I Married a Photographer

Near the Loyalsock trail

Driving up to World’s End State Park was a smidge longer than what I expected.  Referring to good old Google maps on my iPhone, I estimated about how far we’d need to travel. In any event, we eventually arrived. A brisk, windy day we unloaded the car at our first stop; an overlook with a view into the valley. It was what it was, simple, green and pretty but not breathtaking.  And so we moved on, heading to our next destination in the park.  It seemed like we drove for miles and miles before finding the perfect space to capture some nature shots.  From what I can remember, we set up shop near the Loyalsock trail where Dean found a nice waterfall and natural surroundings.

Though artists hit creative funks like everyone in life, sometimes it is just a matter of sliding into hip-waders and trudging through the s**t. This particular day Dean was not feeling creative, nor was I.  Hiking a few thousand feet through the forest wasn’t highly inspiring.  What it all came down to was this odd feeling in the woods.  Only after hiking did Dean make the observation that there was no sign of wildlife.  No bunny, deer, snail, chipmunk, squirrel. Nothing.  Not a thing.  Not even a bird!  How peculiar! A state park with no animals!  I think that aided us into not feeling inspired, it was so boring the animals left.  Bizarre!  In any event, we happened to get some images that proved to be useful.

To better describe this image, I stood in the woods and looked down to see an intense shade of rust in a linear form with multiple striations but not much movement. It was called mineral creek. What Dean captured here was part of that rust colored formation along with many shapes.  I was drawn to the color but seeing this same image in black and white forces your eye to appreciate the forms. What Dean can find in situations as I explained, is what sets him apart from many photographers.  Taking a unique view and making it his.

There are times in life, when events just fall together.  Those times leave me feeling somewhat uneasy.  I’m a realist, logical, level-headed a bit of a concrete thinker.  I have a plan for almost every situation, hence why Dean is so interesting to me.  On occasion, I have a difficult time reading him and where he is taking things.
Yesterday we were out on the dreaded house hunt, driving around the school district, keeping our fingers crossed for that house we can call home.  In our unplanned path, we found a familiar road that led us to a one room schoolhouse.  It wasn’t boarded up or in terrible shape.  Dean grabbed his camera and told his model to take her place.  Inside the building were about 6 desks, in various stages of destruction, a stripped hard wood floor accented with three busted windows on either side.  The walls were painted bright green which hadn’t seemed to dim since the original application of the paint.  To the front of us was the wall-O-chalkboard and behind us was a rusty sink, counter top and drawers.
What Dean captured there was a juxtaposition of ideas.  A lonely girl sitting at her desk, learning.  Written on the board “Fuck the Rulez”.

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I am blank.  I sit and search for ideas but am left with blank.  You fill in the blank. I am struggling to have a different lead into the story, I’d like to tell.  So I shall take you through my writing process with me, in hopes of a fresh start.  When I type fresh, I inhale.  Is that normal? Not just any inhale, a deep one.  One where my nostrils flare and my brain searches for a very specific scent.  This time, I would prefer a clean, fresh off the clothesline laundry aroma. Did you know that your sense of smell is the most closely related to your memories?  Think about it, pick a very specific situation like going to an amusement park.  Really put yourself in that place. When I do, I can smell the rides, funnel cakes, cotton candy, roasted nuts the body odor of the passers-by.  In quite the opposite respect, think of a time you were standing in a new place and you caught a whiff of a familiar scent, like perfume/cologne or a spice.  It really amazes me what one can remember from smelling.

In the kitchen typing away on lappy (our white MacBook).  My husband, just passed by our kitchen table where I am seated and read over what I had written, chuckled and asked if I was planning on posting this.  I responded that I am getting my chi to flow and in a very hopeful way; I may be able to tie this random thought process into what I’d like to tell about our most recent experience.

A couple of clicks on FaceBook, to tune into what my friends’ worlds are and . . .

Voila!  Thus the story begins!

Driving to a Cinco de Mayo party Saturday afternoon, the whole family embarked on this adventure.  Interruption, Dean just said, “Bacon.  Just for inspiration.”  Nothing like throwing off the chi!  Back to the meat, traveling on our Monday-Friday commute route, we pass through Lewisburg as we did  in this story too.  Pulling slowly onto Market street, I was excited about the party.  Dean had his camera equipment along.  I batted the idea around that he’d take some shots at the party but later thought that would just be agenda pushing and ill-mannered.  Just outside the Bull Run Inn, sat 2 shiny motorcycles.  I could hear Dean before he even said anything.  “Oh, man! I have to get a shot of those choppers.”  He swung the car onto an off street, parked, we grabbed the camera bag, business cards and away we went.  As we darted across the street the cycle owners were hopping on and getting ready to leave -we had to move quick!  Dean introduced himself, handed one of the men a card and asked if he’d mind if we’d take a few shots.

