Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona

There are so few photo's that I love as much as Dorothea Lange's Migratory Cotton Picker, Eloy, Arizona. In fact, I think it might be my all time favorite. Every time I see this photograph I feel an overwhelming need to jump back to November 1940, stand right next to Dorothea and watch her make this image.

Unfortunately, I can't do that. But when I had the opportunity to go see what I think might be the largest printing of this image that exists in Sarah Meister's show Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures, I knew I needed to go. And so that is what I did.

One day before the show was slated to close, I took the 4 hour train from Boston to NYC and went to MoMA. It was one of the most worth while trips I have ever taken and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I had never seen the photo so life size before–only in a small print at the Boston MFA. I felt so overwhelmed with joy upon walking up to it that I could not help but cry a little bit.

I have no idea why this image means so much to me but I have the rest of my life to figure it out.

All the best,

Parker

P.S. Thank you to the wonderful stranger who took my photo... you made my day.

Looking at: Beautiful Coincidences

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've made a post. Which in all honesty seems to be the pace around here; short bursts of posts every couple of months or so. None the less, I'm still here.

This evening I wanted to take a moment and highlight a beautiful coincidence that I happened onto this summer. In July, I had the joy of visiting my close friend Marie in Oregon for a costal/rural road trip. This was my first time in Oregon and the farthest West I have gone in my life. One of the many features I discovered during our excursion was the abundance of wild flower fields along rural highways.

On our second day of travel, leaving from Eugene towards Devil's Punchbowl, I coaxed Marie into climbing through one of these fields for the sake of a few pictures. I snapped a few Polaroids as well as digital for about 10 minutes or so, climbing through prickly, sometimes waist high grass. It was about this time Marie began complaining of some severe itching and we carefully climbed out of there.

Back on the road, I pulled out the images from where they sat safely tucked in my pocket, shielded from the summer sun. Shuffling through the pictures, one stood out. Marked by the distinct summer hue of a warm Polaroid, was a picture of Marie. Her eyes closed, cheek slightly rotated with flowers just ever so slightly draping over her. 

I went on to take a couple dozen or so more Polaroids on that trip but none quite as alluring as this.

Marie in roadside flower field. Oregon, July, 2020.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, back home now, and a used photobook arrived in my mail: Intimacies by French photographer Édouard Boubat. Flipping through the book and nearing the end I came across a photo that was strikingly familiar.

After scanning the image with a burst of excitement, I got Marie on the phone to share my discovery: 44 years prior Boubat at taken almost the exact same image in an Oregon wild flower field. I couldn't believe it.

It's the coincidences and connections like these, to people I have never met and worlds I would never otherwise experience, that drive me to continue to make pictures. Pure bliss.

The trip into the fields and another like it led Marie
and I to discover her allergy of tall grasses. Oregon, July, 2020.

My cover of Intimacies.

With more to come.

All the best,

Parker