Jury Duty. Your life is blissfully speeding along and then the dreaded summons arrives in the mail, and your entire mapped-out plan suddenly takes a detour.
You adjust and rearrange your schedule as best you can and hope for the best. Only two days, right? You pump yourself up. You can do this!
I worked nonstop ahead of time to get a jump on deadlines and ease my load. I dug out my bus pass, made a lunch, and set up a new VPN account so I could blithely continue to work on my laptop surrounded by a few hundred strangers. I was counting on it being short and painless, but it’s a game of chance, and sometimes your number comes up.
“HERE!” I spoke up when my name was called just minutes after orientation. I packed up my laptop and traded my identity for a number. As instructed, I took the elevator up to one of the top floors of the new Multnomah County Courthouse and was greeted by a gorgeous sunny panorama of the city. “How come the jury room doesn’t have these kinds of views?” I said to no one in particular. “Perhaps because they believe in giving us increasing levels of rewards,” said Juror No. 11, as if we were in a video game.

I was fully prepared, expectant even, to not make the final cut for the actual jury, already dreaming of my work task list to get back to, so I was a bit dazed and in disbelief when the last number called was mine and I was directed to take a particular seat that would be my courtroom home for the duration of a trial. Red light! Just like that I had to pull out of my life lane, hit the brakes, move some key meetings, and unwillingly park in someone else’s brain space. Two days turned into three, which turned into four, which turned into five. I know I should be grateful it wasn’t longer, but it doesn’t make the parking job any easier.
When it comes to a trial, not only do you put your own life on hold, but you trade it to live intimately inside someone else’s trauma and hardship, intensely pay attention to every detail, and take notes — and there’s no changing the channel when you need a break. Their trauma is now your trauma, whether you like it or not. Oh, and there’s no talking about the case to anyone: not to your family, not to your friends, not even to your fellow jurors, who are the only ones sharing the same experience, so there’s no release. You are stuck with someone else’s pain ping-ponging around your brain.
When not in court, you’re stuck in a small jury room, often for hours, with a group of strangers with whom you can’t discuss the one thing that you all have in common. To amuse myself, I started taking photos out the jury room window. From a narrow confinement of one place was a window out to many expansive views. The jury room is in a secure area that is not open to the public, so it’s a perspective not many people get a chance to see.
I hadn’t planned to make a series of photos a thing, but on Day 2 my brother texted asking how it was going so I sent him a few photos, and he replied, “Can’t wait for tomorrow’s view.” Quite casually, it became a challenge, an expectation, my assignment. Whatever it was, it unexpectedly gave me a lifeline. Concentrating on photos was a welcome distraction from the trial and provided a view out of that little room. It gave me an expressive release when I couldn’t talk. Importantly, and ironically, regularly texting photos of a high-rise skyline helped to ground me and stay connected with my loved ones.


I only had a phone camera, so I quickly discovered that details, colors, and textures wouldn’t work. Organic shapes were out. I was awash with a bird’s-eye view of a vast man-made city, but I couldn’t depict people. I tried shooting yard workers in neon vests on a rooftop garden, thinking bright dots would pop, but they looked like nothing in my lens. I was frustrated by the limitations of what I could capture, but it made me think harder and harness what I could. Shapes and angles. Rows and repetition.








The light was different every time we walked into the small room, playing with the view, which was always the same and yet always changed. It was fun to see how the light morphed through the day. I couldn’t reflect the nuances of the light, the way it glowed or shimmered, but I could grab the large designs that it produced, the rakish slashes of angles.
At its most basic the “project” became a study of composition and how buildings take shape and feed off of one another. On some level this made sense. If jury duty is a fundamental tenet of democracy, then it seemed fitting to explore the building blocks of a city while serving on a trial.





