Documenting a place and time – rows versus columns

At the moment in 2020 would-be visual documentarians are spoiled for choice when it comes to audio and visual gear and the infrastructure for online telecommunication, distribution, and publishing to the world.

One way to read the grid is column by column (like silos). Another way is laterally, across a row.

Making a checklist is a good way to start organizing a list of shots (still and/or moving pictures). So this illustration points to that tool. But it can also serve as an illustration metaphorically of the way to conceptualize the project of capturing the key elements and processes of a place and time, not as a frozen moment, but as a complicated organism of many sides in dynamic equilibrium at the scale of individual lives, organizational activity, and annual cycles that give shape to the experience of being there.

In particular, some documentaries define their subject like the row(s) of this grid, dwelling on a protagonist or two to produce portraits of “whole” persons in the round, seen from many sides and in different contexts of their cultural landscape and social arenas. By contrast, with over 50 documentaries, the long list of projects by Fredrick Wiseman takes the lateral point of view. His work looks at the subjects sideways, filming across the columns to show many different points of the larger place, rather than dwelling extensively on individual parts of the whole. For instance his 2018 look at the small Indiana town of Monrovia, famous for its state champion basketball high school team and coaches, among other things, includes segments gazing at cars driving along city streets, wind blowing among the corn stalks, lines of houses and the exteriors of many businesses.

Photo gallery for Monrovia, Indiana (2018) at www.imdb.com/title/tt8749146

The interior scenes have many “fly on the wall” recordings of conversations in shops, civic clubs, along with routines like medical care, hair cutting, grocery shopping, music class in high school, and so on. There is no omniscient narrator to give the final word about significance or historical processes, although some commentary (soliloquies?) by individuals alone to the camera or in conversation to another person, do refer to earlier times and to future plans.

Each approach has strengths and weaknesses. The silo approach (confined to one or two columns of the grid, above), emphasizing a person or organization as the main character to chronicle with lesser attention to the wider context and to the parallel or intersecting persons and organizations. This approach gives a lot of detail, allowing viewers to feel as though they know the person or the organization in some ways. But the narrow approach means that other persons and groups are not given as much attention and so those remain flat, featureless, and unknown by comparison. And the interaction, structures and process that create a kind of chemistry between all the moving parts in the society or event receive relatively little illumination.

On the other hand, the lateral approach (capturing a little of the subjects from each column, going laterally along one or two rows, above) offers a wide-angle or composite, quilted picture of a place and time. What it lacks in depth it makes up for by recording multiple perspectives and circumstances to form a much bigger picture for the viewer. In Wiseman’s Monrovia, for instance, many residents who watch the movie are likely to learn a lot about their own town and the people in it, since the person’s own habits and daily life is likely never so wide-ranging and comprehensive as Wiseman’s own shot list and his final editing for theatrical release. And if residents themselves see more than ever they knew of their own environment, then distant viewers also will gain a wider glimpse of the small town society than would be possible as a tourist just passing through.

Movie poster symbolizes Wiseman’s approach: a mix of colorful detail and facets that form an outline of the larger subject.

Perhaps there is a happy medium between the silo approach and the lateral approach. But what would that shot list look like; and what would be the effect once edited for wide audiences, not just insiders and locals, and not just social science experts. Operationally and practically speaking, the project would have to take both approaches in parallel, collecting human interest, biographical depth at the same time as gathering at wide set of contexts and conversations among the many demographic segments comprising the place. Once the editor had both depth and breadth of clips to work with, then comes the time for hard decisions to balance the multiple voices and perspectives on a subject with the life-story of a few people there. Judicious editing to produce a steady drumbeat of rhythm need not be longer than either the silo approach or the lateral approach all alone. Less experienced editing would just go on adding more and more until the final result is too long for viewers to sit still without interruption. But organizing “the” story of a place (acknowledging to viewers that this is but one version of events and elements found there) masterfully, by time order or by theme and settings, should be able to move the story forward by letting some of the clips do double-duty, adding detail for one of the main characters while also giving a piece of the larger (lateral set of sites) puzzle being put together.

In the end, what could the viewer experience be after watching a documentary for an hour or two of a place and time (White Plains, NY in 1971 or Durango, CO in 2002 or Moscow, ID in 2037)? Residing there for a week or two as a visitor might produce vivid memories of the signature smell, look, and sound of a place and time. And some diligent searching in the local library for old photos and histories could populate the cultural landscape that the visitor explores. But these things take some planning and expense; nothing like simply sitting down to watch a skilled documentary maker present her or his work on a screen.

