J. Jason Lazarus Blog

I am now officially a student again.

I got the good news last Monday that I had been accepted to the Academy of Arts in San Francisco.  I’m enrolled into their completely online MFA in Photography; seeing that my roots are firmly placed in Alaska, it’s a good thing that I found a program that’ll award me with the degree I want without forcing me to go anywhere.

I visited the school in January of 2009 while attending Macworld and was instantly impressed at how vast their program was - and, admittely, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit envious of their amazing darkroom setups.

Either way, I’m enrolled for this fall (classes start in less than 3 weeks!) and I’ll be on my way toward an MFA in Photography!

This last weekend I was able to get away from the daily grind that this summer has managed to become to take some photos with my photo buddy, Kriss.  Since my first trip to this mine in 2006, I’ve been wanting to go back to it - it’s a great example of a fairly-well preserved Stamp Mill and support buildings.  Some of the photos from ‘06 have found their way into my first series that I showed in my first two shows in 2007 and now I think some of the stronger images from this quick trip into the hills may make it into some new work I’ll be showcasing at two shows I’ve got going on this fall.

GALLERY LINK: Mine Trip July 2010

Yes, ‘lo and behold, I finally got off my ass and started shopping my work around downtown Fairbanks.  I’ll be having a solo show at River City Cafe downtown on 2nd Ave. this September for First Friday as well as a group exhibition at Chartreuse on 1st Ave. this November.  I’ve got a few long weekends laying in front of me in the darkroom and stuck in front of a computer editing, printing and mat board cutting - but it’s all for the better.

Why am I doing this now?  Because I’ve decided to reprioritize a few of my interests and hobbies - leaving a few behind in the process.  That, and, I’ve decided to apply to another school for my MFA - and if I’m displaying my work, I’m forced to shoot more and produce more.  After an unsuccessful application to UAF last fall into their own MFA in Photography, I’ve decided to try the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco.  They’ve got a completely online MFA program that’ll work around my current life in Alaska without disturbing it a bit.  Keep your fingers crossed - I might know by next week.  Again, follow me on Twitter to get more constant updates on how I’m doing.

Either way - I digress.

Our trip out to the mine was fairly uneventful but once we decided to start leaving, it got a bit more interesting.  Kriss swore that, while looking outside one of the buildings, that she saw a large hulking mass moving up the hill.  I didn’t think much of it given the fact that I didn’t see anything and knew that we were relatively safe with the 45 strapped to my waist.  While in the next building we planned to take pictures in, I decided to try to get across some wickedly buckled flooring from years of abuse from permafrost.  Planning on placing most of my weight on the connected wall, I started placing my feet and hands.  As soon as my hand planted itself on the wall, it slapped against the wall beams behind it (it had been slightly pulled away) and… BZZZZZZZZZzzzzz!

Bees start swarming all over the edge of the wall four feet away from me.  All I know is that I’m allergic to bees and I just pissed them the hell off - an entire hive of them.  Although I’m completely rational when its two or three bees even swarming right around my head, in this situation I BOLT.

Feeling like a drill sergeant yelling at their latest recruit I shout, “Kriss - UP UP UP OUT OUT OUT BEES!” while calmly doing a quick dash straight to the door.  I knew I had an Epipen (in fact, two & benadryl on top of that) but I wasn’t taking chances.  In the end, nothing happened and I remained assertively calm.  This was our cue to leave.

As we headed back on the path we took to get to the mine, we smelled the carrion that we caught on the wind on the way in near a muddy area in the trail.  My internal alarms had yet gone off - animals die in the woods all the time and hunters, as well as predators, do indeed, kill them and leave their carcasses for scavengers.  Then I looked at the tracks in the mud.

Two pair of hiking shoes going in and a pair of, as far as I can guess, wolf tracks.  I’m suddenly very glad I have my gun on me.  The carrion pile now has added meaning.  I ask Kriss to start talking - admittedly not a problem for her at all ( heh ) - but as loudly as she can, as we walk back to the car.  Keeping my eyes open in all distances, we manage to get back to the car safely but not without my spidey sense completely engaged.

