Tag Archives: upended life

Altered Horizons 41

Altered Horizons 41 Robin Botie of Ithaca, new York, photoshops a fabricated landscape as part of her healing process.

In the middle of the vast woods at Connecticut Hill, New York’s largest wildlife management area, a horrible squawking-beeping made me jump. My cell phone, usually useless there, was suddenly lit up and alive.

“Emergency Alert. Snow Squall Warning until 10:45 AM EST. Sudden Whiteouts. Icy Roads. Slow Down!” I read aloud from the screen where a yellow triangle with an exclamation point was prominently displayed. I looked up at my hiking buddy.

“Let’s turn around,” she said, and we turned and bolted back out the way we’d come. Even my frail arthritic dog hightailed it over the icy trails with urgency as, very quickly, the snow started falling. In our haste to be out of there, I didn’t stop to photograph the heavy sky, the barely visible trail, the snowflakes coming down, first as minute dust-like particles and then growing bigger and faster. And more dense. Later, safely at home, in Photoshop I pasted together images of tumbling rocks and foamy residue from a sandy beach to remember the adventure.

Altered Horizons 41

 

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Altered Horizons 39

Altered Horizons 39 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape in dealing with seasonal affective disorder and loss.

Praying for sun. Although the winter sun in Upstate New York is cold and bleak, just a few hours of it can help melt huge snow mountains flanking both sides of doorways and driveways. All this snow would be depressing except that it sneaks up on you, falling silently from the sky either in fat fluffy flakes or tiny hard hail-pebbles. Either way it’s a surprisingly beautiful event even without the sun.

There was a mysterious dark disc seated in the middle of the pebbly rooftop at Cornell’s Heating Plant. For me, it immediately became a hardened gloomy sun in a sky dense with snowfall.

Altered Horizons 39

 

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Altered Horizons 37

 

Altered Horizons 37 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a landscape fabricated from the back of a dog as she ponders the death of pets inherited by bereaved parents.

 

At Barton Valley Farm, dogs followed the photography students as we traipsed through the fields. I was trying to focus on the horses but this dog kept creeping into my view. I don’t know what kind of dog it was but it was very friendly and had great hair.

My own dog, Suki, is so old that the county clerk phoned me this year before mailing out the annual dog license renewal, “Is Suki still with us?”

Surprised by the call, I told her the dog I inherited from my daughter eleven years ago was indeed still here.

“Well, bless her little heart,” the clerk replied. And I do. Every day. Because I’ve seen, from others whose inherited dogs die, that when this dog goes it could be like losing my daughter all over again.

 

Altered Horizons 37

 

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Altered Horizons 35

Altered Horizons 35 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a landscape of steely sharp objects to illustrate that life can be hard.

It was not one of my better days. The sun was cruel and cold in a colorless sky on the morning a container of blueberries fell and burst all over the front seat of my car. I continued on with my errands, getting caught at every traffic light on the way downtown, picking up mashed berries each time I stopped for a red light. Finally at the county offices, I found a good parking spot but the pay station kept rejecting my credit card and I had no coins on me. So I dashed in to quickly to pick up the papers I needed. And, as I’d feared, my car was ticketed by the time I got back out.

Life can be harsh. Some days it’s difficult to leave the safety and comfort and predictability of home. My photography shoots don’t always end up in cozy lit studios, green valleys with pretty horses, or intriguing mountains of material wastes. At Cornell’s Hydroplant and Lake Source Cooling Plant there were ridged metal plates, grates and grinders, and all sorts of machinery with moving parts. Signs warned, “Keep Back,” and I did. And later, in Photoshop, I collaged several steely sharp-looking parts to create a hard merciless sun over a landscape of mashing metal.

Altered Horizons 35

 

 

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Altered Horizons 32

Altered Horizons 32 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape for all the people who are missing someone or something this holiday.

Holiday wishes: This year my heart goes out to the people who aren’t where they wish they could be, or who aren’t with the loved ones they yearn to be with. The people for whom someone or something is missing. I’m wishing you sweet comfort wherever and however you are. May the sad circumstances you find yourself in for the holidays yield a gentle unexpected peace.

At Cornell University’s Lake Source Cooling Plant, there were waves of rolled mesh supported by laths of wood and metal. I didn’t know what they did or were for but they quietly reflected the light, and I could imagine tiny creatures walking the smooth length of them. But where was the water, I wondered? And how would all this cool it? Cornell’s water and the lake water never mix. In Photoshop, for a black sun over the mesh-screened landscape, I imported the image of a nearby completely dry flanged pipe that conducted who-knows-which water who-knows-where. The lake seemed impossibly far away.

 

 

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Altered Horizons 31

Altered Horizons 31 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops landscape of loss and devastation as in the recent tornadoes, in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

There was a blue tarp behind the glittering mound of metal scraps at Upstate Shredding in Owego—a perfect sky for a jeweled mountain. The only thing needed to complete my fabricated landscape was a sun or a moon. In Photoshop, I cut-and-pasted the image of a silvery ring I’d found lying in the muddy ground between the piles of scrap.

Now, looking over my photos of scrapyard rubble, what I see is ruin, like the aftermath of the recent tornadoes. What were once my mountains of treasure are now landscapes of loss and devastation. As I sort through my photos, on the news I see people picking through piles of debris. And with the holidays coming up, I’m thinking of those who lost homes and all their treasures. Who lost loved ones. And I’m wishing them peace and comfort. And plenty more treasure to fill up their emptiness in the days to come.

 

 

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