This past Saturday, on a very hot day, after taking the family to see stalactites and stalagmites in the Cave of the Mounds (and find some heat relief) I headed straight to the Duck Pond in Madison. 

Our wonderful realtor, Liz Lauer, who helped us find our house last year when we arrived from Canada, invited her clients to the first game of season, and I signed up happily and to be honest, I registered to the event thinking I was going to a party, I had no idea what the Mallards were, and I only found out I was going to a baseball game when I told my neighbours what I had planned on the morning of the event. 

This was the second baseball game I ever went to: ten years ago, I lived in San Francisco and my landlord took us to see the Giants play in Oakland. It was huge, a bit overwhelming, nobody even seemed to be paying any attention to the actual sports, and I didn’t get it. This game was different, small leagues have very approachable fields, and the Mallards fan, especially the kids, were actually engaged in the game. I found it difficult to understand what was going on (I think the Mallards lost, but don’t take my word on it), so I got up, took my Nikon FG20 loaded with some expired Kodak Gold200, and started walking around the bleachers.

It was incredible, I was absolutely fascinated by what I saw, I experienced an aspect of the American sensitivity that had eluded me thus far. I didn’t realise it right away, but to me the photographs I made are very reminiscent of the illustrations of Norman Rockwell, images that helped defined the ethos of midcentury middle class American life, at least for me, just like the comics of Calvin and Hobbes (and that’s another story I’ll develop some time too). I saw this when I scanned the images, and I revealed these wonderful expired film tonalities: nostalgic, vintage, and timeless.

Now I feel like I’ll have to get over my lack of understanding for other forms of American culture, and go study people in places I’ve been avoiding so far. Next up shall I go to a Badgers’ game? Is BIG10 athletics an æsthetic I can interpret?

Let me know how you feel about these image, I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts on my outsider perspective.