What I meant when I stated this blog is futile; Barrow school bus; someone on Mirror Lake; Whalen Leavitt

In a post just before I left for Barrow, I proclaimed this blog to be futile. I meant it, too, but I fear I did not explain myself very well. When I started this blog, I had this fantasy I could make it pay, make it become my life support and through it free myself to go out and photograph and write about the world whereever and whenever as I saw fit - particularly the far north, but not exclusively.

In that sense, it is futile. If you were to average out the income this blog has brought me, it would probably come to about $1.00 an hour. That's just a guess, of course, but I think it is a pretty good guess. And a dollar an hour does not provide the funds to really do the blog as I would like. To really do this blog as I would like, I would need to work on it fulltime. And for me, fulltime does not mean eight hours a day. It means all day, and night, too. I have never recognized the eight hour work day.

I can't afford to do that. 

I do have a great project in progress now, one I am doing for the students on this bus, which I stopped for as it rolled through Barrow on the final afternoon of the trip I just returned home from.

I want to do justice to these students. I want to produce the finest product I can. It is beginning to feel to me like I need to work on it all the time - totally immerse myself in it, morning until night, whether I am on the Slope or down here.

That wouldn't leave much time for this blog.

Maybe half-an-hour a day, average.

Maybe 45 minutes if I push it.

Fifteen minutes would be better.

But in another sense, this blog is not futile. It is never futile to do something you love and to create some kind of record, however limited, of this crazy life we all share together here for such a brief time. I am going to keep doing the blog, but maybe I will skip a few days here and there. Most days, I will try to limit the number of photos I post to one or two, no more than three.

I will write a minimum of text.

Yet, doing this does not always save as much time as you might think. 

Then, every now and then - perhaps as much as once a week, perhaps as little as once a month, I will do a big post, try to tell a big story. It might be a story I shot just recently, or quite some time ago - maybe even long ago.

Above is Mirror Lake, not quite half-way between Wasilla and Anchorage. As usual on Mondays when I am home, I took Margie into town today so she could babysit. I didn't take this picture today, though. I took it Saturday, from the back seat of Caleb's pickup truck as he and Monica drove me home after they picked me up at the airport.

This is Whalen Leavitt, a young whaler from Barrow, at the end of a survival lesson session taught by Iñupiat elders to Iñupiat youth during last week's conference. I have not yet looked at the take, but somehow I accidently attached a "star" rating to this image, then, after running the whole take into Lightroom, accidently clicked the Lightroom "star" rating. This caused the other images I shot, all as of yet unrated, to fall off my screen. 

This one alone remained, staring out at me from the Lightroom window. So I decided to post it. It just happens I have one of those bigger stories in the works right now and Whalen appears in it. I might post it tomorrow. I might post it Wednesday, maybe later, but I will post it.

Comments

[twain12]

I enjoy your Blog, sorry it didn't turn into what you envision, but it does make a great record for us all and your Family .

[M]

Well I really love your blog. I've never been to AK but always wanted to go and I love the window this blog provides into the area. I think your photos are absolutely fantastic. I love the one above with the trees and the person visible so small. Thank you for sharing.

[Francesca]

Wonderful portrait.