While the images in the project do include their own brief captions, the details in the images (included those with words written in them) are not fully captured in this captions. To this end, to help make the richness of the images more accessible, please find additional image descriptions below.

By Amanda Booher

Image 1: black background with a dark grey square in the upper middle; in the square is small white text in courier new font. Italicized words are in light grey; bold words are in slightly larger font.
This reads:

“My father takes one last shovel of earth, turns it over the side of the excavation, and – in a single incredible motion – crawls out of the hole simply by pressing the sole of his boot to the lip of the pit and moving his whole body upward, walking right past me, right up the stairs.”

“He was always a tall, angular man, as the remaining pictures of him suggest, and to this day I can clearly conjure the marvelous image of my father’s long, long legs striding over me as he emerged from the hole he was to spend years digging beneath our house.”

“Apart from him, there were three of us: my mother, my younger brother, and myself.”

Image 2: five black boxes full of text – three in row one, two in row two. The boxes in row two are about 1.5 times the size of those in row one. The font is white, courier new; bold words are slightly larger. The text in each box, from left to right, reads:

Box 1: In the early days, when I sat on the stairs and watched him work, my father had given me dozens of flippant reasons for his project: seeking dinosaur bones.

All of these excuses had lost currency by this point, of course, and when asked what he was doing – as, my brother told me, his religious visitor had inquired – my father had other things to say.

Box 2: In the early days, when I sat on the stairs and watched him work, my father had given me dozens of flippant reasons for his project: expanding the basement for a spare bedroom or a recreational space.

All of these excuses had lost currency by this point, of course, and when asked what he was doing – as, my brother told me, his religious visitor had inquired – my father had other things to say.

Box 3: In the early days, when I sat on the stairs and watched him work, my father had given me dozens of flippant reasons for his project: looking for buried treasure.

All of these excuses had lost currency by this point, of course, and when asked what he was doing – as, my brother told me, his religious visitor had inquired – my father had other things to say.

Box 4: In the early days, when I sat on the stairs and watched him work, my father had given me dozens of flippant reasons for his project: hoping to strike oil.

All of these excuses had lost currency by this point, of course, and when asked what he was doing – as, my brother told me, his religious visitor had inquired – my father had other things to say.

Box 5: In the early days, when I sat on the stairs and watched him work, my father had given me dozens of flippant reasons for his project: suspecting a natural hot spring flowed beneath our house.

All of these excuses had lost currency by this point, of course, and when asked what he was doing – as, my brother told me, his religious visitor had inquired – my father had other things to say.

Image 3: Large black box with a circles of white light center top. The light looks like a flashlight being shined at the viewer, with rings with different intensities of brightness. At the top, across the white, are the words “The stairs creaked beneath my feet.” in black courier new font. About halfway down the square, at the edge of the white (so that the first word is very hard to see), are the words, ‘I reached the bottom,”.

Image 4: Two large black boxes stacked on top of each other.
The top box has small circles of white light in the lower left of the box (like a flashlight shining at the viewer). Within the circles, just left of center, is a sketch in black of a man’s hairy left leg and foot. The front of the leg/ foot faces the viewer, and the image ends before the knee. Near the big toe, extending to the right, is italicized text (courier new, very small) in white, moving from a less-bright part of the light into the black background. It reads, “I wonder if he’s grown as tall as our father?”

In the bottom black box, there is a similar circle of light just to the right of center with a sketch of a man’s hairy right lower-leg and foot, and a bit of ground to the left of the big toe. Very small white text (courier new, italics) extends from the left of the foot, fully in the black background, and slightly lower than the foot. The text ends a bit before the edge of the white circle.

Image 5: The CSS for the site, specifically the “puzzle” section, proving that it is black text on a black background.