The viewer experience of the silo approach gives rare sights and conversations or interviews, but the larger picture is left out of the frame mostly. And the viewer experience of the lateral approach gives an overview, built from numerous small segments, producing something like a God’s eye point of view; access to what seems like all moments and locations, both public and private –but not to a deep extent. But combining these two approaches, the experience of a person who views this way of documenting a place and time will have both a few moments of depth and clarity as well as a few moments of overall wide view. The projects broadcast from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick mix these personal moments and larger historical currents and imagery, although their scale tends to be national and international, rather than the contexts closer to the local level that directly surround those featured characters.

Why does the approach (silo, lateral, hybrid) matter to viewers and the larger pool of documentary tradition? People who capture their own ethnographic places and times are critical consumers of non-fiction portraits of lives well or poorly lived. So they care about reducing weak methods and strengthening well focused ways of communicating to audiences now and for viewers in the future. But less specialized viewers also benefit from improved, representative, insight-filled mirrors of themselves being held up for close consideration by fellow inhabits of a time and place (and for the benefit of future generations curious about this moment and its people). The benefit of documentaries that give depth, but also give the many experiences and perspectives of people there comes from enlarging one’s own awareness, curiosity, and knowledge of things unfamiliar before having seen the movie. As a result of the documentary their own humanity is enriched and their ability to appreciate the lives of those on-screen whose life experience is unlike their own, also, grows larger and deeper. Therefore seeing is believing; watching is understanding; and to understand is to resonate with, at least in small degrees.

Living in a world without cameras long ago?

Visual expression long before the Camera Obscura or glass plates or film or digital sensors [Creative Commons]

Knowing how much one’s daily experience is mediated by the low cost and high quality ability to snap a (digital) photo for work or for play, suppose instead living at a point in time when there were no cameras; or if cameras were newly emerging, then at least they were cumbersome and not a practical part of most people’s waking hours and the thoughts that preoccupy them. This is a vast subject that touches on the many influences of our taken-for-granted visual recording media. There is the habit of thinking about what is recognizable as a “photo opportunity” or an occasion worthy of pausing to document a place, a moment, and an assembly of faces to be included (or excluded) from the frame. And there is the growing awareness of light and shadow, texture and line, color, and depth of field from foreground the background. The more one takes pictures or at least mentally composes them, the more one’s view of the world is affected by this heightened sense of form, light, mass, and so on. Extending this line of thinking to look at the influence of frequent camera use and expectations stemming from familiar presence of a lens (and channels for sharing semi or fully publicly), there are the many purposes that pictures (not to mention video clips, as well) can be used for: aide-de-memoir and for future reference, documentary evidence or claim to be filed, souvenir of places traveled or task undertaken, group photos to mark an event, surveillance (motion-activated sensors), artistic expression (learning process or finished work), social analysis (e.g. non-verbal communication), archiving of process or skill, portfolio of one’s years of career accomplishments, criminal abuses, commercial advertising as well as Public Service campaigns, ephemeral outburst (e.g. private message to others or public Twitter reporting of one’s moment to moment passage through the day), and the many other purposes that have continued since the first consumer-adopted cameras and grow more varied as resourceful users experiment with ways to harness visual communication on portable and powerful cameras.

After an image is created then there is the life of the image that may continue for many lifetimes, far from its original purpose, owners, and visibility by others, public or private, copyrighted or public domain. And when society changes, the original context for a photo may fade away and the new cultural standards may add new meaning to the old picture. The catalog of social gaffes in Richard Chalfen’s book (2012), Photo Gaffes – Family snapshots and social dilemmas, (Dog Ear Publishing) along with his 1987 study of family albums and their meanings, creation, and uses (Snapshot Versions of Life) go a long way to map out the ways that photographs occupy important parts of individual and group lives; both the making of pictures and the display or other social uses of those images.

