A L A S K A
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The 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT
July 3, 2024
Introduction
This 12x12" Inkjet PROJECT is a revised version of the blog project ALASKA which I published on October 19, 2019. In this revised project I have placed an emphasis on my contemplation of a few key photographs from the earlier blog project that, in retrospect represent our experience of the Alaska during a nine day tour. Each of the photographs you will see here (with the exception of the photograph above) have been transformed to the square format, and each of the images now exists as 12x12" inkjet prints.
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On August 2, 2019 Gloria and I celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary. We decided to celebrate our Golden Anniversary by taking a tour of Alaska; Gloria had longed to visit Alaska as a young child and had never been able to visit the alluring state. We found a tour that began on August 2 and booked it. However, the tour company had to cancel that tour and asked us to pick another date. We chose the tour which began on August 16, 2019.
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I have decided to revise and limit my text and the number of images in this 12x12" version of the earlier blog ALASKA project.
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Minneapolis Airport
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Image #1 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT Minneapolis Airport, Window in a Men's Restroom
Image #2 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT Minneapolis Airport, Locked door to boarding ramp
Image #3 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT Minneapolis Airport, Door in a curving wall
The first three images in this revised 12x12" Inkjet Print PROJECT were made at the Minneapolis Airport. We left the Rochester (New York) International Airport on time, but missed our connecting flight to Anchorage due to a thunder storm over Minneapolis. We circled in the clouds over Minneapolis over and over, and over again, for a long time, and then had to wait five hours in the airport for the next flight to Anchorage. I took several walks during our wait inside the airport looking for pictures to take.
Image #1 was made in a Men's Restroom. The window was two-thirds covered with a piece of frosted plastic. At first I was attracted to the light filtering through the plastic; then, as I more carefully considered making a photograph I noticed the luminous horizon line on the top of the plastic sheet and the multiple horizontal lines of light in the blue sky area above--which were reflections of ceiling lights in the bathroom.
In retrospect I could not help but notice how this image anticipated a beautiful, mysterious moment I experienced on Day 3 or our tour. (see Images 5 & 9)
Anchorage Airport
Image #4 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT "Ghost travelers," Anchorage Airport
We arrived very late in Anchorage, and had to miss our tour's Welcoming Session at the Anchorage Hotel. The next morning, Day two of our tour, which was Sunday, we were given a bus tour of Anchorage, and then given free time to do whatever we wanted. We ate wonderful Oriental and Korean food at Scottie's Sub Shop, then visited the Anchorage Museum.
The very best part of the museum for us was the permanent exhibition on the second floor: Living Our Cultures; Sharing Our Heritage: The First People of Alaska created by the Smithsonian Institution with great sensitivity, excellent exhibition design, and a deep respect for and understanding of the indigenous peoples of Alaska.
Early the next morning, which was Day 3 of our nine day tour, we were bussed to the Anchorage Airport for our flight to Fairbanks. As the sun was coming up over the mountains and flooding the airport with morning light I took the photograph above, Image #4. I was struck by the atmospheric quality of the rather dramatic situation: the shadowy ghost-like figures in the foreground and further away in the background; the sweep of the mountains in the background across the entire horizontal plane of the photograph; the empty chairs in the foreground which remind me of seats facing a performing arts stage, featuring--in addition to all the "ghosts" and the mountains--the "parade" of dark shadow shapes (figurative-like vertical rectangles) that seem to have been projected on to a scrim or curtain in front of the chairs.
I feel the living presence of indigenous peoples of Alaska, from ancient times to the present, in this strange, haunting (haunted) image.
D E N A L I
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Image #5 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT,
(My view of Denali from inside an airplane, second row from the window, during our flight to Fairbanks)
The photograph above (#5) attempts to provide a visual simulation of what I saw from my middle row seat, on the left side of our passenger jet plane as we were flying to Fairbanks from Anchorage. Gloria had fallen asleep; and as I happened to glance out toward the window to the left of me--one seat away--all of a sudden, unexpectedly, I saw Denali, which is considered to be a sacred mountain by most indigenous people of the region. It was an unexpected, brief heart-opening encounter with the sacred, and then I simply watched its magnificent form float by and out of view of the plane's narrow rounded vertical window.
