EW

Media: photography

Number of images: 3
(1 photograph; 2 of text)

Print size: 16x20 inches

Execution: 2019

The photograph is a Black-crowned Night-Heron chick (Nycticorax nycticorax) that died from injuries when it fell from it's nest. As I can only identify a handful of birds, I sent the photograph to my friend, John Comisky, who is involved with the Napa Wildlife Rescue and is a photographer in his own right. It is thanks to John that I found out that this is now the official bird of Oakland due to the dogged politicking of a group of third graders from Parkview Elementary School.

Our Oakland birds like to nest and hunt downtown near Lake Merritt, which in 1870, was the first official designated wildlife refuge in the United States. Lake Merritt is also the only salt water lake in a major metropolitan city (although in the 19th century it was part of the San Francisco Bay). The Night Heron is gregarious, dines on small fish, amphibians, insects and trash from humans. It is the perfect city bird for Oakland far surpassing in grandeur the common Feral pigeon (Columba livia domestica) which was once domesticated but has since returned to the wild.

The letters EW have a variety of meanings in English: the first is the sound for disgust. It is also the abbreviation for East-West which is the direction of the sun from sunrise to sunset along the Earth's latitude; Each Way also delineates direction in finance for the two ways a broker receives a commission from both sides of a transaction (buying and selling) and in a construction drawing to show flow or movement (environmental and human); Each-Way has an additional meaning in gambling which is a wager of two bets on the same horse, one to win and one to place second. EW also stands for an Emergency Ward for trauma (also known as the Emergency Room); as well as Early Warning, Electronic Warfare and Extinct in the Wild, the first two usually associated with the military, the last a species that exists only in captivity.

EW is also the yew tree (now obsolete) one of the oldest species in Europe (the Fortingall Yew, for example, is over 2000 years). The yew found a home in European graveyards due to it's reputation for longevity and rejuvenation, becoming a silent watch over the cycle of human life. It is one of the many trees throughout the world that has a history of being worshiped. [1] However, the symbol of the yew for resurrection and rebirth is in conflict with the fact that it is toxic to humans if ingested.

When I see the letters EW, I think of Edward Weston. He wrote his initials when he could no longer sign his name or use his camera as he was suffering from Parkinson's disease. His child like block letters, so different from his earlier signatures, complements his photographs, which at his best reflects (consciously or unconsciously) a Shaker sensibility rooted in organic form and proportion. This signature was used during the time period that Weston was working on assembling eight editions of the Project Prints which consisted of eight hundred and thirty of his "best" photographs. Today only one complete set remains as the other seven were broken up and sold. The intact set is located at my alma mater at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

In my series Remembrance of Photographs Past (2014), I mentioned that I "see" history when photographing (images that I've admired or previously photographed). This image is no different and is a visual echo of a photograph that Weston made at Point Lobos in 1942. [2]

[1] As a young girl at her Los Angeles elementary school, my mother use to participate on May Day dressing up in an all white ensemble, dancing and singing around the May Pole to celebrate the arrival of Spring. It was a pre Christian holiday that somehow survived transplantation to California with the descendants of our tree worshiping ancestors. Unfortunately, the holiday did not survive for my education in the Los Angeles School System. I do, however, have a photograph of my mother dancing to remember her celebration of Spring.[3]
[2] Weston's last photograph was taken in 1948. He died ten years later in 1958.
[3] My mother, Janice Flynn, drowned in the bathtub of our home, April 21, 1969.
Dead Black-crowned Night-Heron chick

EW