Returning to the opening question about how different modern life would be with no cameras to record and then communicate beauty or cataclysm, it is truly hard to imagine, so pervasive has image making become. The answer to this question surely has many dimensions, though. In no particular order, and touching both the seeing & making of pictures, as well as their uses thereafter, here is a listing that points to the many effects of having cameras and pictures more or less ubiquitous across one’s life span. Awareness of time is shaped by photography because the viewer can travel back in time to younger years and locations, and even to distant shores and eras far outside of one’s own (visual) experience to the very beginnings of lens-assisted drawings (the camera obscura) and early photo reproduction on copper plate, paper or glass plates. Knowledge and awareness of self by routinely using both the back-facing (outward) camera and the front-facing (photographer’s face) has altered these days. Masses of visual detail and other information frozen in time can be studied to distill meanings, adjudicate the finish line of a race or determine legal responsibility, for example. Memory can be jogged or ideas can be prompted from recorded images, either alone or in photo sets that give multiple perspectives on a matter. Knowledge of the physical world can be extended by macro, micro, or high-shutter speed (and flash) photography to show things ordinarily not discernible to the naked eye. The burden of visual riches, such as annotating, organizing (indexing?), storing, displaying, protecting from fire or sun-exposure, caring for negatives or electronic memory media is seldom acknowledged but does cumulatively consume otherwise productive lives. An entire essay could be written about economic aspects of making, marketing, distributing, repairing cameras; not to mention the many professional services for making and developing film and photo prints and later digital imagery. The market for new and improved devices thrills potential buyers and enthusiasts of technology, functionality, and cleverly designed and crafted cameras. But having to research which camera suits one’s needs at present or one’s ambitions for future prowess is another burden of modern consumers. Once purchased, the property requires mastery of the manual, care and maintenance, among other things. Although pocket-sized cameras in the form of cellphones means that most news events and personal experiences can be captured, still there is a small corner of one’s mind that must remember to take the photo, or indeed to remember to take along the device with a view to recording a subject. By contrast, the days of no camera were free of this need to remember the camera, and to remember to take the photo (possibly to share with others).

In conclusion, to consider the many effects of cameras and the images they produce is to delve into so many different facets of lived experience, from time-consciousness and sense of momentousness (photo worthy; photo humorous; photo documenting) to consumer preoccupations and personal archiving. A book length investigation might do the subject justice, but so pervasive is visual communication by lens capture that this brief blog article can only touch the surface. Perhaps the question of “how life would differ if no written form of language existed” would be similarly multi-faceted. An even more extreme reach back into prehistory would be to wonder in a primate sort of way “how life would differ if no spoken form of language existed.” But for now, it is enough to play with the idea that there are many consequences and then further implications that come from carrying and using cameras everyday for self, for recreation, or for work and public discourse.

The experience of living in a society bereft of cameras and mass produced and distributed visual media surely is different to what is normal, taken for granted, and is expected. In place of engaging with a place or moment with a lens, it would be other visual media or, more frequently, verbal forms of recording and sharing, reflecting or responding that people would resort to. All of the time, expense, energy, aspiration and imagination currently used for picture taking would be free for other cares and concerns. Awareness of self-image (social status or reputation yes, but visual likeness less so) would be less prominent than today. And visual literacy (knowing how to make pictures and use them, judging quality of one image over another) would be less well developed than among people living now, too. All in all the world without cameras would both be richer and poorer; richer for the importance of verbal arts, but poorer for the absence of vast visual detail. Perhaps this contrast in society with versus without cameras is something like a story told in print versus told on the silver screen.

Hungry to see through… how much to satisfy the appetite?

House demolished, south of central Echizen-city, Japan – memories lost

Early to bed, early to rise makes it easy to go for a morning walk when things are quiet and the light grows strong enough to perceive colors. Generally, two sorts of scenes can catch my eye and call out for a panorama, a photo, or a video snapshot (holding the composed scene still with usually few moving subjects or sound). Certain qualities of light (mild or strong, clear or suffused by dust or mist or haze) and the shadow that is half-filled by light from indirect reflection of sky or nearby structure is one kind of scene that attracts my attention. The other kind seems to be about things that demonstrate something about the social life here in rural Japan, or changes to past ways of living and making livelihoods – abandoned worksites, dwellings, public spaces in disrepair when certain recreational pursuits go out of practice or fashion (jogging and gateball grounds seem to be going away but ‘woh-kingu’ [walking] in the fitness sense is gaining ground, at least among those age 50 and above who have the time, or else who make the time to do so).

