Silicon Valley can be a brutal place. One day you're part of a corporate community. You have friends you see every day, the management talks about teamwork and pulling together. There's a shared sense of fear and optimism. It all seems so human, like a family.
Then, perhaps one day, you're fired and you don't belong anymore. A man in a blue polyester suit with brass highlights walks you to the door, you holding a box with your belongings, he looking like he's doing his job. Never happened to me, but you never know.
The most extreme form of not belonging is when the entire company goes belly-up. Maybe the investors stop dumping cash, maybe your company just can't make payroll. Either way, the whole kit-and-kaboodle is gone.
Humans are resilient. They move on, but steel and stuck don't.
They wait.
Village flowers are one of the pleasures of living in San Francisco. A nightbor used to plant flowers on the sidewalk in big planters. They were exuberant. They were glorious.
One day our neighborr removed the pots and all the flowers. I'm not sure why, probably neighbor complaints. At least I have the photos.There are still lots of flowers to be found, but they're sublte. There's less drama in humble flowers.
No doubt about it, orchids are strange. Doesn't this plan look like an octopus mated with romaine lettuce?
Every year or two I head down near the water at Fort Mason and take photos of these strange animals at the Northern California Orchid Exhibition. I don't get it, but the sheer devotion of the growers is inspiring.
Half of the show is an exhibit of carefully arranged, grown, and adjudicated beasts. It's fascinating, and I love taking photgraphs of their work.
Like many enthusiast gatherings, the rest is a big swap meet and isn't very interesting.
The plants watch us. They watch us as we examine them, I'm sure of that. They have blood and veins, we just have to find them. But they have no eyes, ears, tongues, or noses. They just sense by touch.
Don't touch.
My partner endeared me to him for life when he told me he thought things were brought to life through use and abuse. That makes sense to me. He loves things clean and unmolested, so to have him tell me I had free reign to enjoy the damage life inflicts was a revelation.
I decided to caputre little stuffed critters that showed not obvious signs of love, but were clearly used.
Lost or discarded? You decide.
This is an ongoing project I'll work on for the rest of my life, throughout the world.
This particular critter was photographed at a construction site in Amsterdam. Click through for more memories.