Neighborhood Watch

20 years later, a photographer's subjects are all grown up

On the morning of April 20, 1982, my husband and I purchased a house at 15 West Masonic View Ave., in the Rosemont neighborhood of Alexandria. That afternoon, I gave birth to my son Sam. Six weeks later, I found myself living on a street of front porches and abundant greenery, with my world becoming a series of still images played out on the sidewalk beyond my front door. Because photographers take pictures, I did exactly that. Fireworks on the Fourth of July, after-school play dates, backyard sprinklers on a summer afternoon. Over the years, the children matured into teenagers, of course, and they had little interest in having their pictures taken. The street population also was no longer a constant. The Wilsons, the Tighes and the Walkers, along with my family, moved from West Masonic View Avenue. Over the years, many of those participants scattered across the country. My younger son, Jake Dingman, returned home after a year in California. His brother, Sam, joined him for a reunion weekend in Alexandria in June 2007. Still the recorder of moments, I took their pictures again.

In June 2008, I realized 20 years had passed since I had begun photographing the young people of Rosemont. I set out to contact them all and photograph them as they returned to Alexandria that summer. Rather than simply create a group of pictures documenting the details of change, I wanted to give the participants the opportunity to reflect in writing on their thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires of 20 years ago and also to consider them now. I wanted to acknowledge their individual voices while also celebrating the coincidence of growing up together in the same neighborhood. - Claudia Smigrod

Fletcher Wilson

1988

At 4 years old, everything was up. Because I was significantly shorter than almost everyone in my life, my neck spent most of its time in a craned position. It was this directional disposition combined with an unparalleled curiosity that started my obsession with space and stars and planets. It was then that I began prying into my parents for answers. "Mom, what makes a star shine?" "Why do they call it space?" "How come the man in the moon doesn't look like a man?" But it didn't stop at space. I had to increase the breadth of my inquisitive daily barrages. "Who were the first person's parents?" "How come police officers are allowed to smoke?" "Do you think a million years ago a dinosaur lived in our back yard?" I became frustrated as my parents fed me unsatisfactory answers. How can they not know? Why are they withholding this critical information from me? I was forced to turn to my teachers and my friends' parents, but it seemed that every answer given to me led to the obvious retort of "how come" or "but why." I wonder if behind my back I was described as curious, or annoying. I hope both.

2008

At 24, and now twice relocated, this time to California, I have finally come to the realization that there is no such thing as settled. Until recently, my inner monologue might have sounded like: "Well, after this school year, I will be there; life will start; that's when things settle down and I fall into the routine I have been waiting for" or, "The next girlfriend ... I'll make that one the one that counts. We'll get a dog and a joint checking account and a few inside jokes, and we will be set." I lived in a perpetual waiting room. Now, well, at least today, I have thrown away that attitude. Settling is not in my nature, so why should I pretend to look forward to it? When I am 50 and am summarizing my life to date for "Neighborhood Watch, Vol. II," it is my utmost hope that the caption is pages and pages long. I want plot twists and new characters and changes in tone throughout. There must be quick transitions, character arc and apt comic relief. Anything but an introductory line like, "Well, things have settled down now ..."

Jake Dingman

1987

I was fairly young when we lived on "the old street," so my memories are mostly just images. I remember an early dream that took place in monochrome, in which there was a child floating through the walls of my house. I remember building castles out of wooden blocks -- and, later, cardboard -- on the front porch. One time, me and somebody else left a handful of acorns in the knot of a tree and waited for the squirrels to make them disappear. Sometimes my memories from then seem painfully quaint, and sometimes they seem too banal to bear mentioning.

2007

I go to art school, so I spend a lot of time focusing on the way things look and feel. About three years ago, I took a picture of a plastic panda bear mounted on a spring for kids to ride on at the playground. The paint had faded in odd patches, and the panda's pupils had faded away so that it stared forlornly at the rest of the park. It startled me, because I remembered when it had been new -- replacing the old wooden playground I had grown up with. Recently, they dug up the panda bear and put an even newer play set there.