Juxtaposition: an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison  or contrast

Photography by Brian Schrack

With cell phones in almost every hand or pocket, a photograph is just a point-and-click away. Social media venues host millions of photos daily. It seems that everyone is a photographer.

Of sorts, that is. For the thousands of would-be-photographers out there, there are but a few of the real deal. These are the men and women who use instinctive and learned eyes to see the photograph before they ever pick up their camera. Whereas amateurs glibly proclaim This will be a cute shot, a beautiful shot, a funny shot, the pros are asking What is the message, the memory, the feeling here? And how will I best capture this for others? They approach the view finder with a hushed reverence for light and shadow, shape and form. They kneel at the altars of perspective and balance.

Brian Schrack is the real deal, and his photography testifies to the craft he has honed for decades. This series of photographs he shot near Sutherland, Nebraska is a sublime study in juxtaposition. In the foreground, iron hoops that represent wagon wheels that left lasting ruts along the Oregon and Mormon Trails, a reminder of pioneer perseverance and vision. In the background, a coal-fired energy plant, its stacks rising formidably from the plains, a symbol of all that fuels our modern conveniences. Our eyes fix on the iron hoops and are eventually drawn to the smoke stacks behind. The juxtaposition of old to new is profoundly moving here. The power of the westward vision largely gone, the power of coal takes its place.  And the prairie survives, a persistent and holy ground, housing the remnants of the past and the structures of today.

In the Sanctuary of Juxtaposition, we are disturbed and delighted by unlikely pairings, by unusual side-by-sides. And we must thank the artist for such juxtapositions, for our eyes do not often see them. We pass by but fail to deliberately frame the world before us. We look but fail to see.

Minnesota essayist, Philip Connors writes:

I’ve always liked edges, places where one thing becomes another. . . transition zones, boundaries, and borderlands. I like the mixing that happens, the juxtapositions, the collisions and connections. I like the way they help me see the world from a fresh angle.

Amen to that. We all need a little help from our friends, and those who can photograph, paint, and write the juxtapositions, the collisions and connections are, indeed, those who help us see the world from a fresh angle.  Those who live in The Sanctuary of Juxtaposition are fresh angles’ biggest fans.

 In  Les Misérables, Victor Hugo understands the power of fresh angles when he writes:

There were corpses here and there and pools of blood. I remember seeing a butterfly flutter up and down that street. Summer does not abdicate.

Summer does not abdicate its fluttering beauty even to death. The prairie does not abdicate its essence even to coal-fired power plants. Victor Hugo and Brian Schrack bring these messages, these fresh angles to those who have eyes to see.

Haiku writers, in particular, are masters of juxtaposition.  Traditional Japanese haiku juxtapose dissimilar images and use a kireji, or cutting word, to separate them.  English haiku writers may forgo a cutting word for a line break or pause. The effect, however, is the same, as the haiku writer brings two disparate images together, asking readers to take notice. Consider this haiku by poet John Wisdom:

harvest moon –
migrant kids eat the bread
tossed to the crows

In the foreground, the magnificent harvest moon; in the background, hungry migrant children feeding on bread crusts thrown thoughtlessly to the birds. The poet moves us to ask the universal question: How can such want exist amidst such beauty? This is the power in the Sanctuary of Juxtaposition, and haiku is but one evidential, albeit exceptional, form.

I am continually indebted to those who bring the power of juxtaposition to me through image and word. Truthfully, I am better for their fresh angles. The Sanctuary of Juxtaposition is often a challenging one, to be sure, but one we would all do well to enter–willingly and often.

With sincere thanks to Brian Schrack, who graciously granted me permission to use his photographs.