Photographic Essay: On the Street Where I Live

My first substantial photographic essay.

(And the story behind my first substantial photographic essay.)

On The Street Where I Live - March 2017

Full circle.

That is how I describe my life at the moment.

After several decades of living away from the place of my beginnings, I have moved back to the same city where I grew up, back to the same part of town where I spent most of my childhood, and back to the very same street that was such a large and important part of my life then – and now.

Oklahoma City’s NW 23rd Street is the boundary street of the neighborhood where I currently live. In many ways it has changed over the past 50 years, and in some ways it has not changed at all.

These photos were all taken at our recent “Spring Open Streets” on NW 23rd Street…something that was never a part of my life on the same street so many years ago.

NW 23rd Street is where I got my first traffic ticket. It is where my friends and I spent countless hours at the Dairy Queen playing Asteroids.

It is where I went to church, where my friends lived and gathered, where I learned about poverty and wealth, “bad” neighborhoods and “good” neighborhoods, friendship and faith, where I learned about community and the fact that family goes far beyond blood relations.

It is where I grew from a child into a young adult.

It was from here that I launched out into the wide world.

The expression “you can never go home again” is only partly true.

Going home to the street where I live –

and lived –

is like climbing a spiral staircase

while looking at an amazing landscape view.

Every time I make a full revolution

and look out at the same landscape,

the view is a little different

because my perspective

is a little higher.

I am home,

but it’s a different place in ways

that are so familiar…

and better…

in some ways.

Full circle.

---

That's the end of the official photographic essay called "On the Street Where I Live."

I say "official" because I've entered those 10 photos and that descriptive essay into a contest (won't find out til later in the year how I did).

While it might be the end of the essay, it's only the beginning of the story (and more photos).

I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm a member of a women's hobby photo club in Oklahoma City called Digital Dolls. Recently the Digital Dolls had a photography outing to the annual OKC Spring Open Streets, a day every year when busy NW 23rd Street in Uptown OKC (just north of Midtown, which is just north of Downtown) closes to traffic and opens to pedestrians, food trucks, local non-profits and organizations, and lots of games and fun. It has become quite popular with the locals (and the not-so-locals) and is usually very well-attended.

So the Digital Dolls planned an outing to hang out on 23rd Street and enjoy the fun while also practicing our photographic techniques.

I signed up to go and hoped to walk around and find myself drawn to a certain topic for a fun photographic essay...something I've been wanting to practice and develop for some time now. And then the rain came.

Those who were going were just going to show up and hope to run into the others. I decided, since it was so close to home, and since the rain was really just a mist and a sprinkle, that I would at least walk around for a short time and see what I could see.

It turned out that I did not see any other Digital Dolls, but I did see my cousin's son and his new wife. I also saw heaps of people walking in the rain/mist/sprinkles enjoying the cool day and the food and fun.

And I saw dogs and children. Lots of dogs dragging their owners... lots of children dragging their parents. I had found two topics I was drawn to and noticed my lens was focusing in on the dogs and the children more and more.

Dogs dressed up in fun costumes.

Tough dogs.

Small dogs, and

large dogs.

Friendly dogs, and

shy dogs.

All kinds of dogs with all kinds of owners.

Even dogs making friends with children.

Did I mention the children?

There were children of all ages...

from babies being snuggled in their daddy's arms

to toddlers painting on the street

to girls with balloon swords chasing imaginary dragons.

There were kids climbing rock walls

and kids bowling

and kids playing bongos while wearing hip and cool pink glasses.

By the time I had walked the full circuit and thoroughly enjoyed myself watching the dogs and children, I realized I had been there more than two hours.

It was still drizzling, so I decided to go home, upload my photos to my computer, and see what I had.

So the story really took a twist when I started looking at the photos I had taken during those two hours walking around 23rd Street with so many other people... all enjoying the day and each other.

I realized that I had much more than the two simple topics of dogs and children.

I had the more meaningful and broader topic of community.

That is what jumped out at me when I was looking through my photos from the day.

I saw the guitar player taking refuge under the awning of a local taco shop. I saw the group of people walking and laughing together - with a dog on a leash leading the way (the dog was the reason I took the photo and did not even see the laughing group until later).

I saw the cool dude riding his cool extended bicycle.

I saw the teenager cruising on his skateboard while checking his phone.

I saw the young woman sitting on a damp chair sipping a coke outside a cafe.

And then it hit me why I had taken these particular photos.

It was more than just the topic of community. For me, it went deeper than that. It was MY community - from the earliest days of my childhood, interrupted by a 20-year gap, and now again... this is where I live.

I have come back to a place that has been meaningful to me, and it is a comforting and exciting mix of old memories and new changes. I have come full circle to the street where I live - at least for now.