Photo series that I wish I had started sooner
I hate it when I have an idea for something but I don’t do anything about it until it seems too far gone, and then, once I’ve resolved myself to not doing anything about it, everywhere I look, there are reminders of how good of an idea it would have been.
When I first came to Shanghai, I had the desire to photograph people with their pets. I’ve seen so many strange pets, and their owners seem to make up for the oddity by being completely “normal-looking”, but what normal person dyes the ears and tail of their little white dog bright orange?
All the animals in Shanghai are tiny. The other day, when Chris and I were walking to the train station to head to the museum, we saw a young boy wiping a desktop with his kitten. I’m not kidding. He wasn’t being cruel or even efficient. He was sitting on the desktop and absentmindedly sweeping the little cat body back and forth on the desk. The desk surface must have been very slippery to allow this action. It was fascinating, really. Last week, when I was walking to school, I saw another young boy sitting on a stationary moped in front of his parents’ welding shop, flossing the teeth of his pet kitten. The kitten was on its back with all feet in the air, mouth wide open and floss in teeth. I told a Chinese acquaintance about this and she said, “Wow, I don’t know many people who floss their own teeth, much less the teeth of their animals”.
So the white and orange dog isn’t the only animal I’ve seen with unusual coat coloration. There was a VERY small little dog in this woman’s arms the other day when I was coming back from Zapata’s and I swear this dog had hair extensions. Crimped golden hair much longer than the length of its own body. Its owner had the same crimped golden hair, which makes me think the dog’s were extensions too. Maybe you get a discount at the salon if you have your dog done too?
The other photo series I wish I had started earlier would have a title along the lines of this: “Discarded food and the insects that finish the job”. I’m sure I’ve seen discarded food on the streets of Birmingham and Seattle (the only places where I’ve spent a considerable amount of time walking back and forth from point A to point B). But! I’ve never seen discarded food attacked like it is here. I’ve seen apple cores, half eaten corncobs on sticks, melting popsicles, soggy baozi morsels (also known as humbao), and all kinds of parts of chickens and fish and I’ve seen ants, ants, ants, as if the world, or at least Shanghai, is going to be overrun by ants in a matter of DAYS! Saturday night, when I was returning from dinner, I was walking along the halls of the subway to get to the exit closest to my street when I looked over as I was climbing the stairs to see two of these before mentioned corncobs-on-sticks lying in the dirt beyond the stairs. The yellow of the corncob was barely visible, replaced by a moving brown mass of COCKROACHES!
This might freak you out, but the roaches in China are much smaller than the ones I’m used to. The ones you come across in Birmingham generally have nervous systems. These little guys are light brown, and pretty small. BUT THEY’RE STILL ROACHES!
So now I’ve got to have my camera out at all times, in case I come across yet another subject for one of my series. Too bad you can’t capture SMELL on film. That would be another good one.
