Sunday, November 06, 2005
The Unspoken South
These images were inspired by Camille (<--click that!).
One afternoon during my daily net rap session with Camille I was talking about the 4 hr trip from Savannah to my present residence in west Georgia. She didn't believe that there were still thousands of acres of cotton still being grown and harvested. On that drive from far east to far west I pass innumerable and unbelievable expanses of cotton fields. When my parents first came to west Georgia to see our house it was an intensely uncomfortable 4 hour sight. It was late fall and we could see what I can only describe as blocks almost the size of trailer homes sitting in fields of picked cotton or the charred looking stalks filled with cotton fluff. Fields and fields of the stuff. I could only imagine people like me spread across the land as far as the eye can see hunched over wearing burlap with a sack slung across the shoulders. I though I bugged out when I found out the last cotton exchange in downtown Savannah closed only about 50 years ago, right.
So with her disbelief as inspiration I set out about a month ago to take some flix. I really wanted to capture how when it's just ready it looks like snow covering slightly rolling terraine. But my health has prevented that outing thus far and taking pictures from a moving car has not proven to do justice to what is really being seen. I suspect they will be harvesting cotton for a few more weeks. So I still have a chance to get the perfect picture.
I often wonder looking out in the wide open fluff about my ancestors. In spring the sowing begins and the earth is turned over. You can see for miles so much red Georgia clay that challenges sunsets in its beauty and brightness. Between that and spreading the seeds for such wide areas, Im sure that the work was back breaking to say the lease. But what I really wonder about is the picking. Cotton blooms in stages. I would presume that folks picked cotton over a few months time as to get every bit of it for greedy plantation owners. The fluff is the seeded part and is encased in a thorned pod. I picked a few and pricked myself of course and could not for the life of me imaging having to do such work in 90 degree weather, over what would have to be square miles, from dawn to dusk, FOR FREE.
So when I see the cotton blooming even on the 2 hr trip to Atlanta I can't help but to think of my ancestors. I can't help but to be grateful for today, however tainted in ways it is. And really, the cotton fields don't bother me anymore.
Looking to the past to appreciate today.
iaintpickinshit.
These images were inspired by Camille (<--click that!).
One afternoon during my daily net rap session with Camille I was talking about the 4 hr trip from Savannah to my present residence in west Georgia. She didn't believe that there were still thousands of acres of cotton still being grown and harvested. On that drive from far east to far west I pass innumerable and unbelievable expanses of cotton fields. When my parents first came to west Georgia to see our house it was an intensely uncomfortable 4 hour sight. It was late fall and we could see what I can only describe as blocks almost the size of trailer homes sitting in fields of picked cotton or the charred looking stalks filled with cotton fluff. Fields and fields of the stuff. I could only imagine people like me spread across the land as far as the eye can see hunched over wearing burlap with a sack slung across the shoulders. I though I bugged out when I found out the last cotton exchange in downtown Savannah closed only about 50 years ago, right.
So with her disbelief as inspiration I set out about a month ago to take some flix. I really wanted to capture how when it's just ready it looks like snow covering slightly rolling terraine. But my health has prevented that outing thus far and taking pictures from a moving car has not proven to do justice to what is really being seen. I suspect they will be harvesting cotton for a few more weeks. So I still have a chance to get the perfect picture.
I often wonder looking out in the wide open fluff about my ancestors. In spring the sowing begins and the earth is turned over. You can see for miles so much red Georgia clay that challenges sunsets in its beauty and brightness. Between that and spreading the seeds for such wide areas, Im sure that the work was back breaking to say the lease. But what I really wonder about is the picking. Cotton blooms in stages. I would presume that folks picked cotton over a few months time as to get every bit of it for greedy plantation owners. The fluff is the seeded part and is encased in a thorned pod. I picked a few and pricked myself of course and could not for the life of me imaging having to do such work in 90 degree weather, over what would have to be square miles, from dawn to dusk, FOR FREE.
So when I see the cotton blooming even on the 2 hr trip to Atlanta I can't help but to think of my ancestors. I can't help but to be grateful for today, however tainted in ways it is. And really, the cotton fields don't bother me anymore.
Looking to the past to appreciate today.
iaintpickinshit.
