Previous stop: [[Stop Number 788]] Next stop: [[Stop Number 1842]] ![[789.jpg]] ## Notes This may not be a surprise, but I place no small premium on my visual memory. I would say it's above average. That's to say, I'm generally able to recall the appearance of things decently well and fit it into some matrix of meaning. It may be a rather non-linear and unhelpful matrix of meaning, but there's usually at least one point of contact. When I used to rock climb, we put a premium on three points of contact at all times for safety- sort of like that. There's usually at least one point of contact to something else. This photo has very few points of contact. In fact, even as I look at it now, my memory flits away to another area of the city, a different shoot. My point of reference slides away to the Southside of Richmond and a slightly more unnerving shoot than this one. I thought this was going to be one of the bad neighborhoods, but it was a rather pleasant morning of shooting. This image bothers me, though. Not in an interesting way. The two small pillars are probably about shin height. It would not surprise me to learn that the occupant of this house has crashed their lower extremities into these blocks at least once. Still, the relative impotence of these "totemic yardthings" (as I've referred to them in the keywords) is not really what bothers me. What bothers me is the skewing and folding this photograph does. Although these yardthings almost certainly frame a walkway, there is no walkway visible. There's no abbreviation or interruption in the grass at all. These two inscrutable objects jut out into nothing at slightly irregular angles. The lilting craftsmanship of these objects don't square against one another. See how the top of the right pillar is visible, yet the pillar in the left (the foregrounded pillar?) seems to stand tall away from the camera? It's hard to even be sure which element is foregrounded. Sure, the one to the right seems a bit smaller, but the roughly even light, the roughly uniform focus plane... they conspire to create an image that feels all askew. There is void between them. It does not frame up anything other than an out of focus background, shrubbery... no clear horizon. The bushes echo and frame but do not shed any additional meaning on the totemic yardthings. The lack of proportion and balance between the two is disconcerting. In the very faintest distance of the image there is a tiny awning, suggestive of a door. Is this a side entrance of a house? Perhaps. The sense of space falls apart the more I look at it. The nearest foreground element is obviously a sidewalk, yet there is no clear visual referent to hold onto within the frame other than that. Even the small brick yardthings seem to be the top of a taller structure rather than squat and unusual lamps to light a dubiously existent path. ## Keywords - [[On Ground View]] - [[Sidewalk]] - [[Totemic Yardthings]]