Rick Perry, Town Hall Meeting Derry, NH...

Mitt Romney Town Hall meeting...

 

images available: http://archive.michaelseamans.com/
www.michaelseamans.com

September 11th: The color faded from the sky that day...

The day began a brilliant blue, but only for an hour or two.  The color faded from the sky that day, faded to a smoke filled hue. The innocence we awoke with too, drifted away in the smoke that grew. The color faded from the sky that day, faded to a smoke filled hue.

I was not there on September 11^th, or the days that immediately followed. I arrived three days later on September 14^th, on empty train feeling very alone. I was not one of the first responders, like my fellow Boston Herald photographers, that I was sent there to relieve. I did not arrive in the fear, smoke, adrenaline and fire after a harrowing drive down from Boston. No I arrived on that empty train into a smoking city, scared, but still standing proud. I left five days later smelling of smoke and carrying my own scars, but also proud of what I witnessed there.

The train rounded the bend with a smoke filled Manhattan laid out before me. I took a deep breath as the train plunged under the river into the city. I emerged into a city no longer griped in the chaos of the immediate aftermath. I have no iconic photos of buildings collapsing, people running for their lives, or the heroism of the first responders. That all happened days before. None of my photos graced the front page. I don’t even know if any of them even made the paper, for I have never checked. This is the first time in 10 years I have looked at them, so I am not sure what they show. You will not see them in any of the tributes, or probably anyplace else, but this is what I experienced.

I remember the first day I photographed at “Ground Zero.” I remember being covered in smoke and ash, even five days after the collapse. I remember the smell of the smoke and the way the ash clung to everything making you cough even while wearing a respirator.  I remember walking from Ground Zero to the Jacob Javits Center and the streets slowly filling with people the further I walked. I remember being lost in thought and catching my toe and falling, sprawled into the street camera gear crashing all around me. I remember getting to my feet, pausing, dusting myself off and continuing my journey.

I think or hope that my photos from those five days I spent in, New York in September of 2001, are of people getting to their feet dusting themselves off and continuing on our collective journey. Ten years on that smoke and ash still clings to us and always will. We all carry that ash in our soul, some of us in our lungs and some of us in the items we brought back. I still have the respirator I wore, stored in its plastic bag. I have opened that bag once and coughed and choked on what remained. This is the second time I have opened, “that bag”, in writing and sharing my photos from my experience there. I still feel the ash it in the back of my throat when thinking about that time in September and always will, what a small price to pay considering what others paid that day…

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then the leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

~Robert Frost 1923

(best viewing on youtube 1080p full screen, while listening to 
Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day)


www.michaelseamans.com

The Sea...

"The Sea, washing the equator and the poles offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it...."Beware of me," it says, "but if you can hold me, I am key to all the lands."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

(click on photo to enlarge)

There is hope from the sea, but none from the grave...

~Irish proverb

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New Hampshire: "Plastic" politics, July 4th 2011

"The Political arena leaves no alternative, one must be either a dunce or a rogue."

~Emma Goldman(1869-1940)

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Beaver Pond: Sunrise time lapse...

(best viewing on youtube 720HD)

"It is easy to replace man, and it will take no time, when Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature."

~Alice Meynell (1847-1922)

Rainy Day....walkabout

It has been raining for what seems like the entire spring here in New Hampshire. It has actually been raining 7 days straight and counting. All the rain has allowed me to get quite a bit done on my web site, film processed and a lot of organization, always more to do on that front. The rain has also left me awash in cabin fever. So I decided to embrace the rain and went for a hike in, a light mist, around a beaver pond nearby. It was great to get out and stretch my legs for a while, but the rain came back in full force and forced me to retreat, but not before refreshing the soul with a little bit of Nature... There is certainly beauty in the rain, but nothing like the feel of a little sunshine on your face, hopefully the sun will return soon...

Here are some of the images I took on my brief walkabout...

(click images to enlarge)

"One impulse from a vernal wood

May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good, 

Than all the ages can."

~William Wordsworth

www.michaelseamans.com