No matter what kind of nature-loving adventurist you may be, it is simply NOT safe to walk in Alaskan woods without a loaded gun.  If you don’t know how to operate a gun or think that they are “too dangerous” - take a class, learn how to shoot and then you’re prepared enough to go out into the woods here.  The term itself, “woods”, is not the same as it may mean in the lower-48.  You cannot predict if today you’ll simply find a couple rabbits and squirrels or if you’ll stumble across a bear.  Always best to be over-prepared than wish you were when you’re staring down an angry momma bear with its cub.  That is to say I don’t rely on my gun solely - making noise in the woods, keeping yourself calm and willing to assertively give those animals their space will do wonders - that being said, there are those situations that you can do everything right and yet something still goes awry.  Having a backup plan is smart, not headstrong.

Just a quick jot here - once again, for those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter:

Recently I took my seasonal trip out to the Chatanika Dredge with a couple of students and, given that I’ve shot the dredge every which way possible, I decided to try light painting. The process has always amazed me and I’ve tried with some limited success before but have never spent much time on it. This time, I planned prior to the trip a bit - purchasing some glowsticks to experiment with. Although the results may not be mesmerizing, they’re, at the very least, good proof-of-concept - and something that I’d like to play with more. I’m planning on doing another trip later on in the season when I can get it darker inside the dredge and to try similar shots with sparklers - which should make the effect much more dramatic.

Recently, I’ve been trying to focus more on my photography. I’ve realized over the past few months that I’ve spread myself fairly thin with hobbies & interests, forcing myself to be a bit lacking in all of them. I’ve decided for this reason, as well as many others, to not pursue the SCA or website design anymore. This doesn’t really impact anything here on the site given that most things here run through installed programs like Wordpress & Gallery and the rest doesn’t require me to learn new coding techniques. This’ll give me more time to focus on my family, Photography, applying for my Masters, and my leisure activities like home-brewing and gaming.

Anyways… That’s the gist of it all. I’m writing this via the Wordpress App for my iPad hoping that all gets formatted right. We’ll see! Either way, larger versions of the following images are available through my Gallery - Enjoy and let me know what you think!

If you follow my twitter posts, it isn’t any secret that weeks ago I got the new pics from the Fish Creek Dredge onto my gallery - but for those that need an engraved invite, here it is:

Gallery - Fish Creek Dredge

I’ve got to get off my rear and mail the pictures to the landowner (requisite of getting on their property, I’ll send small resized proofs) and then I intend to go out there again sometime soon.  I ended up going out there with my dad which had a blast just going out there and seeing a fairly intact dredge.  I love going out to these places with my dad because, being more mechanically-inclined than I am, he’s able to actually tell me what half the stuff on the dredge is and what it did.

Anyways, the trip out there served as a scouting trip as well - there’s tons of locales out there ripe for photography that I completely plan on contacting the individual landowners, gaining permission and having a blast photographing them.  Anyone that knows anything about Fairbanks history - I can tell you this:  Meehan is still there and it looks like Fairbanks Gold Camp is as well.  There’s got to be a bit of history in either one of those townsites ripe for photographing - but a word to the wise: anyone planning on going out there needs permission - the landowners are VERY vigilant and VERY angry when they see anyone that isn’t supposed to be there.

Anyways, please have a look at the photos and let me know what you think - I need some healthy critisim.

“So there I was…”

A part of me wishes that this story was a bit more elaborately magical than it is - then again, there’s a larger part of me that is simply happy that I made it out of a fairly difficult situation alive.  That being said, even though this may not be a dramatic experience in survival, it’s indicative of the fact that being prepared & calm during accidents can be what saves you from more dire situations.

Those of you that follow my tweets already know some of the details - but what I didn’t share makes this story so painfully interesting. Three weeks ago, I had put Aidan in daycare for what I was hoping to be a successful photo-op day. I did a bit of research on GIS Fairbanks to find out who the landowners of several local mines & ghost towns were.  Those that know me know that I hate avoiding “No Trespassing” signs and like having official permission to trudge around in the woods: no matter how far away Alaska may be from hillbilly hell, we do manage to have quite the population of folks more than willing to threaten you off of their land with the wrong end of a fully-automatic Uzi.  I like avoiding such awkward meet-n-greets.

I found out pretty quickly that the Alaska Mental Health Trust owns Hi-Yu Mine and that Fairbanks Gold owns the rest of the properties that I’d like to photograph.  After a quick call, I got ahold of the owner of the Fish Creek Dredge, discuss an arrangement with him (I’ve photographed some of his property previously) and gain his permission.

