WEEK FORTY THREE.

project 52 / week 43 / transience
the beauty and ache of things passing

Song: Paint by The Paper Kites

43/52 // It’s something I hold.

43/52 // I take it with me all the places I go.

I’ve listened to The Paper Kites for many years. But not many songs, and not very often. If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I like to save things, in case I want to go back, so I don’t forget, because I like to know.

“It's something I hold, something I hold
I take it with me all the places I go”

This is both a strength and curse. Because it also feels like I’m the keeper of things. I have to hold on to it otherwise, who will?

“You left me living with a lingering soul”

Because I hold on to things, I never feel quite settled. Like I have one foot here, one there. Above and below. Forward and backward. And all those other poetic contrasting words about never being steadied, leaving things unfinished.

The Paper Kites popped back into my existence last Tuesday, when a playlist ended and “Paint” shuffled into rotation. To me, music holds power over moments and memory. I remember the other times I listened to the song…What was happening in my life, how I felt, and I found it slightly eerie that it re-emerged. As it did, I instantly saw this photo in my head… A gray, foggy morning, along a forested path, and a long white dress, tattering in the wind, as a female subject ran, hair whipping behind her. As with any plan, real life emerges and things shift. Ready or not. I found no white dresses. I found no foggy, gray morning. No forested path.

But I did find the wind. On the prairie, where the grass prickles my legs and the colors melt together like a familiar painting I know all the brushstrokes to.

“It's all in my mind, all in my mind”

It’s becoming a little comical how much is in my mind, that which doesn’t match reality. And I really felt like running lately, like the picture in my mind.

So, I packed a bag, I took a flight, and found the house on the fruit named drive to enlist the help of my sister and the girl who grew from flowers. From the prairie, we are, so it’s the prairie we found, and I ran, as I have, a thousand times through the thicket. My legs are covered in scratches and bumps. TGWGFF’s almost ruined her Uggs. My sister’s legs cramped. But we did it anyway.

The part of the song that lingers, is this:

“Still, there's a wound and I'm moving slow
Though it don't show, though it don't show
I've got a hole where nothing grows
How little you know, how little you know”

43/52 // I’ve got a hole where nothing grows.

“I’ve got a hole where nothing grows.”
What a line. It got stuck in my head. So visual, but so… empty?

There are a thousand possible ways any one thing can go. What do they call it? The butterfly effect? The image I have this week isn’t the image I thought it’d be. A lot of things in life are like that. So maybe I should just go with the wind. Wherever it ends up taking me, transient.

WEEK FORTY TWO.

project 52 / week 42 / a world without “x”

42/52 // a world without

42/52 // a world without

A world without “insert your thoughts here”. I don’t really know what to write about today.
I don’t have any strong emotion to convey. I don’t have any big story or secret to get off my chest.

I don’t have anything to say because it’s October and I don’t really like October, or weekends, or September 27th. This might be the last image I create in October because I usually do my “assignments” on Saturday or Sunday and this month ends on Friday. What if we had a world without October?

A world without “insert your thoughts here”. I guess, it’s your turn to write.

WEEK FOURTY ONE.

project 52 / week 41 / fragments

Song: I Tried to Draw a Straight Line (Relaxed Version) - Petey

41/52 // fragments in the liminal space

We accidentally broke the glass of a small oval picture frame. I was ready to discard it but the kids declared, “Keep it!” with an imagination I didn’t share. “We can tape it back together!” as if the sharp edges could be undone. So, delicately, I picked up the shards and set the empty frame back on the table. The fragments are now sitting in a tupperware that we’ll probably forget exists, set aside, out of the way. The sharp edges won’t be taped back together. The kids won’t use it for an art project and in a few months, I’ll tape up those edges and toss it out.

When you said how you are, it was only fragments. I searched the pauses between sentences. The things unsaid, hanging there, in the intangible space. No one spoke them. So the fragments sit in the divide. The abrasive lines and pointed edges were veiled by cushioned, carefully rehearsed phrases. As if you’ve answered the same questions, over and over. There are the things we don’t say, that the other still sees.