SIDEBAR: OMG! By sheer happenstance, I caught a salacious photo shoot in action. On Day 4 we had just come back into the jury room, and by now I was conditioned to go directly to the window to look for something fresh to shoot. A turquoise car and red beanie immediately caught my eye. Even though I had given up on reproducing colors, I was hoping for an interesting composition, perhaps capturing that elusive people shot at last.
I watched as the red beanie person carefully directed the car to back up, and I was baffled since there weren’t any other cars around to make parking difficult. I looked a minute later and laughed when I noticed the car was at an angle, thinking even with guidance the driver couldn’t park right. But then I noticed four people moving around and I was fascinated by their long shadows. I was willing them to move into just the right positions to get an interesting arrangement, and I was shooting just in case it worked. Nothing. I was frustrated and disappointed.
One person sprawled across the hood of the car and I thought they were goofing off. Charming, I thought. The red beanie person crouched and I noticed the camera. “Oh wow, a photo shoot! Check it out,” I innocently called to my fellow jurors as I kept snapping. Some of them started to get up to see, and right on cue the model turned over to suggestively show off a backside. “OH MY GOD!” I practically screamed. The raunchy pose was over in a flash, and the photo people were on to other angles that weren’t as obvious for my camera to pick up. But I had been snapping at just the right moment. I guess I finally got my people shot.

It was a privilege to serve, actually, despite all my negative venting. I was lucky to be matched with a brilliant and amiable group of fellow jurors in a considerate and sensitive court environment. Every aspect of the experience was a remarkable model of civility, and served as an excellent lesson for people going through the legal system who might need to learn those behaviors and for people like me who need to be reminded.


By lunchtime on the last day, knowing there wouldn’t be anymore witnesses, it felt safe to venture again to the eastside hallway. There I could indulge in views that had a longer distance, which seemed fitting now that the case was almost over (“light at the end of the tunnel” and all that).



When we were completely done in the afternoon, one by one, we ex-jurors lined up at the eastside windows. Though it wasn’t necessary, we had maintained the custom of our anonymous numbers and hadn’t shared our names or contact info. As we lingered to take in the last views, often standing quietly, it was kind of like an Ocean’s 11 moment, and we slowly began peeling off and saying goodbye. The Hawthorne Bridge was up, and it felt like a fitting metaphor that this was the final shot and we were all escaping.

Great story, Laura, and wonderful photos of my “neighborhood”, and from a vantage point I’ll never get on the street or even from my 18th story condo at the southern end of downtown. How I wanted a tour of the courthouse before it opened to the public to get those views, but sadly, it was Covid times by then. I loved the juxtaposition of doing your civic duty and creating lovely art on your breaks!
Thank you, Abby! I wish I had mentioned, too, that the cityscape had such a strength and solidity to it, which was a sharp contrast to the vulnerable, precarious lives we were observing and asked to pass judgment on.
Well observed and well written. Thank you.
Thank you, Bill!
“bird’s-eye view.” Such a cliche, made fresh and lively by this insightful (no pun intended… or was there?) prose.
Just looked up “freshet,” as I liked the sound, but it means “snowmelt, an annual high water event on rivers resulting from snow and river ice melting.” This prose is more of a summer brook, with trout.
My fav of the photos: Day 2, I think, right above the paragraph that begins “I only had a phone camera”.
What happens when you place a frame around space (or time)? Art.
Thank you!
My favorite photo, too, Sherry! It’s what got me thinking about exploring more views. Thank you for the lovely words!
Laura, what a great story. Fantastic! Jury duty must affect creatives in this way. I wrote a limerick about our judge. It got left in the jury room, I think. I always wondered if it got back to him. 😄
Thank you, Jeanne! Now I’m curious what your limerick said.
Wonderful prose (no surprise) and photos (excellent surprise), Laura.
Thank you !
Your cheerleading has always spurred me on, David. I’m so grateful to you.
Really enjoyed your photos from jury duty. …capturing the Portland we love from up high.
Thank you, Leslie! You’re so kind.