Laramie Project Update: Photo Excursion to Laramie

Hello Cast,
Hope you are all checking your email regularly as there will be things coming up from this point on. This afternoon, I feel a need to fill you in on the photographic excursion to Laramie we made this weekend.
It was a hectic 24 hours and definitely an ordeal as we hurried around the town trying to get all the shots for the slide projections: churches, the courthouse, downtown, campus and other places relevant to the story of Matthew's death. Thanks to Micah, we have great shots that we will definitely use, and he, in particular, deserves a lot of credit for the quality of the photographs he composed under hurried circumstances. You'll be impressed.For me, it was not just a logistical but an emotional ordeal, one that definitely had its highs and lows. I guess I didn't think about or even anticipate how visiting these places would make me feel.
When we stopped by the bar that was once the Fireside, I really wasn't prepared. I guess physically, visually, the place was a disappointment (we didn't take a single picture of it, not even its dreary face) and it probably bears little resemblance to the bar Matthew visited that night anyway since it has been remodeled and walls have been opened up. What I saw was a characterless and sprawling space, neither cheerful nor glum, no features to speak of, a generic college bar barely animated with a few late afternoon clients. There was no romance in the physical space; this was not a "hangout" or "happening" place to be remembered fondly years later. The pool tables were still there, and the bartender had a bit of Matt Galloway in him, but, otherwise, the place was indifferent to the fateful encounter that took place there ten years ago. We had a drink in the passionless silence for a while. I listened to the sex talk of the group of pathetic young males sitting near us laying the getting laid bullshit on thick and loud enough for me to hear. Old and relentless talk, hurtful, evil, and deadening to the human spirit. Where could such talk lead? I was way down by this time. There was nothing else to do, say, no way to appropriately react, just a horrible, hopeless gloom descending. We left.
Off Happy Jack Road, we found the perfect place to shoot the lights of Laramie. Up a dirt road through treey spaces on an intensely starry night (and after a hilarious encounter with a philosophical and very drunk camper looking for deadwood for a late-start fire --- we'll fill in on this encounter later but with very little imagination we could see definitely see Doc O'Connor in this guy), we came to a spot on the mountain where we could see a little belt of light looking up through a "v" formed by the black trees and sloping mountain . After a hike in the dark with flashlight and tripod in hand, we came to an open area, and there we had it, the twinkling lights of Laramie with a starry spattering above and maybe, we think, a shooting star.
For the "set" shot, I wanted a panorama of what Matthew might have seen that dawn, about 50 degrees of the horizon from his point of view. I knew already that the fence no longer exists, dismantled by the private landowners tired of the endless pilgrims. But I think we were on the very road, and I think we were within a few miles of the spot. One reason is that the road, which comes out of a modern subdivision, is blocked by huge boulders and a few yards further it has been purposefully torn up with earth moving equipment. Why? It seemed a little extreme for a barricade when a simple gate would have worked.
Micah and I hiked up that road as it rose onto a fairly high hill which affords a overlook of the town and an unobstructed view of the range. At first, I thought I wanted a panorama of the view toward Laramie from Matthew's point of view, but we chose the view toward the mountains instead. It was a beautiful sight: billowy clouds, the sweep of prairie grass and woods and the smooth mounds of those embracing mountains. We shot what we could because we were at the last shots on the flashdrive, and it was starting to rain and promising more to come. So we are keeping our fingers crossed that you will see what we saw in the final composite photo.
On the way back, we found the 'signature" shot for the poster, program and all the artwork. The road lifts in the foreground and bows again before the distant mountains above which weeping clouds are swirling. A road is a more powerful symbol than a fence. Fences separate, limit, hold back. Roads lead, destinations unclear and outcomes unknown, but they rise and wind, ending, perhaps, in the clouds.