There are a number
of ghost towns in the West of the United States. These are towns that were
built in the 1800s to provide a stable environment for miners. Gold, silver and
copper were among the metals that created the rush to the West. These towns had
little to offer as far as lifestyle went – bars and houses of prostitution made
up the “main street” of every mining town. A barber who was also a surgeon; a sheriff
who also supervised the bordello and the bar, and maybe a hotel owner for the
occasional visitors if the mining was prosperous and the town large enough.
Today these towns
are either touristy places where the old structures and the often open mines
are kept as historical “monuments”; or, they are abandoned and in ruin.
Jerome Arizona
belongs to the first group of ghost towns. Actually it is a very busy town with
art galleries, hotels, restaurants and bars perched upon the cliffs of Cleopatra
Hills, a mountain side about 5000 feet in altitude in Black Hills of Yavapai
County. The now non-active copper mine (one of the largest in the world in the
early 1900s) is in the valley and a tourist attraction. Two other mines are
nearby – the Gold King Mine and Ghost town, and the United Verde mine.
I have written about
Jerome and posted photographs here https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2014/07/jerome-arizona.html,
and here https://liveingray.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-eclectic-town-of-jerome-arizona.html .
For a street photographer it is difficult to go to Jerome and not return with
one or two keeper photographs.
And that is what I did on a recent visit. A seemingly
ordinary moment when a woman is at the window becomes less ordinary when in a
historical or symbolic contest. This woman was at the window of an old building
now an art gallery. The side of the building has a faded Standard Oil Sign from the 1920s when Jerome was a bustling mining
town. The silver hair of the woman along
with the grey color and texture of the building was a perfect composition for
B&W photography.
The theme of
photographing or painting women at a window or upon a balcony has always
attracted me. There is something intensely human to be at the intersection of
the inside and outside of the physical or emotional world. It is also a moment when
the person, in this case a woman, is half protected by the known inside of her
home but faces the unknowns of the outside world. A window or balcony is also
most inviting when a woman looks out …
I do have my
favorite painting of a woman at the window out of hundreds I have seem. It is
by the German painter Caspar David Friedrich who painted his wife in 1822 as
she looked out of his studio window overlooking the Elbe River in Dresden.
This
seemingly ordinary moment is full of symbolism and romanticism. The large
window over her head has a cross making this a spiritual setting and moment.
Her left side is dark (sinistra) while her right (destra) is luminous and
promising. The mast of the ship is about exploration while she seems very at
ease where she is.
This painting by Friedrich is now displayed at the Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen, in Berlin.
So, is there really an
ordinary moment or a moment is deemed ordinary when we do not see the
extraordinary in it? Maybe that is what makes a scientist discover and an
artist be considered creative.
April 28, 2019
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019
PS/ I used a 1980s Nikon Micro Nikkor 55mm flat field lens set to f 11. The film is Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125.
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