41/52 // life’s a game of inches

41/52 // i tried to photograph a straight line

41/52 // all i want is unlimited time

When I chased the sunrise, I knew I wouldn’t get far before it would dissipate. So I hastily parked in an empty parking lot and skittered up a hill of five foot switchgrass in shorts and a t-shirt. It had rained a few hours before, evident in the slick grass that slipped past my skin as I ran up and up. I held my camera over my head and the wind carried us up while the sun kept rising. Cars passed along the highway and I missed all these little fragments of light shifting and swirling in the sky. I only caught a few small slivers. On the way back down, I caught sight of one single dandelion seed threatening to ascend, verberating in the liminal space.

WEEK FOURTY.

project 52 / week 40 / unspoken

project 52, week 40, unspoken.m4a
Claire EA Fiedler

40/52 // unspoken and overgrown

I don’t know how I ended up here.
I don’t want to say always,
Because I’ve been trying to be an optimist.
But my pessimistic side has roots woven deep.

They shroud the door I need to get out.
I trip over the vines, stumble on the uneven ground.
It’s all overgrown,
Overstayed it’s welcome.
Impassable.
Grown so tall, I’m not sure how to cut it down.

40/52 // unspoken and trapped

I can’t figure it out,
How I end up here so often. 
This is the very spot,
Where not some 365 days ago,
Four quick steps saved me.
And I was sort of hoping to return,
And have another miracle. 

Because it’s hard to hold on, to all of this.
And I just want to set it down. It’s gotten so heavy.
The branches scratch and the grass tangles up my legs.
I just want to set it down and feel the weight disappear.
Just for awhile, just a reprieve.
A moment where,
The weight of the limbs, doesn’t feel so heavy. 

40/52 // unspoken and here

Those limbs, have fallen here,
Crashed under the strain of the wind.
And, metaphor or not...
It feels like the wind hasn’t blown this hard in a long time.
It rips the words from my throat,
So I whisper to stop the strain of tears,
That threaten with every second,
To spill over. Overgrown.

I don’t know which way to go.
Because the path out is overgrown.
I trip over the vines, stumble on the uneven ground.
It’s all overgrown,
Overstayed it’s welcome.
Impassable.
Grown so tall, I’m not sure how to cut it down.
I don’t know how I ended up here.

WEEK THIRTY NINE.

project 52 / week 39 / shadows & secrets

39/52 // shadows & secrets 1

39/52 // shadows & secrets 2

39/52 // shadows & secrets 3

a short poem about letters to ghosts, part 7

About a month ago,
I wrote another letter,
To my ghost.
The ghost who knows me.
Who understands the things I have a hard time describing.
Who lived at the other end of the tether.

I asked for advice. I pleaded. I cried out, tears slipped.
I ran too hard, until my lungs felt like they would explode,
And my wrist itched in that uncomfortable way.

But there’s no way to reach a ghost.
There is only what there always is.
Hollow silence, all the words to and from,
Get intercepted by shadows and darkness.
A tether no more, only a loop.

A fact of the nonfiction in my life.
I can wish it a hundred different ways,
I can hope, until it reaches soaring heights,
I can play out every scenario,
But it just… Is.
There is only what there always is.

I repeat the truth.
And it slips away like water.
Finding a different path back to wherever it came from.
I might not ever, be able to hold it, in my hands.

And my ghost would know.
Would have the answer.
I would Run. Fly. Drive. Climb.
To get to that ghost.
I would study the map, find the route.
To learn the way. To hear the answer.
And get out of the loop of shadows and secrets.

I yank on the tether. I pour it into the universe.
I hit the steering wheel. I let my body shake.
Rage, anger, apathy, numbness, nothing, silence.
I turn the music loud to drown it out.
It doesn’t change the truth.

There’s no way to reach a ghost.
There is only what there always is.
Hollow silence, all the words to and from,
Get intercepted by shadows and darkness.
A tether no more, only a loop.

WEEK THIRTY SEVEN.

project 52 / week 37 / ode to a portal

37/52 // ode to a portal, thou shall not pass

It’s hard to reconcile the two identities that wage within me. Sometimes I think I should go back, before it’s too late. The other part of me knows it was best I flew. That it created growth impossible to achieve in another area code, and if I go back, all that may be lost. So I am stuck in a way, between the two places I wish to be. Not knowing if I will get to either of them. So it would be nice if this portal existed, but the timeline we’re in, these things don’t exist. Thou shall not pass.

project 52 / week 36 / the world waking up

36/52 // the world waking up
thanks little bird

WEEK THIRTY FIVE.

project 52 / week 35 / details

35/52 // untitled

35/52 // untitled

35/52 // untitled

WEEK THIRTY FOUR.

project 52 / week 34 / trendy

34/52 // it’s taylor swift’s world, we’re just living in it

I’ve been looking up again lately.
The moon, planets, stars, clouds.
It’s nice. I had missed a few but I’m back now.
For trendy, I went with the most popular color scheme at the moment… Orange and Mint.

