I Married a Photographer

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.