Another week, another excellent blog including yours truly on their site.

Last week it was Verve Photos’ The New Breed of Documentary Photographers and this week it is

Ross Taylor’s “the image, deconstructed”.

I really like what Ross is doing with this blog.

I love hearing the back story to powerful images.

I, also, enjoy the “new breed” part of the title.

In fact, that was one of the title’s I threw around before coming up with “Common Ground”.

Now that the weather is warming up (well, sort of), I plan on getting back out to the Willow Walk subdivision and making some new diptychs.

Finally, I used Halloween as an excuse to spend a couple hours on Cinnamon Court.

I have a couple diptychs in mind that I think will be pretty effective but I need to go bcak into my binder of negatives and scan in some more farm photos for the left half of the pairings.

For now, here is a quartet of ok ones that I threw together from the Cagwin images that I have on my laptop.

©2010 Scott Strazzante

My first thought was- “When are you packing their suitcases?”

Yesterday afternoon, the packing commenced and I snapped this photo that dove tails nicely with Jean Cagwin dragging a suitcase from her bedroom on the morning that the Cagwin farm house was razed.

©2010 Scott Strazzante

The photo on the left is the first new vehicle that Harlow and Jean had bought in almost a decade. The money for the truck came from the sale of their land. It was an important photo in the original story as it showed one of the aspects of how the sale of their farm had started changing their lives.

The photo on the right, shot last Thursday, is just another summer day in suburbia.

The only thing that holds the two together are the trucks.

Sometimes the diptychs are very literal based solely on composition or repetition while sometimes they have deeper meanings.

This one is pretty literal.

©2010 Scott Strazzante

Almost everyday, Harlow or Jean would stop and watch the earth movers as they carved away the rich topsoil leaving the farm fields almost unrecognizable.

At the subdivision nowadays, the only removal process is the weekly visit from the garbage truck.

©2010 Scott Strazzante

It was a typical summer day in suburbia as a huge chunk of the cul de sac kids were out playing on Cinnamon Court.

At one point, Abigail and Caitlyn’s next door neighbor Avery drove out of her garage in her mini Chevy Silverado.

Awhile later, after the kids had moved on to something else, a neighbor boy tried to take the truck for a spin.

The girls rushed over to stop his escape.

As I shot the moment, I knew that this would be a fine match for a year 2000 photo of Harlow and Jean trying to coax a stubborn calf back to the barn.

©2010 Scott Strazzante

There is one certain song that takes me back to my days on the Cagwin farm.

“A Month of Sundays” by Don Henley is that song.

Some days, I listen and I can’t stop the tears.

A Month of Sundays by Don Henley

I used to work for Harvester. I used to use my hands.
I used to make the tractors and the combines that plowed and harvested this great land.
Now I see my handiwork on the block everywhere I turn.
And I see the clouds cross the weathered faces and I watch the harvest burn.

I quit the plant back in fifty-seven. Had some time for farmin’ then.
The banks back then was lendin’ money. The banker was the farmer’s friend.
I’ve seen dog days and dusty days, late spring snow and early fall sleet.
I’ve held the leather reigns in my hands; felt the soft ground under my feet.
Between the hot dry weather and the taxes and the cold war it’s hard to make ends meet,
But I always put the clothes on their backs. I always put the shoes on their feet.

My grandson comes home from college and says, “We get the government we deserve.”
My son-in-law just shakes his head and says, “That little punk; he never had to serve.”
And I sit here in the shadow of suburbia and look out across these empty fields.
I sit here in earshot of the bypass and all night I listen to the rushin’ of the wheels.

The big boys they all got computers. Got incorporated, too.
Me I just know how to raise things – that was all I ever knew.
Now it all comes down to numbers. Now I’m glad that I have quit it.
Folks these days just don’t do nothin’ simply for the love of it.

I went into town on the fourth of July. Watched ‘em parade past the Union Jack.
Watched them break out the brass and beat on the drum. One step forward and two steps back.
And I saw a sign on easy street. It said, “Be prepared to stop -
Pray for the independent middle man,” But I don’t see next year’s crop.

And I sit here on the back porch in the twilight and I hear the crickets hum.
I sit and watch the lightning in the distance, but the showers never come.
I sit here and listen to the wind blow. I sit here and rub my hands.
I sit here and listen to the clock strike and I wonder when I’ll see my companion again.