How it was shot:

Flowers: 8:46 p.m. ISO 800, 1/100th, f/4
Moon: 8:47 p.m. ISO 800, 1/160th, f/4
Photoshop: Double exposure with the Lighten Blend Mode.
Yellow Flowers: Used HSL to make Yellow things Orange.
Moon: Used HSL to make Yellow things Green (Mint).

34/52 // bonus
ISO 800, 1/8000, f/6.3 (100-400mm)

WEEK THIRTY THREE.

project 52 / week 33 / submerge

it’s 1999 and you wake up mid-morning late august
citizen king is static-y on the radio
the window’s open, 7 birds are singing
and you don’t want to do a damn thing

two feet on the floor, swing yourself up and out
ran out of milk but the cereal’s stale anyway
4 missed calls flash on the receiver
work starts in an hour

yesterday feels like weeks ago
the static from the radio has melded to your brain
the world spins on and the bottom drops out.
submerge, rinse, repeat.

33/52 // and the bottom drops out

This was weird and fun? Are you really a photographer if you don’t do this photoshoot? Pobby not. But, ain’t no way I am laying in a milk bath, blech. Luckily, fake black flowers dye the water enough.

How it was shot:
Supplies: tripod, wireless remote, continuous video light, fake black flowers, water
I set up the tripod, two legs in the tub, one outside and then filled it 3/4 full. I used a wireless remote and a continuous video light at 3000K mounted on the hot shoe. I added black flowers and they started turning the water black/gray. ISO 640, f/4, 1/160th

Tread carefully with a camera on a tripod over water, stay safe out there photogs.

WEEK THIRTY TWO.

project 52 / week thirty two / potential

32/52 // potential, even if it is a lie

between us
taunt and straining

if you let go
the recoil will slap me in the face

the whiplash
has the potential
to take me out for good

swore i’d stay in the light
swore i’d hold myself up
swore i’d tread water

but i’m so tired
the strain of the weight
the tension of the string
the last rope
losing grip
too much
potential

even if it is a lie
i still won’t ever let go

WEEK THIRTY ONE.

project 52 / week 31 / glass half full, glass half empty

You thought I was gone, didn’t you?
I was lookin’ for the light.
I couldn’t keep it up,
And then the dark dragged me under.
But we resurface.
From darkness to light.

How it was shot:

I set up a tripod in front of a table with a window of natural light.
Backlit a white cup on the edge of the table.
Backlit myself, sitting on the edge of the table.

Cut both out, stitch together, place onto NYC backdrop photo. And, obviously, add some clouds. Added a crane hook for good measure. Finishing touch was a gradient with the various blue hues.

WEEK TWENTY EIGHT.

project 52 / week 28 / dealer’s choice
photograph whatever you want

28/52 // “take a picture of the fire”

28/52 // “take a picture of a bubble”

28/52 // “take a picture of my marshmallow”

Project 52 is 20 times harder than 365. I have to do what the prompt is. I can’t do just what I see. And way back when I was just starting out I realized I really didn’t like compromising my creative vision for someone else’s in this industry…. So yesterday I convinced myself it was ok to quit. And it is. But I know I will be bummed out if I do. So I guess I won’t, but I’m running out of prompt ideas. So if you think of anything I should take a picture of…

WEEK TWENTY FOUR.

project 52 / week 24 / imagination

24/52 // is imagination the upside down of reality?

Imagination.
Or lack thereof.

Refers to the ability to form mental images or concepts of things not perceived through the senses. Aphantasia, the inability to visualize, is a specific example of a lack of visual imagination, but not necessarily a lack of imagination in other forms.

I definitely do not have aphantasia. I have “phantasia”. I live in a fantasy world, part dream, part delusion, and a small sliver of reality to hold it together.

In one of my favorite shows, Scrubs, a supporting character, Dr. Kelso asks the main character: “Are you an idiot?” JD, the main character, replies rather matter-of-factly: “No sir, I’m a dreamer.” And I felt seen. It’s still one of my favorite lines.