I already have stuff packed up so I start gearing up to head out there immediately - grabbing my bike out of a 2-year stint in mothballs because there’s a pretty restrictive gate about two miles from the dredge that I won’t be able to get pass with my car.  No problem, right?  In fact, everything goes pretty smoothly - I test out the bike & make sure that it’s in working order:  Tires hold pressure, brakes function, handlebar is slightly loose, gears switch correctly, helmet is in order …..  actually, to be honest, I second guess bringing the helmet because it’s a very gentle ride in a valley - but, knowing that I’ve had close calls before that weren’t major issues because I did have my helmet - I bring it.  Thank God I did.

I get up to Fairbanks Creek Road before noon, head down the seven miles near the gate (can’t get to the gate because there’s still a massive ice shelf covering one of the creeks you have to ford), get on my bike and start riding.  The ride to the gate goes smoothly - it’s mostly downhill so I don’t notice how much distance goes by.  Once I get to the gate, I slide my bike underneath and start heading to the dredge - knowing that I’ve got about 2-3 miles in front of me.  About a mile down the road, near the historical site of the town of Meehan, my front bike wheel quickly jerks 90 degrees to the left and I pile-drive over my handlebars on a dirt & gravel road going 15mph.

For about half a minute - I can’t move.  The weight of the bike is overwhelming and I can’t muster the energy to push it off of me.  Slowly the feeling comes back to my legs and I’m able to slowly slide my bike away from me by a series of short “baby kicks”.  My entire vision is blurry - As I fell, I heard something break off of me and slide off into the distance but I have no clue what it was.  I have to get up.

I slowly lumber out of the middle of the road trying to get my bearings straight.  My vision starts to normalize except for one small part - about a dime in size.  I check my body over and I’m surprised that aside from being sore in my chest and a few scrapes, I seem fine.  I start trying to focus my eyes and find it fairly difficult to do - furthermore, the dime-sized piece of my vision is now… flickering.  Torn at the edges, the image inside of it seemingly inverted, everything on the edges of it flickers like a pinstriped shirt on a old tube television.  I close my eyes, hoping that it’ll just go away - that it’s stress-induced and that a couple of minutes with my eyes closed, focusing more on breathing than anything else, will help it normalize.  I open my eyes again and it’s gotten worse.  I start to panic.

I’ve planned this trip out well - I’m not another idiot like McCandleless.  I’ve got excesses of water packed, several protein bars, a cell-phone, GPS, Topo Maps, my Epi-pen, painkillers & a First Aid Kit.  I’ve planned this all out - this should all work for me.  It’s simply a bike ride through some mining country on a semi-maintained yet almost untraveled road.  I’ve planned this out, right… right?

I now have what I can only call a “rip” across my entire vision - I can’t close one eye and get rid of it, nor does calming down seem to help.  I have no idea what’s going on - my only thought, to an uneducated medical mind, is that I’ve ripped my retina - and I’m 2+ miles from my car, 6+ miles from cell coverage & 28 miles from the hospital.

Panic isn’t the right word.  I got to the point where you start recognizing the poetic irony behind your desperate situation.  Panic isn’t the right word - I had convinced myself that I, a photographer, was going to go blind - while out taking photographs.  Oh Jesus.

I hop on my bike - I let the eyes settle a bit more and things seem to be clearing up.  I wait a couple more minutes, closing my eyes, drinking about a liter worth of water, resting my eyes and, seemingly, things start to clear.  I ignore my prior fears, thinking that time will fix it and decide in some absolutely idiotic logic that I should ignore it and trudge on.  I get on my bike, start to peddle up what I thought was a hill, getting to the top of it (which was really just a bump in the road) and noting the enormous knot in my gut that was offset (and potentially previously ignored) due to the stabbing pain in my chest - my gut is telling me to turn around and get the hell out of here.

Single folks, I believe, can manage to get themselves into more serious of pickles than happily married folks - especially when you have kids.  Aidan’s (and Deanna’s) influence from a far is outstanding - he’s stopped me from doing stupid stuff dozens of times and this time was well worth it.  I turn around, stating that the wilderness & the dredge may have won, but I’ll be back.  I start biking back and within a half mile, I loose the ability to focus.