A detective, an archaeologist, and a forensic specialist all can read the scene while most others are functionally illiterate to clues in plain sight. They can view a situation and interpolate, extrapolate, and extend the time frame of clues to come up with a picture or movie that most untrained eyes miss. The same is true of a farmer’s eyes when reading a field, an architect when reading a ruin or a blue print, a pianist when looking at written music or hearing it performed. For the person with a camera though, the subjects of light and subject matter itself are what speak with the loudest voice. Light is a subject of universal interest and a source of beauty, but social observations are specific to a place and time. A trained social observer can see through the surfaces and read a more complete story in the scene. Extrapolating to a few more weeks or even decades of morning walks with camera in hand, the question arises, “how much (seeing) is enough”? Or “when will you have captured all there is to say on the matter”?

It is true that walking around with a lens in one’s hand or camera-phone in one’s pocket can lead to a preoccupation with composition, patterns and textures, visual rhythms and quality of light that shifts with the sun’s progress across the sky and then the motion of moon or artificial source(s) of light at other times. But the ability to point and shoot social observations, too, as an aide-de-memoire or writing prompt is a great tool for opening up subjects that otherwise might pass unnoticed and without remark. But after a dozen or a hundred of these visual records, (1) what is the result? (2) What do we see or know different to before? (3) What of significance comes from it? (4) And how much picture taking is enough to accomplish the goal of figuring out what it is that the eye encounters (when enough dots are in place, the overall shape can be seen without the need to complete the picture with all data points in place).

1) Result of accumulated social observations (visual or written notes).
Many things happen after capturing, annotating and sharing sets of visual observations. For the person making the pictures there is a learning curve whereby observations are sharpened, a taste for such matters grows, interest in other’s similar work gets stronger, and the ability develops to verbally express what the image points to. In other words, for the person with the eye and the lens, thinking is enriched and vision begins to reach beyond the surface (or maybe this urge to see and know is a function of middle-age, a point on the life course that is equally distant from one’s birth and one’s death). As a result, whether imagined or real, there is an increasing awareness and sensitivity to what one witnesses in the many social contexts public, commercial, or private, such that some of the underlying intentions, ideals, and tensions are perceptible; that is, what was invisible before can now be perceived in one’s glimpse of a place or person, taking into account the moment, but also being attuned to what came before and what likely will come after the frozen moment – one’s angle of view (to use a lens analogy) is both wider and longer to see not just the minute or the calendar day, but also the generational changes and continuities. Even the lives of the plants and animals enter into the frame of view when gazing at a social setting.

So the eye (sensitivity to light and meaning), the hand (lens work), and the heart (aware of lives outside one’s own; even outside of one’s own species and one’s own culture/language) all amplify their earlier range of powers as a result of feasting on social observations and capturing them with camera. To a lesser degree these same results echo in people who view, read, watch the body of visual materials coming from the person who is making these pictures.

2) What we can see different to before amassing those images.

Before undertaking sustained effort at recording those places and moments that speak loud enough to attract one’s lens, the landscape of meanings and materials is mute, or they mean something just instrumentally. The subject matter is only important to those who work there daily, or live nearby or who built and maintain an organization or structure. To all others who are passing by, the location or activity is no more than background to their own purposeful patterns of life course, life stages, and arc of life story with self as the main character. But by framing the picture and then commenting on it, the subject gains definition, presence, and meaning for people other than those directly (instrumentally, functionally) concerned. In other words, the act of describing and engaging others who normally have no interaction builds a bridge to introduce the subject into their own worlds of meaning. And even among those who daily interact with the subject, the location, and the structures, there comes a certain routinization that leads to blindness or taken-for-granted feeling for the thing. But now by re-seeing (literal roots of the word ‘respect’ is re+spectating; or seeing with new eyes, seeing for a 2nd time) the familiar subject from an outsider’s point of view, the thing is put into a new frame or a new light. In conclusion, what is revealed was always there, hiding in plain sight. But by going through the exercise of the visual project, now the outlines of meaning are traced in bold line and stand out to reveal: (a) the passage of time so that the present closely ties to what came before and what will follow, and (b) those connections between the people directly engaged and knowledgeable of the place or subject and the people who have regarded the thing as mere background and cut off from their own concerns.

3) What of significance comes from the project.

