyway.

That is because I am dedicated to this blog.

So I blog even when I have no time to put up even the most simple of posts.

Which this one is.

Not withstanding the simplicity of it, beneath the surface it is very deep and exceedingly complex - meaningful.

Few will grasp it.

 

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Reader Comments (2)

Snicker

February 24, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterMelanie Montague

You know, sometimes I am shocked at the beauty of where you live. I mean, I know it's pretty, but then you take a picture that leaves me gasping at just how extraordinarily beautiful it actually is. You are a lucky, lucky man!

February 24, 2011 | Unregistered Commenterdebby

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