Mixed Signals © Michael Maurer Smith 2009

Brian’s father collected antique automobiles, many of which he restored in the combined workshop and garage behind his home. In those years, from Eisenhower through Ford, the Mill’s home received the same meticulous and loving care that Mr. Mills lavished on his cars.

On a recent visit to Owosso, Michigan, my hometown, I took a walk through the neighborhood where I lived as a boy. This took me past the old Mill’s home. Over the years I have lost track of Brian and know nothing of his parents fate. It was shocking to find that their once beautiful home now stood empty and apparently abandoned—its paint peeling, its foundations cracked and the yard choked with weeds and trash—most of the upper story windows broken out.

As I stood there looking and remembering, I noticed the old TV antenna on the roof. Once it pulled from the sky the signals of Walt Disney Presents, I Love Lucy, Art Linkletter, Father Knows Best, Perry Mason and Tales of the Texas Rangers. Now it lay on its side unused and forgotten. I thought this was a subject worthy of a couple of shots—nostalgia for the files. I pulled my camera from its bag and began framing photographs through the viewfinder.

After taking three or four shots, I noticed the contrail of a jet entering my field of vision. Again I raised the camera and peered into the viewfinder. The straight line being drawn across the sky, just above and behind the antenna, offered a counterpoint to the bare branches of the tree reaching down to the dead metal arms of the antenna beneath. The angles and deep shadows formed by the walls and roofline of the house completed the composition.

Years of practice had prepared me to quickly assess the formal elements of a photograph—lines, shapes, shadows and space––and compose. I did and I got the shot. Immediately I sensed there was more in this composition, something I could not yet articulate—an essence—a subject I would have to define upon reflection.

Later, as I inspected the photo on my computer screen, I searched for that essential subject. It proved elusive. Why had I made this picture and what was it really about? The more I looked at it the more subjects I discovered—subjects, not objects.

Once more I was reminded of what I long have known, that the subject of any photograph is dependent upon who is looking at it—it resides in the photographer’s choices and the viewer’s interpretation and not in the object(s) pictured. 

This particular photograph may be interpreted as a formal composition or as a statement about the passage of time, change and renewal. Likewise, it can be seen as a commentary on the loss of the American Dream. Depending upon the viewer it is all of these, none, part of each, or something else.

It is instructive to trace the decision making process that resulted in this image.

1.     I went to Owosso intending to photograph places of meaning to me and to discover what was left of my old neighborhood after nearly 50 years.

2.     When I came to the old Mill’s house, I was surprised by its poor condition. When I saw the antenna on the roof I first thought of its potential as a file photo. Then I saw it in the context of a formal composition, as a shape, line, tone and form. I also wanted to make a picture that said something about the deterioration of the place.

3.     When I saw the jet’s contrail I realized I could incorporate it into the composition I had been making. So I waited until it moved into the frame. At this point I was thinking of the contrail’s quality as a line and not about its meanings.

4.     Later upon viewing the results I realized I had captured several suggestive elements in the final composition. The contrail emanating from the jet passing through the sky—this metal tube filled with living beings—going from one place to another in time, contrasts with the broken antenna, a relic of past times, values and technology. The living and budding branches of the tree suggest the cyclical nature of life, growing up from soil enriched by decay.

The subject of any photograph begins when the photographer decides where, when and at what to point the camera, however the photographer cannot read his or her own unconscious—cannot fully know what he or she has really seen and apprehended or why. Likewise, the viewer of the photograph will see it through their eye, intellect and unconscious mind. So one might liken the photograph to a child, that results from the choices and acts of its parents, but which goes on to build its own life and meaning—becoming the many subjects it can be.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009