Our Dakota

ASSIGNMENT #3 (Sept. 11-Oct. 5, 2012)

nobody@flickr.com (Rebecca Norris Webb) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:34:19 -0700

TRIGGERING TOWN: “The central metaphor of "the triggering town" is the jumping-off point …always a town that has seen better days, ‘the town [that] will have become your hometown.’ A piece of the world, something glimpsed from a car window or from inside a bar, is the start of every poem for [Montana poet Richard] Hugo.”—Joshua Corey

The noted poet and University of Montana professor, Richard Hugo, often urged his creative writing students to use a “triggering town” to inspire their poems. For this assignment, we’re going to ask you to do the same thing, but with photography. We’d like you either to explore your own home town with a camera, or to visit another town – roughly the same size or atmosphere of your home town –– and photograph it instead. We’d suggest vising the town at least twice, and, if possible, three times at different times of the day –– early morning, late afternoon, dusk – over at least two weekends if at all possible. Additionally, try photographing in different kinds of weather if you can –– rain and fog, for instance.

BOOKS/LINKS TO USE AS RESOURCE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT:

Video about his noted cowboy photograph:
fotografclass.blogspot.com/2010/04/sam-abell-cowboys-comp...

How Sam Abell Makes a photograph (video): www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2011/08/first-drafts-ho...

About the Badlands and Pine Ridge Reservation:
facingchange.org/blog/2011/10/26/the-badlands-of-south-da...

Reply to ASSIGNMENT #2 (July 1-August 31)

nobody@flickr.com (KWinRC) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:11:29 -0700

KWinRC posted a reply:

Where can I see all the pictures that other people are adding to this group?

ASSIGNMENT #2 (July 1-August 31)

nobody@flickr.com (Rebecca Norris Webb) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:31:50 -0700

Rebecca Norris Webb posted a new topic:

Summer in South Dakota is the time of festivals, parades, county fairs, powwows, rallies, and rodeos. It’s also a popular time for weddings, family reunions and other events and celebrations. We would recommend exploring one or more of these events in South Dakota with a camera.

One tip: We recommend if you’re photographing a parade or other event where people are in costume, that you try to photograph at least one hour before and/or one hour after the event, when people are still in costume but mingling with people not in costume.

BOOKS/LINKS TO USE AS RESOURCE FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT:

––Link to photographer Bill Allard’s photographs of cowboys and others: ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/10/allards-west/allard-ph...

––Vanishing Breed: Photographs of the Cowboy and West by National Geographic photographer William Allard

––Views From the Reservation, by photographer John Willis (Center for American Places); website: www.jwillis.net/galleries/rez.shtml

––State Fair, work-in-progress by photographer Chris Chadbourne, link: christopherchadbourne.com/#/STORIES/STATE%20FAIR/1/

ASSIGNMENT #1 (June 1-June 30, 2012)

nobody@flickr.com (Trent Bailey) — Wed, 30 May 2012 10:28:09 -0700

Trent Bailey posted a new topic:

ASSIGNMENT #1 (June 1-June 30, 2012)

Does loss have its own geography?—Rebecca Norris Webb from the book and Dahl exhibition, My Dakota

June is the 40th anniversary of the Rapid City Flood, the fifth-worst flood in the nation’s history. We’d like to use this anniversary as an opportunity to explore through photography the notion of loss and landscape.

There are many ways to handle this assignment. For those who had direct experience of the flood, they may want to take photographs that reflect in some way the memory of their experiences. For instance, you may want to use a photograph from the flood (you’ll find some of these photographs in the May/June 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine as well as probably in the Rapid City Journal in June), and go back to the location in the photograph and photograph today (if you do this, you have the option of also including a scan or photograph of the historical photograph as well).

For those who were born after the flood –– or weren’t living in Rapid at the time –– they can choose an alternative memory of loss to explore through photography: for instance, the loss of a family member or friend, the loss of a home, the loss of a job, the loss of an animal with which they had a special bond.

POEM/BOOKS AS INSPIRATION FOR THE ASSIGNMENT:

––South Dakota Magazine, May-June 2012 issue, with essays about the Rapid City flood and “My Dakota.”

––My Dakota: An Elegy for My Brother Who Died Unexpectedly (Radius Books, June 2012) text and photographs by Rebecca Norris Webb

––The below, an excerpt from the poem, “Traveling,” by Malena Morling

Like streetlights
still lit
past dawn,
the dead
stare at us
from the framed
photographs.