Edge of Night

Last night's storms produced a series of tornados which ripped through our daughter's boyfriend's neighborhood. There is no doubt many people in that area had their lives turned completely upside down within just a few seconds.

Mike and I would have been unaware of the events taking place just a few miles from our home, had I not received a text from my friend, Stacy. Her text was brief but alarming. "R U Safe?"

Mike and I had been feverishly working on our transitional website and new blog for most of the day. We hadn't been listening or watching the news, so we barely noticed the storm firing up all around us.

Stacy's text prompted us to turn on the local news to access the situation. When we did, we were instantly inundated with images from the 1999 events of Hurricane Floyd and the devastation caused by the flood waters that ravaged many parts of eastern North Carolina where we once lived. Those photographic images were reminders of a time when the most important aspects of my life were brought into clearer focus.

During the time of that flood, I was a teacher in Edgecombe County. The results from that disaster left many of my students and co-workers homeless or displaced from family members. During the months of recovery following that time, I learned that material possessions can be taken within seconds. Even insurance and "our best laid plans" can't guarantee we will find ourselves as well off as we were prior to an unplanned event of this magnitude.

September 11, 2001 came on the heels of recovering from the flood. It was yet another reminder that I can't truly plan for a future, if my plans are tied to material possessions. Yes, I can take precautions to guard my life and the things I have come to love, but my truest treasures must come from the relationships I have fostered and the bonds shared with my family. I would learn to make small moments part of my future plans. Time with family, friends, and capturing those moments through photography.

When I reflect on the images from the flood and 9-11, I realize how important photography has become to me.

So often, now I find myself lying in a field of weeds poised to take a picture of a something as insignificant as a dandelion. Dandelions, after all, can be a somewhat tenacious plants which have the potential to ruin a beautifully landscaped yard. Through my macro lens, however, the dandelion is so much more. It is a fascinating study in geometry and the complexity of creation. It has become a metaphor for all the distractions and upheavals I have weathered in my lifetime in order to find significance and truth.

Through my lens, there are no insignificant moments. My goal is to demonstrate each moment's significance with the click of my camera's shutter.

These large and small upheavals bring me to the edges of what I need to see in order to make significance of my own goals and dreams. Sometimes I can't see that when the waters at the edge are kept at bay by their predictable banks. But when the waters crest, the edges come closer to the protected center of my life and I don't just intellectualize significance; significance becomes the lifeline.

Jill

Hello from the Frayed Edge

We are Jill and Mike McClanahan (that's Mike in a photo taken by Jill).

One of our favorite movies is the 1980 "Elephant Man." Quite a piece of work, that. And one of the most poignant scenes occurs with Bytes, the brutal carnie hustler, introducing poor John Merrick with the words, "life is full of surprises."

Indeed. And as the American novelist and painter, Henry Miller said, "we live at the edge of the miraculous."

So it has been over the past couple of years with us. Life's surprises and an unexpected "trip" over the edge have made it possible for us to work together in a real live company that we actually started ourselves to provide the creative services we've been practicing most of our lives. Exciting stuff for us.

And we have some quite special people to thank for this...those terrific clients who had faith in us and used us for their photo needs more than once. These kinds of relationships are the real reason why we've come this far, and the prospect for realizing more relationships like them is the real reason we're so excited about going farther.

To do it, we've created Frayed Edge Concepts, LLC to provide photography and graphic design services because that's where we like to travel with people...to the edge, to the limits of the edge out where it begins to fray...because we like the idea Kurt Vonnegut expressed when he said, "I want to come as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

Indeed again. And, along with creative photography and graphic design, we've fired up this here blog to take us there. We're grateful already for the people this blog might introduce to us. Because as cool as life on the edge can be, it's much more fun in good company.

Mike