By Kakie Urch
Time. Space. Community. And Pappy.
One week before 11.11.11 we asked Ace readers to set their iPhone alarms for 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. and capture a designated Friday moment in Lexington and spread it around. We posted it on facebook, twitter, and here at aceweekly.com. The hashtag was #AceEleven.
The “decisive moment,” well, with apologies to photography icon Henri Cartier-Bresson, it was pre-arranged and won’t come around for another 100 years.
The idea was inspired by the Lexicon Project , the late great not-for-profit photo collective. They had asked Lexington to do the same thing at 6 pm on July 6, 2005. Their concept was to invite everyone to capture one moment, for all of you to take one beat to think about where you are and what you are doing, and share it with the rest of the city.
More than 100 photos were submitted, showing us the moment. Many of the 11 a.m. shots were of work and non-work related screens (computers, tvs, EKGs, etc). Enough feet were photographed to comprise an entire gallery of feet.
Think global, shoot local. And we did.
We received multiple images of horses, one basketball hoop, and some bourbon (Pappy Van Winkle and why not?).
Some submissions took us out of the traditional frame. Lyndi VanDeursen wrote “these photos reflect what was happening behind the scenes at the Art Museum at 11am this morning. The second photo was actually taken at 11:11am, as you will see on the clock in the background.”
Go global, think local. And we did. There were photo submissions from Lexingtonians everywhere from Cayman Islands and Rio de Janeiro to St. Louis, Kansas City, Virginia, West Virginia and New York City.
And the moment wasn’t always perfectly staged. Heather Auman, Lexington traveler, wrote: “Here’s my photo taken at exactly 11.11.11 at 11:11AM. I was a minute away from snapping a most gorgeous pic poolside at The Caymanian Resort surrounded by a gorgeous beach and palms (taken 11:12 AM). But here’s $45 worth of beer and sunscreen at the hotel’s store.”
Plan a cliché beachscape, get $45 of realness. Decisively.
November 11 was also Veterans Day and several shots reflected that in some
form.
Downtown, North Side, South Side, Chevy Chase, the University of Kentucky campus, suburbs, and rural Fayette County, and surrounding counties were represented.
Will Emmons wrote “I was in my Torts class at 11:11AM on 11/11/11 at the UK College of Law. Everyone thought it was really weird that I was taking a photo of my stuff during a class and asked me about it after.”
Recursive cultural references were also present, as we used to say in our graduate seminars.
Logan Lay wrote “At 11:11 on 11-11-11 I was out on the loading dock looking at some rocks.This picture is called ‘rocks.’” We call it mini-Stonehenge. (Nov. 11, 2011 was also “Nigel Tufnel Day,” honoring the Spinal Tap legend whose Marshall amp was louder because “This One Goes to Eleven.”)
So we present, in the November 17 print edition and here at Ace Photo Albums, a collection of the verisimilitude of the 
moment, images of jobs, lives, walks in the park, patients for diagnosis, torts for learning, and like all civilized moments, images of dogs and children.
We will repeat the project at noon and midnight on 12.12.12, and then again on 11.12.13 — capturing a three-year arc of the Time/Space/Pappy Continuum in Fayette County. Set your alarms.
Thanks to all Lexingtonians, regardless of their distance from the CentrePointe of the radii of New Circle, for submitting.
Different time. Next year.
A version of this article appears on page 7 of the November 17 print edition of Ace.
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