I’m a winter girl to my core so this time of year has always been difficult for me. I love the cold, pray for snow and count the days until I can return to my hibernation. The inundation of Alaska’s harsh light and the collective growing anticipation in Anchorage overwhelms my senses. Where others feel energized, I feel lethargic and where others boast about our return of light, I retreat.
This time of year is always an adjustment in a technical sense too, relearning when and how light moves through the city. I make mental notes about the color of light versus time of day, and study how the light travels the corners of my home and sides of buildings. There are always a few weeks between these seasons when I frequently overexpose my images, forgetting how much light we’ve gained.
Kicking myself for choosing “revival” as March’s theme when I felt anything but revived, I drove around Anchorage repeating the word in my head.
I started with the obvious scene: melting snow.
Melting snow then led me to East Anchorage where I found doves painted on a sign, drawn as if they were fluttering up from the snowbank and into the bright blue sky. And because I was in East Anchorage I stopped by the greenhouse. And because I was at the greenhouse I saw the chickadee.
Slowly, these simple scenes began to anchor me in this month’s theme rather than remaining daunted by its enormity. The more I thought about it, the more I found revival in many soft ways — stopping for a drink at my favorite coffee hut, meeting a friend for the first time, watching ice relinquish its grasp, a chickadee searching for food.
When I began shifting my perspective — choosing to lean into this sloppy season and its abundance of new light — there were parts of this city that unveiled herself to me just because I decided to look. I think I’ll take this reminder, albeit a little obvious, that there are always ways to connect yourself to a place, no matter how minute they may seem.
Come back next month as I explore the theme “voices”.
Thanks to Stewart’s Photo Shop for local film supplies and Young Kim with The Stoop PRC for film developing and scanning.
