Recently I’ve been working on a project photographing a statue garden and attempting to create some imagery to showcase the small, park-like area. This statue garden is in Ho-Chunk Village in Winnebago, NE, home to the Winnebago Tribe.
I have been photographing at different times of the day and using a single light to help light some of the clan statues to being a little more emphasis to the subjects and thereby viewer attention to the park. Some days have been quite windy, others very brick and chilly to downright cold, but in the end, it seems worth it to help highlight a local culture in Siouxland and a proud people preserving their heritage and working toward a better future.
The Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve located in Siouxland is just a few miles from Sioux City. Some days I go there to just enjoy nature, cloudy, sunshine, wet or dry. Many times one can walk about without others in proximity and you feel like you are enjoying the park by yourself. With the recent wet weather that never seems to end this fall, I have been photographing in black and white. A failsafe for an otherwise bland and blah kind of day.
Again, I look for tonal ranges and try to make an image I like that will also work in this particular medium. Sometimes I feel successful and other times not.
When teaching classes I tell students about using a gradated graduated filter that I use to control the brightness of the sky. This particular day I found it would also work controlling the ground area so my image of a tree would get a little more attention. Well, that was the plan. But as always, it’s just nice to be outside, enjoying nature and taking photographs. I tell students, what is a better way of enjoying a day.
The local Riverssance Festival in Siouxland every year transports people back to an era of a simpler time. Simpler by our standards. But a fun couple of days of fantasy life where most are lords and ladies or landed gentry. Well, almost lords and almost ladies. But all are still having fun living the dream.
The festival this year fell within a wet period for the area, seven to eight days of near constant rain or drizzle. And many folk found themselves near fires for a little warmth as they walked about the encampment.
And of course it’s always fun watching the performers. Each has a skill set their share with their audience and a real joy for bringing this period of time to life for those attending.
While visiting the Calliope Historical Village in September I looked for other ways in making images as I walked about the small historical complex. Visiting places again and again breeds familiarity and comfort and I always keep that in mind when thinking about photographing a place. And many times the kind of day, weather and light plays a part in making those decisions.
It was a stormy kind of day that day and the light was soft and even and so my photographs reflected some of that aspect as I walked among the buildings looking at form and lines and whatever other notions caught my attention. Photography is limitless in subject matter, and highly personal as well. Two persons standing next to one another will see a scene differently and make different kinds of photograph depending on how they personally see and feel, as I sometimes think photography is as much intuitive as it is a thought process. Trying to fore a viewer’s eye to see what you see, sort of walking a quarter mile in someone’s shoes.
Siouxland is home to a number of a number of historical significance to the region, much like many early settlements in many locations around the country. Calliope Village, according to an official listing at the site of the city of Hawarden where the village is located, came into existence in 1860. “History reports that Sioux County, Iowa was founded January 20, 1860, on the banks of the Big Sioux River on the north edge of what is now Hawarden. Our “founding fathers” were Frederick Hubbell, W.H. Frame, Joseph Bell, and E.L. Stone who founded the settlement of Calliope (Kal’ e ope) for the express purpose of receiving a regulation count salary for organizing a county in Iowa.
In 1869, Calliope consisted of a courthouse, three log homes and about 10 residents. The infant town was driven back to the safety of Sioux City by Indian uprisings. In 1871, the Indians calmed down and the few rugged individuals who were willing to brave the wilderness returned to the settlement to find the original courthouse standing. By 1872 Moses Lewis bought out the remaining initial investors and used the office to issue fraudulent bonds. It wasn’t until 1874 that the settlement of Calliope was actually home to the earliest settlers. Progress came with a hotel, cabins and finally viability was enhanced greatly by the formation of a stage coach line to transport people to and from Sioux City.”
That history and the historical village is all that remains of that early settlement. Fundraising and area residents made the village possible to remind current and future residents of the community’s historical background.
So it’s nice to visit the village on a holiday and see people stroll the grounds and check it out. Or relax and enjoy some music provided by a washtub band whose creation was musician’s Jerry Toft.
I visit the place from time to time. Sometimes with a class I teach and other times during the holidays or when I am passing through the area. The days are always different and so is the light. The village isn’t always open but it’s still nice to stop by and see. Of course the side attractions that come during days like Labor Day are not always present, and are a look back into time itself, and just fun to photograph.
It’s nice to find gems of history in your backyard, or a neighbor’s backyard that you can visit and learn more about the region and history itself. The Union Pacific Railroad Museum is full of memorabilia and information about the the railroad coming of age and during its “golden” years before flying and airplanes displaced rail travel. It’s amazing the luxury such travel afforded if one could afford it.
There was a lot of support staff involved in giving passengers a good safe ride on passenger trains. And I have read along the way that during those early days, when segregation was in full bloom that African Americans working for the railroad received a salary that allowed them a good living for their families. I have not researched to see if the pay was on par with others within the industry, but one would hope the railroad industry valued those employees also.
The museum has some fun exhibits, like the one where the “station master” talks to the customer, a very life-like animated projection of a person and the various watches, since the railroad ran on a time schedule as well as a myriad of watch lanterns used by conductors and other rail workers.
The museum is a nice way to spend a couple of hours soaking in history and learning through exhibits. Sitting in downtown Council Bluffs, and only a few blocks from restaurants that dot the downtown area.
Iowa and the Siouxland area was a jumping off point at one time for people two centuries ago traveling west. A hidden little gem in Council Bluffs, the Western Historic Trails Center covers a variety of the trails moving out of the Siouxland area for people looking for a fresh start.
The center is situated in the southern portion of the city and is connected to other parks and places by paved trails, good both for walking and bike riding.
One trail even connects to the Bob Kerry Pedestrian Bridge that crosses the Missouri River and drops you into Omaha, NE along the river front. But inside the trails center is the story of people moving west. Small individual metal dioramas tell the story, as does early American postcards along a back wall depicting scenes from the possibly 19th and 20 centuries.
The center has nice grounds where people can picnic or take a rest if using the trails, as well as a sculpted piece telling the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition. And it’s these stories in places like the Trails Center about the history of people striving for a better life that helps paint the picture of America and its becoming a nation. A melting pot of diversity and cultures blending together to live a better life.
I live in the Siouxland area that encompasses a wide swatch of land in northwest Iowa, northeastern Nebraska and southeastern South Dakota. The people that inhabit this area are generous folk and your basic honest, Midwestern people you like to have as neighbors. I explore the area and share observations, mostly photographic, sometimes through video, and and short text. All images and video are copyrighted material of the author.
Jerry Mennenga, Sioux City, Iowa
jerrylmennenga@yahoo.com