When I was very small, I couldn’t fall asleep because I had all these thoughts rolling around in my head (still do). So I’d stick my arm up into the air and write words in cursive with my index finger in the darkness. I did this for what felt like hours, but was probably only 30 minutes. While this went on, I’d work though whatever it was with the current fake scenarios. “If I say this, then they’ll say this.” And on and on. Eventually it wasn’t just words, I’d imagine the place, the weather, the setting, the people, etc. At some point, I’d fall asleep mid-scenario and then the dreams would begin. I am somewhat of a lucid dreamer and have subtle control. Not every time, but sometimes, my scenarios became the dream. Sometimes I hated it and wanted to wake up, sometimes I wished I could sleep forever.

When I was a pre-teen, I started writing down my thoughts to try to get them out. But it didn’t help the scenarios I would imagine before falling asleep. To this day, I still do this, but it’s not just before sleep, it’s in the car, on a plane, waiting in line, drawing, painting, photographing... As ljf would say, “your brain is the most powerful tool you have.” And mine, is very powerful.

So imagination. I wasn’t sure how this photograph was going to turn out but I knew I wanted to be in the clouds. I feel like clouds represent imagination. “Head in the clouds.” As the saying goes… I try really hard to keep my feet on the ground, but it’s just so much more fun to be a dreamer. Sometimes my imagination definitely runs amok and anxiety takes over but I still don’t think I’d want it to be another way. As much suffering as my own made up scenarios can cause, I don’t know any other way.

Recently I listened to a speech about how we’re not so afraid of failure, rather that we might succeed. That we might live up to our potential, that we might be brilliant and clever and all the things we wish to be. And that’s scarier in a way. To live up to the person you wish to be.

I have many versions I’d like to be. But perhaps the best one I am is the somewhat delusional dreamer, because every once and awhile I let her win and live up to the “imagination” she concocted.

How it was shot.
Backdrop: dark blue wall.
Light: continuous video light, 6 inches from the ground on a little tiny tripod as backlight.
Stool: in front light about 2 feet from ground.
Tripod/Camera: about 5 feet from set up. ISO 3400, 1/100th, f/4.

I had to light from behind because of the cloud images I wanted to use. In post, I cut myself out and then overlaid two of the same cloud pictures using “overlay” as a blend mode. This made it see-through but dark enough to get that perfect sea-foam green color. The background image is from a set of pink clouds with a helicopter flying above. I felt I needed my hand to almost be reaching for something like I use to when I would first imagine those scenarios as a little kid. I was tempted to fill the frame with clouds, cramming them all in as if my imagination was “stuffed”. But it just didn’t feel like the right fit. And upside because I love Alice in Wonderland and it felt like imagination might just be the upside down of reality.

WEEK TWENTY THREE.

project 52 / week 23 / a past life

23/52 // a past life, part 1

23/52 // a past life, part 2

23/52 // a past life, part 3

I think in a past life I was something quiet and dark.
I tried hard to think this one through but I could never settle on any one thing.
I suppose it doesn’t really matter in the end.
Here’s what I wrote for the larger narrative of these photographs.

Every couple days, weeks, months. [Insert an unknown amount of time here] it’s really hard to be alone with myself. And I don’t exactly like the person that I am in that moment. And I wish to be one of those other versions of myself.

  • the one who got it right

  • the one who said the thing

  • the one who made the point

  • and so on

In this moment, for any given length of time, I feel restless.

  • starting and stoping movies

  • picking up a book, reading a paragraph over and over and over

  • thoughts aimless

  • body exasperated

And I give up. I give up on all of it. I can usually drag myself outside and it’s here that I realize exactly where I am. Just before this part, it’s not clear, that the darkness is back. It’s like being in limbo, waiting for an answer that is going to alter your life. The moment the coin flips and what you wish for settles into your gut. But this is the life where you get the lemon and the coin lands on the choice you didn’t want.

So I go outside and breathe the air, put one foot in front of the other and walk.
And it’s here where I realize the darkness is there.
It’s back. And I am in it. Again.

It’s here where I realize I was a fool, to think it wouldn’t still remain, clinging to me. Carrying on with me, as I go, no matter how much light I try to cram into it. It just ricochets off and dissipates. It makes me feel inadequate because just a few hours ago, a day, a week ago, [insert an exact amount of time here], I was better. Maybe even good. Maybe even bright. My name means bright, perhaps this is where some sort of cosmic oxymoron took place.