I’m fairly certain they could feel the excitement Dean was exuding and the three of them permitted us to do our thing.  I stood on Market street blocking cars from hitting my husband as he set up the tripod and switched lenses.  Once set up, it didn’t take long.  Dean has become very good at getting the angle and framing of the shot correct on the first try; which works well for me because I have a peeve with inefficient activity.    We took maybe 20 photos in about 12 minutes or less, three sets of 7 images with different exposures so when compiled, the viewer sees much greater detail.  Considering we didn’t stop traffic or ask people to vacate the premises, I think we did wonderfully!  As Dean and I briskly walked back to the car, I could see the excitement on his face.  It was very boyish, pure and so simple.  He made mention of how thrilled he was to be able to share the images with the cycle owners.  Again, what a great resource to tap into!

To be continued . . .

View Color Version View Black and White Version

Visiting Eastern State penitentiary (ESP) is a sort of overwhelming experience.  Like any tourist attraction, there are guided tours, headsets with an at-your-pace tour narrated by Steve Buscemi, or the freedom to roam about the premises as you wish.  After we paid and received the fashionable headsets we strolled through the massive abandoned structure.  I began listening to the headset tour while keeping an eye on Dean, stepping onto the yard before we even entered the first cell block was overwhelming.  I was surrounded by these immense structures that represent penitence and suffering, it was palpable like a lump in my throat.

From a photographic standpoint, Dean really couldn’t take a bad shot in the entire place; so much history, lives changed.  Listening to the recorded tour became lame to me.  I enjoyed the history but found it somewhat canned and I like to imagine what may have happened years ago in Capone’s cell.  This particular prison opened in 1829, closed in 1971  and held 1,700 prisoners at one time, originally it was built to hold only 250. 

Among the peeling paint, crumbling walls and rusted metal bars, we captured a ton of photos.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do about the point of view we took the photos from.  The photos that Dean did take represent his artistic expression and the overall feel of the  prison. A lot of the areas we’re blocked off, so I felt limited, I could only imagine how Dean felt.  He wanted to capture the dark, moody feel of the old prison so he used the ever so detailed HDR technique.  The results turned out beautifully, showing lots of amazing detail and color.  We had the chance to look at some other photographs that were taken and we think ours have a bit more flair.  They can all be viewed on Dean’s Flickr page, the bigger the better.

Oh yeah, then we bolted off to see The Dead! Whole other topic!

On rt 204, taking shots of a former home.

Early Wednesday morning, I had a few spare minutes at work.  I caught myself surfing the world-wide-interweb (reference from one of my favorite movies) for a home to call ours. Deep sigh.  This hunt has become a lost cause but that is a whole different topic.  Ugh!  Anyway, I found this house on the interweb and called the listing agent to set up a time to see it. After getting the run-around by a real estate agent, I decided that Dean and I should just drive by the place and see if it is worth the hassle to us.

After work on a fairly sad and rainy afternoon, Zak, Dean, and I took the camera equipment, hopped in the ole’ Xterra and headed toward this house.  I was delighted to use the google maps app on my new iPhone to better assist in my already excellent navigational skills!  We were calmly driving along routes 11 & 15 South. Dean found a spot where he wanted to take some shots and told Zak to remember where it was.  In the passenger seat, I looked to see where exactly the turn off was and Dean slowed the car, pulled onto the shoulder, and asked if this is the right road. I respond, “No.”  So he accelerated and merged back onto 11&15.  I corrected myself by saying that “That was the road we wanted to take, but not the same road the house is on.”  Thinking back, his response was, “Ace directions, Andrea.” So chalk it up to misunderstanding, right?

We continue on. I was doing my best to read the road signs and figure out where the next turn was, to get better reception, I held my phone close to the windshield.  I shouted, “That was the turn!”  As we drive by the road, this being our second missed turn and increasing frustration.  Dean slammed on the brakes -they work very well, by the way, turned the car around and continued on our route.  I knew Dean was furious. I wasn’t very happy with my neurons misfiring.  You could cut the tension with a knife.  Zak and I remained silent.  How do I recover from playing the confident idiot?!