I have a puslating dime-sized piece of my vision inverted and seemingly torn, I can’t focus, my ribs hurt as if someone is stabbing me with about five knives… and I have a mile and a half of biking in front of me - mostly uphill.  I start looking from side to side and notice that when I look right, the road narrows in size to the side of a sidewalk - when I look left, it quadrupals in size to a four-lane highway.  I start panicing while resigning myself to the fact that I’m going blind at the same time - a fairly humbling experience.

I get to the gate and notice that there’s a truck parked there - stumbling up to it, I look at the driver with what blurry vision I have and say:

“Look… um… Ok.  I’m just going to come out with it.  My car is about half a mile up the road and I had a pretty bad bike accident and really hit my head hard and I can’t see too good - can I get a ride?”

Without hesitation, he gives me a ride - finding out quickly that my car is more than a mile up the road and it was, indeed, all uphill.  I thank him profusely throughout the entire ride, get out & grab my bike from his truck bed & start packing stuff away.  I check the window of the car, looking at my teeth, thinking that I may have lost a tooth on the road - but convince myself that the only thing that broke off was a piece of my tripod.  I rest a bit in the car, noting that my vision seems to be getting better but shapes are still awkwardly changing sizes at random.

I finally decide I have to get out - no matter how bad my vision is, I have to get to cellphone range.  I turn the car around and start up the dirt road - getting about two miles before I have to stop again and let my eyes settle.  At this point I cannot focus at all - I’m driving in a complete fog.  My eyes settle as best as they can and I trudge on, under the impression that I’ll get within cell range, call my wife or parents to come get me because I cannot legally drive safe given my eyes.

*POP!* *sputter…sputter…sputter*

“Crap.  What was that?!? “

Before I pull the car over and get out, I already know what it is.  The damned tire has popped and I have no idea what I hit - I pull out my cellphone and realize that I’m still outside range.  That’s completely fine - tires are simple - done this a ton of times before when I’ve taken my sedan places no sedan should go.  I grab the spare, the jack, the ….

*laughing* “Seriously, God?  Seriously?  I think I’ve had enough - at this point this crap is just funny”

I don’t have my tire iron.

I planned out everything - everything’s in my backpack or in my car to insure that I get into some kind of scrape, that I’ll prevail - except for the damned tire iron.  I start laughing because any anger has lost its rationale at this point - because, as dire as the situation may be with my eyes - this is funny.  At this point I have no option - I have to walk to the top of the mountain to get into cell range.  Being only 3 miles from the main road, thankfully, it’s only about half a mile up the hill until the wind carries enough bars my direction.  Some reason, in Alaska, the cell towers have nothing to do with line-of-sight - it’s all about wind.  I call home (short quick call, emergency, just to make sure SOMEONE knows even though noone is home), call the wife & my dad and manage to get my dad to start heading out to help.  I fail to tell my wife that the car is situated outside of cell coverage: given that my head is still swirling due to vision/panic issues, I forget to tell her a lot of the details.

My dad had limited knowledge of where the place is.  I give him directions, attempt to email him a GPS map link of where I am and I walk back to the car, ready to wait the hour and a half for him to come.  I climb the hill again to insure I’m not getting any texts or calls confused about where I am, seeing none (even though my wife was sending them to me), I head back down.  Eventually my dad shows up, helps me change the tire (my ribs are stabbing me so much that I can’t lift the tire w/o yelling) and we head home - now that my vision has finally cleared up & my dad (the nurse) has looked me over to see that I was, indeed, in one piece.  We head out and once we get over the ridge I receive each panicked text from Deanna over the last 2 hours - apparently she had no clue I was out of cellphone range.

After an hour of panicking about my eyes, everything normalized - I apparently managed to get a mild concussion even with my helmet on and it turns out that I shouldn’t have overlooked the one issue with my bike before I left the house - the handlebars being loose.  Yes, I know, I’m an idiot.  That being said, this idiot might not be writing this blog to you if it weren’t for the helmet that I second guessed.  What’s important to take away from this is that no matter what, mother nature will find a flaw in your planning - you cannot plan for every disaster, you can only attempt to be as reasonably ready as you can be.  The only thing that could’ve helped me with this is having a buddy come along with me - something that I had the next weekend when I went down to the dredge with my dad and something I intend to rely on a bit more for these more lengthy excursions.  I’ll have pictures from the dredge posted soon - my schedule is freeing up a bit and I’m finding more time to blog lately, apparently.