For the picture maker and for those who appreciate the results, the surrounding settings and moment in time becomes richer, more resonant with meaning, and more relevant to one’s own place in the passing seasons and lives. And in the event that one of these viewers or picture makers occupies a position of decision making (public arena for discussion, or seat of authority), then perhaps this wider angle of view on the world will lead to actions, budgets, enforcement, and public campaigns that will encourage others to take the wide view; something like the “7 generations” philosophy among some Native American peoples: in addition to the concerns of those living at present, taking into account the wishes and accumulated wisdom of one’s parents, grandparents, the generation before them; but also into the future, taking into account the impact on one’s children, grandchildren, and the next generation that follows them. A person’s life experience and scope of direct memory can only apprehend that window of 150-200 years, but that is sufficient to spread the weight of a decision beyond one’s own immediate lifetime. By gathering and verbalizing scores of social observations sparked by visual observations, then perhaps something of this wider experience of one’s cultural landscape and social geography will gain prominence as part of one’s everyday appreciation of one’s place in the scheme of things during their individual “3 score and 10 years” of lifetime.

4) How much is enough to outline the project’s subject of Social Observation.
The appetite for reacting to scenes that speak to one’s sense of social significance varies according to the person holding the lens. One person may just make a handful of social observations, while another may go on for years, taking the same picture to express sentiments again and again that first appeared in their earlier work. And for the viewer, too, some will grasp the meaning after seeing a few pictures that intersect their own place or time. But others will never tire of seeing familiar things framed in an unfamiliar way; or to see things altogether novel and unfamiliar for the first time. Perhaps the point of saturation or satisfying that appetite and responding to that hunger comes when the general trajectory of the project emerges; when one can see where the effort is leading and can articulate that sentiment. After that point, not every potential picture needs to be actually captured. Instead, it is enough to compose the image in one’s mind’s eye, then to give a nod or a wink as the moment passes, and to feel satisfied with the idea of capturing that observation, without actually going through the motions. Of course, when there is no longer any physical trace of the a-ha moment, then the possibility of communicating the insight to others is lost. So maybe the most productive and valuable circumstance comes after one’s eye has begun to respond, one’s lens is well practiced and one’s heart is interested. That middle ground –no longer naive or unresponsive, but not yet fully understanding where the exercise will develop into– is maybe when most of the pictures and commentary are made. But while the light and the social settings of built-landscape or seasonal events speak to one’s eye, then let the picture making continue!

Looking beyond the crop lines

much of value and meaning lies outside the crop lines

The wonder of on-screen editing of digital images is the ease of trial and error. Instead of darkrooms, trays of chemicals, drying times and for color work, even more complexity of temperature and chemical selection. Now a person can start with the captured composition and go hog-wild with filters, effects, multiple crop renditions, and various other post-processing expressions. Ansel Adams, trained originally as classical pianist, spoke of the captured image on negatives as a musical score containing all the information a person would need to carry out various interpretations in the live performance. In other words, while the skills of vision and composition and capture were essential, what mattered as much or more was the next part, producing a final print for others to see.

Taken to the extreme, one might wish all locations, subjects or events to be portrayed in 360-degree spherical capture, thereby producing an all-inclusive moment. The difficulty is not so much technical as human: too much information (all-inclusive context) can be as unfriendly as too little information (out of context). Possibly a middle ground is the panorama, not 360 spherical degrees, but 145-180 degrees to simulate the human eyes’ field of view; produced not by peculiar optical formula, but instead by software stitching multiple frames into a single fabric, based on the proportions captured with a ‘normal’ focal length (35-65mm, expressed in terms of a 35mm film camera).

As a photographer or an audience member develops an eye for light, line, composition and significance of social observations, the ability to identify a picture in its surrounding context grows stronger. That is to say, a beginner may require a tightly cropped presentation to see a subject in its glory. But an intermediate, serious enthusiast, or full-time amateur (leaving aside the constraints on professionals) may instead be able to see a subject in its splendor and wonder without that tight frame. This kind of well-developed vision allows a person to see the subject together in its context and then convey this wider field of view while still centering on the subject itself. In other words, the crop lines can grow ever wider as experience or expertise expands. In the picture above, the suggested crop lines make a simple statement: children view a sunny harbor. But the original image, outside these crop lines, in fact is Whitby harbor on the North Sea coast of England in middle February, mid-week during the half-term school holidays. On the horizon is St. Mary’s on the left and the ruins of Whitby Abbey on the right. Surely this wider context adds much meaning to the image. To give the verbal context with the narrowly cropped picture does restore some of the meaning excluded in the suggested crop lines, but this central subject of the cropped lines can still be observed in the original, wider frame of the image. However, depending on the sensitivity of the viewer’s visual faculties, little of note may stand out without the aid of the crop lines.