This beautiful mountain, whose peak is the highest in North America, appeared to me as a precious, luminous blue jewel--held in suspension--between blue and blue.
"If only I had been sitting by the window!" I felt frustrated by not being able to make a photograph of Denali. I tried to calm myself down by remembering that in the next couple of days we would be traveling by bus to explore the Denali National Park and experience from a ground level view this majestic Being.
As I was looking at the mountain slowly floating by the window, my view was interrupted by the passenger sitting next to me and next the window. He had his mobil phone in hand, and was taking the pictures that I had wanted to be taking.
The young man's name was Robert. He was the last person to board the plane in Anchorage that morning, ruining my chance to take his seat by the window. As he was approaching our row of seats to take his place (by the window) Gloria and I were preparing to place some sweaters and coats in an overhead storage area. Robert offered to stow them away for us, then he quickly took his seat by the window and immediately began working on his computer.
After landing in Fairbanks, and were taxiing to the plane's parking place, I asked Robert if I could see the pictures he took of Denali. And upon seeing the five or six images he had taken, I expressed how disappointed I had felt by not being able to take pictures myself, and that I was a photographer. He immediately offered to send the photos to me!! By the time I got off the plane and into the airport I too had those precious images on my mobile phone!
What a beautiful experience the entire ordeal was for me: seeing Denali float by the window two seats away, and then Robert's sharing his images of the sacred Mountain with me, and then gifting his images to me.
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The Fall
in
Fairbanks
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The next morning (Day 4 of our tour), we were given a bus tour of Fairbanks then some time around noon we were dropped off across the street from our Hotel, and next to a park full of vendors--it was the town's weekly Sunday Market Day. We were given free time until 6:00 pm when we would meet back at the Hotel and be bussed to a traditional Alaskan Salmon Bake.
However . . . when we got off the bus in front of our Hotel, Gloria tripped on the curb's raised edge and fell to the street just in front of the bus. I heard her yell "Steve!" and when I looked back I saw her falling. I saw her hit the hard pavement with frightening force. She had tried to protect herself from the fall by placing her left arm out in front of her. I thought I saw the side of her head hit the pavement. It was a terrifying sight . . .
Gloria remained conscious after the fall, and she told those of us trying to help her that she would need to have her arm x-rayed; it was really hurting her. (Her head had no visible abrasions.) Someone called for an ambulance and within minutes an Emergency Unit from the Fairbanks Fire Department arrived. The two men carefully placed Gloria in a portable bed and then into the ambulance; one man stayed with her and began checking her vital signs and asking questions so he give a report to the people waiting for us at the Fairbanks Hospital Emergency Department. I rode in the front passenger seat across from the driver.
We were in the Emergency Room for about five hours. Gloria was given pain medications, then they X-rayed her left shoulder and humerus. The x-rays showed there were four fractures of the left humerus. The attending Doctor had an assistant prepare a fiberglass immobilizer to hold her arm stable and close to her body. Because Gloria was heavily drugged they kept her in the Emergency room a while so her body could have a chance to metabolize some of the drugs before releasing her. I contacted our Hotel and arranged to have us picked up at the hospital in their large van.
We got checked into our Hotel room sometime after 7:00 pm. Gloria just slept. The drugs she had been given helped her have a long needed rest after the horrible trauma her body had been put through. I called our tour company's emergency telephone number and explained what had happened and we arranged to talk again the next morning after I had a chance to see how Gloria was feeling. The question was open regarding Gloria's ability to continue the tour. The doctor who attended her in the hospital said she could continue the tour (with the help of pain medications) if she felt up to it. The fiberglass immobilizer would protect her from further damage and the arm could be taken care of back in Rochester or Canandaigua when we retuned after the tour was over).
