The (not so) Constant Gardener

The backyard garden gets too much shade, but it turns out vegetables and flowers will still grow. They just take their time about it. Today was the carrot harvest. This year's were bigger than ever, and I don't know if it's due to a new variety or my laissez-faire approach to gardening: plant seeds, weed and water here and there, see what happens.

Growing vegetables underground require patience. A willingness to be surprised. Months of waiting result in something or nothing, satisfaction or want. As soon as I lifted the first bunch out of the ground, before I took a moment to really look or smell, I wanted to take a picture. So I left the sunny yard, cleaned the dirt from my fingernails at the kitchen sink, and grabbed the camera. I now have a picture of those bright orange carrots covered in dark earth, leafy green stems hanging over the edge of my grandmother's old stainless steel mixing bowl.

And what will I do with that picture, besides store the file somewhere and then forget it exists? I've been thinking about photography a lot lately, and the impulse to capture a moment rather than experience it. A colleague recently passed on a New York Times article about tourists doing the same at the Louvre. While traveling, I try to be a deliberate and choosy photographer, though I've also taken countless pictures of European cathedrals I knew nothing about, other than the way light hits their stained glass windows.

This summer, I spent a month taking a picture a day of whatever struck my imagination, then I linked the image to text of some sort. What began as a way to learn how to use my camera turned into an exercise in keeping my associative brain in practice. I only posted thirty photos as part of One June, but wound up taking nearly 400. It was an experiment, a way to harness the constant documentation our lives now seem to require. That came to mind earlier today, digging in the dirt and pulling up carrots, filling a bowl with basil leaves to turn into pesto, a light breeze keeping the mosquitoes briefly at bay. The summer's-end moment was fulfilling. But somehow we're trained to think a moment becomes more so when it's captured. Doubly so when shared.