In summary, in photographic vision as in living, daily perception, experience in reading a scene has its rewards. No two people will see things the same way, of course, since they bring their store of words and images to their reading (of a book, scripture, film, social engagement, problem-solving deadlines, etc). But to this difference in standpoint we can also add a difference in depth of experience. The tighter the crop lines and more simply centered the subject, the easier it is for a person to perceive the significance. The simplest of all is a subject isolated from background. This corresponds to the syllable or word or phrase level of expression: worn out tennis ball on pavement, for example. The opposite extreme is a composition that seems to invite an entire episode or series of events within its frame as the eye travels along the several compositional lines from near ground to background, and from corner to center and side to side, passing between image and one’s own internal landscape of memories, associations and imagination. A private version of just such a vision is a “memory place” (Pierre Nora c.1993 wrote of “les lieux de memoire”), but a shared or public version is a composition that invites a viewer to explore its detail again and again. In between the “word level” and the “story level” are most photographers’ work – sometimes expressing a single subject, other times giving a measured but small context, too. By adding narration (audio) or caption, the verbal layer can weave threads of meaning to the form a bigger context.

Therefore, when admiring a picture, consider also what lies outside the crop lines – not just distraction or competing elements to the main subject, but a native setting in which the jewel that first caught the photographer’s eye can be found. The more that one can appreciate the gem in its natural setting (not just set into a platinum band, polished and displayed in a velvet box with track lighting spotlights), the more likely one will be able to spot other treasures in their own daily life, too.

Food and music – simple fun or complicated conjunction?

Annual ticketed event for live music, local wine and brew, hot food – or is there more to it?

At first glance there is nothing notable: people in nice cars come from near and far to the afternoon of live music, tasty food and drink. They buy an entry ticket for the day and take in the sights, sounds, smells and flavors responsibly, being isolated consumers in an aggregate defined by the orange fencing all around the harbor parking lot with the sheriff’s deputies at the edge. But on wider reflection this way of spending time, money and fuel to get there could be regarded as strange. For the musicians, the event organizers and those setting up, controlling gate and monitoring communications, as well as cleaning up, not to mention food and drink vendors, all of this effort is the pinnacle of the service economy: rather than to present a tangible product, an experience is being shaped for those who pay to play in the space of this event.

For the ticket buyers the logic of attending is seemingly straight-forward, too: it is to spend the time engaging is pleasurable activity, or for more goal-oriented attendees it is a chance to discover new foods and drink and music – a sort of life-long education outing; or possibly a search for a special flavor, dish or method of presentation. And if there is some social connection or family relationship to one of the performers or vendors or organizers, then the rationale may include this social layer, too. A few may feel their participation slightly supports local arts and culture, even if the offerings are not specially to the attendee’s taste. Still others may have worked very hard for their position of leisured time and money; and not knowing exactly their own mind when it comes to life other than gainful employment, they may look around for clues and arrive at the idea that attending such events of food and music is what a leisured person *is supposed to do*, or one imagines this is what the life of ease and pleasure looks like- to motor to a place with the expectation of tickling the palette and pleasing the ears, together with other beautiful people who have achieved something of a charmed life.

By contrast, someone with little free money or time could see the intersection of tasty treats and delightful rhythms and dismiss the significance of it, baffled why a person would spend the transportation time and cost, as well as the price of admission when the time and money could or must go elsewhere by the standard of a laborer’s wages. Stranger still, when using the lens of a religiously streamlined person of little earthly means but whose interior life is deep and strong, all the hubbub must look to be dissipation of effort, energy, precious hours in one’s life, not to mention the opportunity cost of putting money here, when instead it could do good for others in different ways than this.

By placing the photo in a wider frame of discussion than the initial recognition and regard of what is represented, then it becomes possible to take something familiar and make it seem foreign or unfamiliar. In fact, “de-familiarizing” the everyday parts of one’s world is one half of the process for getting to know people and places very different to one’s own times. The other half of the exercise is to “de-exoticize” others’ ways of living; taking something that first seems outlandish or improbable and learning enough of the meaning and intention so as to make sense of it; a cultural logic that recharacterizes the actions and makes the exotic seem normal and even expected and desired.

Thus equipped with the power to de-familiarize something ordinary and the power to de-exoticize something that seems weird or even repulsive, one can then look at the annual Wine and Food day at the harbor ground close to Lake Michigan and find a razor-sharp view of the proceedings – seeing it as normal and natural on the one hand, but at the same time a little odd, too.