The next morning (Monday, Day 5 of the tour) it became quite clear that Gloria was in too much pain to consider going on with the tour. A bus trip to Denali National Park was the next item on the tour's itinerary, and our tour guide told us the road was very rough going and that there was no medical facility in the park. When I talked with our tour company emergency team they told us they would begin working on setting up our return flights to Rochester, NY. from Fairbanks.
A few hours later I got a call from our tour company: reservations had been arranged for our flight back home. We would leave Fairbanks that night at 1:00 AM (Tuesday morning). We arrived in Rochester, NY about 14 hours later, and after three airport stop along the way.
Delta Airlines was very accommodating. They arranged special seating for all three of our flights in advance, as close as possible to the first class seating where there was more leg room and wider seats. When we arrived in Anchorage, and Detroit there were wheel chairs waiting for Gloria. There was a delay in Detroit so we got into Rochester, NY. a few hours later than planned. It was a long and stressful, painful trip back home for Gloria.
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The three pictures below (Images 6,7 & 8) were made in our Fairbanks hotel room Monday night, between 6pm and 11pm, before we were bussed by the Hotel to the Airport. The images reflect the sad, dark and worried mood we both were experiencing at that time. I will never forget the warm light of the setting sun coming through our Hotel room's window onto the slightly opened folding closet doors. This image (#6) really invokes the feelings I was experiencing at that time.
Image #6 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT, Fairbanks Hotel room . . .
the warm light of the setting sun falling on a partially opened folding closet door
Image #7 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT, Fairbanks Hotel room . . .
the yellow wall light next to out Queen sized bed
Image #8 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT, Fairbanks Hotel . . .
an empty plastic cup in our brightly illuminated bathroom.
Epilogue
The Sacred Mountain
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Image #9 ALASKA 12x12 Inkjet Print PROJECT, The Sacred Mountain Denali
My experience of Denali--seeing it from within the airplane on our way to Fairbanks, continued to haunt me long after we got back home. My further contemplations of that experience have compelled me to write a bit more in this Epilogue along with the more refined visual representation of Denali I was able to produce with the low resolution image Robert had given us from his Mobil phone (Image 5 below).
Image #5
When I saw Denali in the blue distance through the plane's narrow window, I realize (now), that on a deeper level of awareness--that is to say, that place within, in which one's seeing happens with the "Eye of the Heart"--that I had been responding internally, intuitively to Denali's sacred nature as I watched it float by . . . as if in a dream.
Many Native Alaskans have considered Denali to be a Sacred Mountain, and I certainly felt that divine presence as I was blessed with that brief passing encounter with the mountain's visual majesty. Denali had appeared to me as a blue self-luminous jewel suspended in infinite blue space, above and below. I felt very connected to Denali's spiritual presence. The mountain's beauty--its elegant crystalline form, its ineffable internal radiance--represented for me . . . as best as I can put into words, the totality of all Creation; the Oneness of Being.
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Robert had given me his five photographs with sincere heartfelt compassion and enthusiasm, and I received them as the precious and sacred gifts that they truly were. Later, when I had a chance to look at the raw mobil phone images more carefully, I became determined to create an image that radiated the same spiritual experience I felt as I viewed from the air, through the window. An image that I like to refer to as a The True, Living Symbol , an image radiant with the light of grace.
My process of editing and transforming one of the images Robert had given me became a way for me to deepen my contemplations of my experience in the plane, and understand better what and how I had seen Denali in those surprising and fleeting moments as we were flying toward Fairbanks. I came to realize that not only was Robert's gift of photographs an offering of grace to me, but indeed my brief but nonetheless visionary encounter with Denali was a blessing that would serve to help keep me focused on the Sacredness of life in the midst of what would soon follow after Gloria and I landed in Fairbanks.
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This project was first announced on
my bog's Welcome Page on
July 3, 2024
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