Observations – San Diego

San Diego, California, January 2016 copyright Douglas Stockdale

As I posted earlier about making local day trips this year, I was just outside of San Diego for a meeting and while waiting for everyone to show up, I did a brief walk-about. Signs, as photographed most poignantly by Walker Evans in the 1930’s, continue to fascinate me. In this case, I found that my camera-tweaked image above is more interesting than my straight version, below. The sign and blockade were at the end of the short road, but seemed kind of redundant as there really is no-where to go, thus probably the reason that it is not being well maintained. I have not entirely figured out why this image is so appealing to me, but I suspect that it has some attributes of a past-memory. The surrounding foliage in disrepair seem to speak to me of confusion, chaos and uncertainty.

My second favorite of this afternoon’s walk-about is the photograph directly below, which includes a ladder protruding out of the water in conjunction with the reflections at this small construction site. It appears to me as though it is a site-specific environmental sculpture. It was a challenge to figure out a interesting composition from the construction mess.

Cheers!