***First, one quick reminder: as always, you can click anywhere on an image to make the image viewer window go fullscreen. Yes, it’s tiny otherwise.***
Remember when I posted a handful of black-and-whites documenting my new home in Largo? Well, here’s the colored shots. You’ll notice a couple color versions of black-and-whites I’ve already posted. There were some photos, when I looked through them in post-production, that I thought were interesting (perhaps in different ways) in both monochrome and color. Then there were some for which I decided only the vibrancy of color would do justice.
A few shots, like the one depicting a red-posted mailbox in front of a white rail fence, or the one of a child’s plastic dollhouse set out for the trash, felt like perfect little suburban samplers. Others, however, documented marvelous still-lifes that struck me as out-of-place in such a neighborhood. Among these, the fishing rod balanced expectantly on the boardwalk of a man-made lake instantly comes to mind.
Oh, funny story about said man-made lake. It bordered a county park, but the land appeared to belong entirely to an adjoining condominium property. “No Loitering” and “No Trespassing” and “For Residents Only” signs were speckled along the footpath at such close intervals that I found the spectacle, frankly, rather gaudy. This lake walk was too lovely (and aesthetically pleasing) to pass up, so I decided to blatantly ignore the signs. Judging by the enterprising boardwalk fisherman, I wasn’t alone in this.
That private-property-lake feels a bit like a microcosm of this whole neighborhood: so many housing developments, each with their own leasing companies and rental offices and land. Mass-constructed townhomes designed to seem organically grown, with friendly-looking sidewalked streets and lush grounds to match. A model community engineered to appear oh, so welcoming. And while there are few spiked fences and few electronic gates, when you look close you can see the sign at the mouth of every street declaring “For Residents Only.”
Ooookay, enough of me soliloquizing about the nature of private property under late-stage capitalism (god, could I sound more pedantic?!).
Let’s get to the photos!
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