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Ever since my early teens I've used gender-neutral language unless it's cumbersome (craftspersonship comes to mind) or I intend to be gender-specific (chairwoman, milkman, etc.). While I know damn well Michael and Ziva would go to extreme lengths to include prompts with sexual overtones, I'm convinced they wouldn't toss in a blatantly sexist prompt.
Since the only artisans I know are women I had to go with my second choice on this one. I've become fascinated with learning about architectural styles and I honestly believed photographing a Craftsman home would be quite simple.
I couldn't have been more wrong. There are some beautiful older Craftsman homes in the area. Not only did the homeowners believe in the very literal interpretation of our state motto, "Live Free or Die," they all seemed to be Second Amendment extremists. While I did grow up around guns, I never expected to be staring down the barrel of .006 for simply wanting to photograph a home.
Back at square one, I checked real estate listings, found a very new Craftsman home for sale in Maine, "The Way Life Should Be" (but rarely is), and only got the hairy-eyeball from one of the locals when I photographed this house.
For other interpretations of this prompt, please take a few minutes to visit these other masters of their domains.
I love a true craftsman style home... my parents had one before they gave it up to move to Florida. (Go figure... a "what were they thinking?" moment on several counts.) But I'm with you... not worth challenging someone's second amendment rights in order to get the perfect shot.
ReplyDeleteThat's a beauty. There are lots of Craftsman house photo ops in the Chicagoland area. As an aside, have you read "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan? Good read!
ReplyDeleteAh, I learn something new every day. I didn't realize what a Craftsman home was. Sorry to hear about the gun. Are you sure you weren't in Texas?
ReplyDeleteNH is a miniature Texas way up north. (I put a tag in there so folks would know I was kidding about the gun. Someone did politely ask me to leave but no guns were involved.)
ReplyDeleteWho knew photography could be such a challenge in New Hampshire. I love that style of house. Great shot (no pun intended).
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've read, the porch is part of what makes this bungalow-type house a Craftsman. What's interesting about the Craftsmans is what you can't see ~ their interior spaciousness and energy efficiency. That they get tons of natural light is fairly obvious from all the windows. I'd love to live in a house wrapped in porches. Since that'd probably unbelievably expensive, I'd settle for this one in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeletebeautiful craftsmanship, would love that house, ranch style.
ReplyDeletegee, are you sure you're not in texas? :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful shot! I'd live there!
ReplyDeletehairy eyeball? smiles.....its a cool looking home....dont know that i had heard of a craftsman home...a tool yes, but not a home...
ReplyDeleteNH is a mini-Texas with the heat turned off.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. This is a Craftsman-style house. I'm not sure how you'd make it into a Ranch-style house since they're 2 distinctive and different architectural designs.
ReplyDeleteWe almost bought an older one. They're so cozy while being incredibly spacious. At this point, I'd settle for having enough space to add that style porch to our house.
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't. Not much of reader of historical novel reader.
ReplyDeleteThe gun stuff is just cock-and-bull but I did have the beginnings of a run-in with someone. I immediately flashed my charm & fast-talking persona and we ended up fast friends. Sadly that shot wasn't what I'd hoped it would be so I headed to a less crowded area to get a better angle.
ReplyDelete"While I did grow up around guns, I never expected to be staring down the barrel of .006 for simply wanting to photograph a home." WHAT THE HELL? Are you serious??
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting me and here I am visiting back! I've looked through your other photos and just love them! Joan
ReplyDeleteOh, hell no. I left a couple of tags to let people know I was joking. I'm just trying to find ways to amuse myself with these confounded prompts. Sorry you thought that part was true.
ReplyDeleteThanks Joan.
ReplyDeleteWell, Michael and I really weren't trying to be sexist, I do apologize if it came across that way.
ReplyDeleteThat really is a beautiful photo of a beautiful house, I wouldn't mind living there myself!
*whew*
ReplyDeleteOh what a really lovely home - I wouldn't mind living there myself :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for popping over to visit :)
http://elliesplaceintheworld.blogspot.co.uk/
Love those craftsman homes. Not so much on the wrong end of a craftsman shotgun.
ReplyDeleteOf course you didn't and I'm sorry if you took offense. I'm not a militant feminist (note the 'tongue in cheek' tag), rather doing my best to amuse myself with these prompts.