Special thanks to the girl who grew from flowers handling lights for this shoot and being a little literal ball of light in my life. To get the shot, I set up a tripod, dressed in all black (duh), and set up the camera. ISO 100, f/4.5, 6s.

I counted out loud, One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Three Mississippi, RUN! And we ran out of the frame, hiding the light so it didn’t trail in the long exposure. I stood in front, GWGFF stood behind me, giggling and squealing about bugs, and held the light so I would be a silhouette. The light glowing around and behind me.

Leaving the frame halfway through the exposure, created a see-through effect (ghosting). Once the bugs descended in full force, we retreated back to the safety of the trailer. To get the effect right, I did some editing. In post, I selected myself, duplicated it, and added a Layer Style of Outer Glow, selecting the same orange color of the light. Then I deleted my selection (my figure), leaving only the glow and a “hole” in the image. Behind the “hole,” where I had been, I put an image of the background (lake) sans me, the light, and GWGFF. I added a few texture plates on top to give it a little older feel and done.

WEEK TWENTY TWO.

project 52 / week 22 / hologram

As this project started, I knew I would run out of ideas quickly because the goal is to get better at visual narratives and storytelling. So I called for outside input and asked family and friends to supply prompts. When I heard this suggestion, 22/52, I was very skeptical and a little unsure if I was capable.

Hologram.

It seemed like a very far stretch from my style and I’d need to fiddle around in photoshop to create a believable effect. Luckily, school is out for the summer so I had extra time. On a drive, an idea came to me. I’ve always been interested in timelines, multiple universes, alternate realities, etc. And it is summer… So we go back to August 6th, 2024 with 218/365 “the girl who grew from flowers”.

218/365 // the girl who grew from flowers

The idea for 218/365 was to have my niece be a water flower girl who wasn’t quite of this world, this timeline, this reality. I used double exposure techniques to infuse flowers in the foreground and upon her as if she leaves them wherever she goes. The persona of the girl who grew from flowers (and kind of Ellen too) is that she is pure, innocent. She’s tied to nature (flowers) and water. She grew from flowers and flowers sprout behind her as she moves through the world. She leaves things better than they were. She knows more than she lets on, but continually wanders the world looking for a place to fit. People try to get to her but she’s just out of reach, among the water and tangled in flowers.

So now you know the backstory of the girl who grew from flowers… I had so many images I loved from this little shoot with her. But I hadn’t really done anything with them yet. And I thought, what if I “hologram” into her world. This hologram girl grew from something less than flowers. She grew a little darker. I was a little unsure if the hologram girl is visiting, suddenly appearing, or getting pulled into the girl who grew from flowers’ world.

Is it an older version of her coming back in time?
Is it an alternate version of her?
Is it another reality and the stitching has come undone? Allowing small fragments to wilt so that the two worlds or realities are fading and blurring, spilling into each other.
Either way, both girls exist, and they exist in the company of water. And now, perhaps each other.

For many reasons, this was a very vulnerable shoot for me and the friend who gave me the prompt was enlisted to help me photograph the vision. So I’m not sure I can really take full credit. I know I can’t. But alas, the vision has come to life. Perhaps in 20 or so years, the girl who grew from flowers will get another visit.

22/52 // the water remembers before she was me

THE AIR HURTS MY THROAT

Canada is on fire and the air hurts my throat.
A little bird flew away, and looked back as she went.
My heart surged and lurched, daring to pull her back.
Yet, she flew. As she should, as she was always meant to.

Maybe too soon. But not unready.
Maybe scared, just not too scared.
Fear won’t ground a bird as fierce,
The sky is waiting, it’s burning red, beckoning.

I kept the windows up this evenings drive
The sky is burning and the smoke hurts my lungs
I listened to a song about little habits
And thought about all the great migration patterns.


Whales, birds, the sun and moon, and everything in between
We part and return. We fly and we swim.
I know that pain is relative
But beauty lies in starting somethin’ new.

I’ll take care of me.
You take care of you.
We’ll let birds be birds and whales be whales
And we’ll be who we are on this ten-thousand-mile pilgrimage
And we’ll say hello on the other side and maybe somewhere in the middle

Here. Always.

WEEK TWENTY.

project 52 / week 20 / something from the archives
an idea you’ve had but haven’t done

that 2 a.m. feeling