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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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Entries in Excuses (9)

Friday
Sep302011

The image of what I faced; fixed now, blog about to rise again

DateFriday, September 30, 2011 at 12:51PM

My laptop computer is fixed now. I took it to the Apple Store by the Lincoln Center and for a very tidy sum but much less than the $1800 or so a new laptop would have cost, they replaced my screen and connecter cable.

This is a picture that I took of the screen before I took the computer.

You can see how hard it was to try to edit photos.

It is much better how. I will start blogging again this weekend...

...after tonight's slide show and party, plus a good night's sleep.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment2 Comments |
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Monday
Sep262011

A few technological difficulties

DateMonday, September 26, 2011 at 9:06PM

Last night, I settled down on this couch that serves as my bed here in Brooklyn at 1:00 AM. It was too damn hot and I melted and sweated from then until 6:00 AM, when I got up to put together my blog post for Monday. But when I sat down at my computer, for some unknown reason,  I could not connect to the internet.

I fussed and fretted for awhile and then, when there was just barely enough time to squeak something in, I got an internet connection. But when I tried to come to this blog so I could make a new post, the blog would not load. I fussed and fretted and fretted and fussed, sent off support memos to Squarespace and received suggestions back, which did no good.

Then it was time to go to The Loft of David Alan Harvey, so I just had to forget about the blog.

Now, my computer is going haywire again and I can't work with photos on it. I had planned to buy a new one before I left Wasilla, but then Lavina spent 26 hours in labor with Little Lynxton, followed by all that followed, and I never made it to the computer store.

I downlaoded an ap to make my iPad serve as a computer monitor, but it is a nightmare to use, so I have given up on it.

As for this picture, it is the last one I shot today. As it is so hard to view on my screen, I checked it out on my camera, then put it in this blog.

Tomorrow, I am going to see if maybe I can break away at some point and buy a new laptop. This is maddening. 

I have much to blog about.

The time marked for this posting is 9:06 PM - but that's Wasilla time. Here in Brooklyn, it is 1:06 AM.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment4 Comments |
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Friday
Oct152010

Why I have not posted for three days

DateFriday, October 15, 2010 at 3:30AM

Once again, I am far from home, but that is not why I have not posted. I have taken plenty of pictures and have material to post. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a card reader with me, or even the cable required to connect my camera directly to my computer, so I have no way to transfer my photos into my computer.

Something is going to happen today that I definitely want to post, so I will try real hard to find a card reader or cable.

And that is all I have to say for now.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment8 Comments |
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Wednesday
Jun092010

A man wearing an orange shirt pedals his bicycle north on Tamar, toward the Talkeetna Mountains

DateWednesday, June 9, 2010 at 11:00AM

This is the ONLY picture that I have taken since I put up my last post. Although I never let a day go by without taking at least one picture and usually anywhere from a dozen or so to a thousand or more on a big, intense, shoot, I did not want to take very many pictures today. I already had a post planned for this slot and I knew that if I took a bunch of pictures, at some point I would have to take some time to edit them.

I did not want to take the time.

But I have to get up early Wednesday morning to take the Escape into the shop for some warranted work and then I must drive the loaner car to Anchorage to take care of a very important task. Despite thinking that I would just veg all afternoon and evening, that I would walk, ride my bike, drive my car, do whatever, I found myself with a cascade of tasks to attend to and so I did not veg.

I did take one very short walk, late in the evening, and that was when I saw this guy riding his bike ahead of me.

As to the post that I had planned - one that would make a tie between what I did in Arizona and Anaktuvuk Pass - it is just going to have to wait one more day.

It is 10:26 PM and, just like last night, I haven't the energy to continue tonight.

So I will set the blog-timer for this to appear at 11:00 AM and will do the post that I had planned for today tomorrow.

I have one more task I must do before I go to bed. It, at least, will help bring in some genuine revenue.

I apologize for being so exhausted.

I must get a bit rested over the next couple of weeks so that I can go to Greenland and exhaust myself all over again.

That should be fun. I will take you all with me. It will be good - not what most of you probably think - but very good.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment6 Comments |
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Tuesday
Jan192010

I land in Barrow, sit down to make this post only to experience technical difficulties

DateTuesday, January 19, 2010 at 4:00AM

Due to a technical difficulty that I should have foreseen and could have easily taken care of in advance, I am temporarily unable to download the photos that I took today, enroute to Barrow from Wasilla. I am fixing the problem, but it requires a download and my connection here is not so fast as at home.

I have been downloading for nearly an hour and my computer says I still have two hours and 59 minutes to go before it is complete. I can't stay up that long, so...

No post today.

Except for this one.

And this one doesn't count.

I should be back with something, even if brief, tomorrow.

AuthorWasilla, Alaska, by 300 | Comment5 Comments |
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