Sunday, October 5, 2014

June 7, 2014: Alameda Sandcastle Contest

June 7, 2014: Alameda Sandcastle Contest

all images copyright Casondra Sobieralski


I started a four week photo class with Grant Rusk for which we had to choose a theme to focus on while developing personal style.   

I chose the theme of "Home".  What does it mean?  So many years in the Bay Area, and it has been so hard to get settled.  Just as I was starting to feel a sense of nestled, along came an updraft that took me to New Mexico for 10 months for a marvelous job opportunity to be a Visiting Professor.  I came home to the Bay Area in mid-May 2013, and after a year back, I still felt like I had not yet nestled back in.

I was feeling frustrated that week that no matter what I build here, it feels impermanent, like a sandcastle.  It gets washed away, and I have to start over.  Yet impermanence is seen as a very *natural* thing in California culture, with its large Asian population and Pacific Rim exchanges, because impermanence is a philosophical point of Buddhism.  My East Coast-reared self sometimes struggles with this, and when I get lost in the concept, the Sea is my teacher. 

So for my first week of exploring this theme, what is "Home" and what does that mean to me, I took photos of the Alameda Sandcastle Contest.  Alameda is where I landed when I got back from New Mexico because I had friends renting a room.  But I knew it was just a temporary space to help them save some money, and until I found a job that I would move closer to.





This photo was my classmates' favorite.  They very accurately supposed a story through this image. 









































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