Finally, my google map tells me that we’re past the house, which I announced. But thinking of the photo that was posted online, I hadn’t seen anything proving that we had.  Lo and behold, there in front of us the house stood.  Shabby, weather-beaten, old and now I knew why and how it was priced.  We looked around the property for a little while, I didn’t like it enough to care at that point and I think Dean and Zak were more fascinated by the junked cars in the yard. Disappointed, we crawled back in the car but this time we were much less tense and much more interested in getting some odd shots.  Of what, we didn’t know.

More driving and wrong turns were in our future but lo and behold, we did finally get to the abandoned gas station/garage where Dean asked Zak to earmark earlier.  I didn’t have my camera along, so I can only share his photos. I looked around and imagined how this place may have operated in its day.  A  little garage/shop that could have held two cars at most, I pictured a few guys sitting around in their white t-shirts and neatly buzzed hair, having coffee and cigarettes while catching up on local news.  I saw a skull of a deer or something that had horns, near signs that read ‘beware of dogs’ and ‘no tresspassing’.  Watching Dean at his craft is a cathartic experience for me.  He laid on the ground to get the perfect angle for his shots.  A feeling of complete sadness came over me, thinking that where I now stand there used to be life.  Many years after the closing of this old building no one ever thinks of them as anything mre than an eyesore or junkyard.  I am then brought back to assisting my husband with switching lenses or setting up the tripod.  I stand and watch, seeing what is in his mind, how he sees the final product while taking the images.  I guess, in an analogy it’d be stated as such: Dean is to photography as Andrea is to running.  I know his vision is not anything I could see or photograph but in and around life Dean finds art.

Dean shooting a HDR titled "The Elders"

After spending all day Saturday out in the hot sun at our daughter’s field hockey tournament, we planned to attack Sunday with unusual energy.  Constantly running between the kids’ games and practices, we find that most of our weekends are spent at the extremes of straightening the house or lounging about.   It has been a while since we all climbed in the car with nowhere to go and nothing special to see or do. So that’s exactly what we did!  Sunday in the early afternoon, all four of us and the baby (Dean’s Nikon D300) hopped in the family vehicle to a destination to where we rarely ever travel!

With nothing on our minds but a new family adventure, a hint of newness came over me.  It felt good to approach life with a fresh mind, open to explore.  We found our car slowing down around Halfway Dam; we could not resist.  Slowly we pulled the car into the parking space, I heard the gravel under the tires as we came to a stop.  The first door opened.  I felt the hot Spring air sting my face as I stepped out into the afternoon sun.  Seeing photo opportunities all the time, Dean really has become crafty in finding what angles, lighting, and lenses to use in any given situation.  It always amazes me to see him work.  He gets so into his art that my job is not to point things out to him but help him change the lenses and encourage his craft.

In order for you to view any of these images at an excellent resolution/size, you’ll need to become Dean’s contact on Flickr.  He also has posted most of the images on Facebook and JPGmag. After he took some great images of the forest near the dam, we headed up the hill to the overlook area.  This is where things got interesting!  Having little to no expectation sometimes is the best way to go about things. And in this instance it proved correct.  We got to the top of the hill where there is a narrow pull-off on the right hand side of the road. On this day it happened to be lined with cycles.  There were at least 10 bikes there whose owners stood about 20 feet away looking out over the dam talking.  Dean pulled off the road to turn around since there wasn’t a space for us to park and headed back down the hill.  As he was driving away, we talked about how the bikes would be a great untapped resource.  We ran the scenario by one another – ask the owner permission to take a photo, hand him/her a business card, send him/her a print after it has been processed and violá!  We both looked at one another and Dean did exactly what I thought he should, turned the car around.  I was getting a card ready to hand to the bike owner as Dean became excited thinking about how his shots will turn out. He could see the the HDR results in his mind’s eye and just couldn’t resist.

We parked the car and approached the slew of bikers who were laughing and clearly having nice time.  Dean singled out one fellow to ask him which person owned the bike he wanted to take a shot of – the owner agreed.   After asking us if we were cops, which I found humorous, Dean proceeded to take some amazing images.

As we wrapped up the photo session, we waved to and thanked the bikers once again. They all kind of reminded me of my Uncle Jim but that is a whole different story.   We packed up our equipment and headed off to the next destination; taking snaps of the Amish in transit to . . . uh . . . wherever they go on Sunday. Church? One culture to the next, huh?!  Looking back on the day, it was perfect in a number of ways.  Dean has illustrated to me a number of times how serious he is about doing photography full-time and when I see him work I can’t help but think that his talent is somewhat of a waste in an area that underwhelmed is the new overwhelmed.  We continue on though hoping for that shot to get published or to find that perfect studio space.  Everyday one step closer . . .