Sunday, August 06, 2006

Usually grandmothers are the seers and/or the saints, the family members who've crawled on their bellies through raging fires of personal experiences, put some out with a handful of flour onhand in the larder, held most of the adults in the room when they were newbies. My own beloved grandmother, Victoria, I felt, looked in upon my soul as nobody else could for this lady not only knew me from the first hours, but was a wisdom conduit. If you asked, if you listened.
But yesterday, shooting an ultra-country wedding, the grandmother in the room was like so wrong. And I didn't want her to be wrong, going along with the beliefs outlined above. But when Country Gram wandered about, telling everyone that the wedding cake collapsed because of the wedge the couple removed for that choice photo op, I tried to reason with her frail self. Yours Truly said No, they cut the wedge here (gesturing) while the collapsing is here (gesturing again). She would not look, nor see the truth. It was that the base (not visible under what appears to be seaweed) was not level itself, sending all tiers into a dramatic and slow-motion whump. YT was seated nearby, as luck had it, with a divorcé whose wedding I shot several years ago, her dairy farmer date (who I peppered with questions about his transformation to the world of organics. . . and expressing my unfettered negative reaction when he told me about the lifespan of machine-pumped/chem-addled cows who yield an excessive six years as opposed to happier, organic cows who can live about four times longer), a woman I knew from Darien Lake's rock & roll venue, and some exurban tavern owners. Someone muttered that the cake was collapsing and I turned most quickly as my camera happened to be resting near the cake on the very same table. As it were, the collapse happened at six o'clock whereas the d2x was at 10 o'clock and it was not necessary to lick sugared shortening out of its delicate crevices. I documented the minimal wedding-day debacle and even assisted a youngster with his cell phone with getting the best shot until the caterer said We would prefer as few photographs of this as possible. To which YT stifled a gut-wrenching guffaw. Scouted out some fab locations for going off the grid as I wended to and fro the Middling City. And, lest You are unaware, all this happened, and this landscape may be gleaned, in under fifty miles from currently sani-wrapped City Hall.

Landscape Love.

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