ReplyDeleteI honestly do think in gender-specific roles when I read anything with 'man' or 'woman' at the end of a word. All the craftsmen in my life are gone and I don't have pieces of their work to photograph. If the prompt had been craftsmanship I'd have a hell of a time deciding what to photograph. Almost everything of importance I own is something made by an extraordinarily gifted artisan.
I love what you wrote. Lovely home. It looks like a cape with an addition. Great angle! Many years ago, I photographed houses and wrote brochures for a real estate advertising company. And now I can't figure out how to use my husband's digital camera.
ReplyDeleteHello to a fellow Craftsman home poster ...
ReplyDeletethriftshopcommando.blogspot.com
You know when I go around taking pictures, I've very wary not to overstep any boundaries (visible or invisible). People can get very antsy when you photograph their property. Less so in the city though. Nice shot though. I didn't even know about the "Craftsman" home.
ReplyDeleteI loved that you went with the same idea. That older home really is exactly like the one we wanted so badly. It was tough to walk away from the deal but things were wrong & the realtors weren't helping sort things out.
ReplyDeleteMy sister had the same type of gig years ago.
ReplyDeleteGoing digital is less of a challenge if you stick with the same manufacturer and same type of camera. I tried a small Canon point & shoot with bells & whistles but never could figure out the icons & I hadn't used a point & shoot since I was a teenager. Switching to a Nikon DSLR was fairly easy since I'd been using a regular Nikon SLR for years.
Me neither. I started at what was supposed to be a 'model' home for a new subdivision. Got run off by the job super. That was insane. I did my best to be inconspicuous but with all the paranoia I finally gave it a pass & went for the easiest shot.
ReplyDeleteAh ha I feel sorry for the person who moves in next door to hairy eyeball person!!!! (I almost wrote "hairy eyeball MAN... oops!) Beautiful picture!
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. I used a Nikon. My husband has a Canon digital. That's why I use my cellphone camera.
ReplyDeleteThanks Katherine. Welcome to Deckside Thoughts where we strive to be raise awareness with humor instead of a 2x4 upside the head. ::snort::
ReplyDeleteCraftsman is one of my favorite type of homes. Love tongue in cheek humor.
ReplyDeleteSomebody seriously gave you shit for photographing a house -- an inanimate object?
ReplyDeleteI hate this country sometimes.
Anyway, your photo is damn near perfect. I think you ought to contact the real estate agent and offer it to her (see how non-sexist I am) for $10. And then build yourself a lucrative house picture business.
I'm actually a huge fan of non-sexist language, and not just because it's non-sexist. It's often cleaner to write that way. But as far as I know, there is no non-awkward substitute for craftsman. Crafter, perhaps. Or in cases where you know the worker is a woman, craftswoman. When I was an editor, I used to argue with reporters about this thing. I hated mailman, for example, and make them use mail carrier. But they always resisted me, especially the chicks.
ReplyDeleteMy folks lived in a mail-order house sold by Sears & Roebuck. You ordered the home from a catalog, and they sent you all the parts and pieces to assemble it yourself. It was, in my estimation, the nicest house they ever owned. Solid as a rock, and charming.
ReplyDeleteThe foreman on a site where bungalows and craftsman-style homes were being built--not yet inhabited--went out of his way to drive down the muddy trail to give me shit. I saw him coming so took control of the conversation by immediately asking him questions about the project & telling him how much I adored these homes. It didn't stop him from asking why I was taking photographs but it did short-circuit his need to run me off the property. Since he caught me off-guard, I couldn't get a decent angle on any of the homes. I would have linked back to the construction company's site as well as the real estate agent's site if he hadn't been suck a prick. His company's loss.
ReplyDeleteI believe it's clearer and more accurate too. Not knowing your intent and being a gender-neutral thinker, I wasn't sure what to do with this prompt. I don't find craftsperson particularly awkward but that's just how I think. I noticed most of the participants went with something closer to craftsmanship than craftsman.
ReplyDeleteI know you meant that last sentence as a joke but it's painfully true.
My husband remembers those too. S&R was responsible for so many families being able to afford to own their own homes. So much more pleasing than trailers and not tornado-magnets like those things are.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the front porch. Glad you lived through it!
ReplyDeleteThis house is delightful. On the one hand, I'd love to live here, but on the other, I'm so pleased I don't live in a gun culture.
ReplyDelete