Nine in the Evening

"...son take a good look around. This is your hometown."

- Bruce Springsteen



" As the grey unyielding concrete, makes a city of my town."

- Flogging Molly

At nine in the evening, a hush falls on my small town and those lights shine down on ghost streets. If you want to walk them, you must want to walk alone. Maybe you need to get away from those you know a little too well (it is a small town by the way). Or do you want to feel the cool air while you try to forget the day? Still, it may that you are tired of the intimacy and isolation of being young in a small town.

Last May I went to the overlook to witness the hush at nightfall for myself. From here you can see the town in its entirety. Here you can see each of the six banks within a mile radius of each other. Over there is First United, down the street is M&T. The next block up is Susquehanna. It's as if this small town doesn't have enough places to hold all its money.

Over to your left is Shaffer Ford and Team One Chevrolet. They used to put them oversized extended-cab trucks out front. Now they hardly keep 'em on the lot. I guess everyone doesn't want to take all their money out of all the banks.

You can also see the lights of the six gas stations. What you can't make out from up here is the numbers on those signs that didn't want to stop last summer; it was 10 cents, 20 cents a day. I am glad that you can't see them from up here. I wouldn't want to put an imperfection on this scene.

In the middle of all this stands is the Oak-Lee Dairy Land, as it has for the last 50 summers. You and your girlfriend went there on the first date. After 50 summers they tore it down when the dollar amount was right. Now there is a sign that says "Coming Soon: Walgreens Pharmacy." I suppose that makes sense when there is a CVS right across the street.

I heard someone argue that Walgreens is open 24 hours a day as if there was going to be someone down there that is going to break the stillness of the night.

"I suppose that's a sign that Oakland's getting bigger," my uncle said. And it most definately is. My dad always tells me about the time that there was no Pizza Hut, no Green Acres, and no Dollar General. And I can remember the time there was no Taco Bell, no CVS, and no Wal-Mart.

Just this year they opened up Lowes and are starting construction on a Dairy Queen. This is the home town not as it is remembered. Changes come as a part of life.

But one thing doesn't change: nine in the evening. Every night at this time the silence lingers under the street lights. My picture is a falsehood, because as the world is moving at the speed of light, this town sleeps quietly tonight.

A Representation of Energy

"Can you feel the energy? It's gaining strength oh so slowly."

- AFI

An image should capture the feelings and energy of an exact moment in time. That, to me, constitutes a good photograph. It isn't about the image quality, color saturations, lighting, or even the composition. If an image can symbolize every feeling, emotion, and thought in one instant, than it has served its purpose.

In the past few years, I have had the chance to take hundreds of photos at concerts my freinds have performed. I even get in free because of this. It must be the most difficult task however, as a photographer, to capture even one image that is a perfect representation of the energy at a live show.

The shutter speed is slowed down to 2 seconds to capture the movement of the music one feels in the audience. Black and white film was used because I wanted to give it an old school, unpolished look that coincided with the band's music.

This photograph is of my freind Mike Murphy, playing with his band Arson Decor in 2007. Of all the live shots, this one continues to be my favorite.

The band May have broken up later that year, but at the very least this image will be here as a representation of energy of the show that night. Many things over the years may be fleeting. Taking taking photos is to help them live on at least in memory.

Throwaway Roses

"...that I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel."

- The Cure

Late one Saturday night in November of 2007, my manager brought back a dozen roses that had begun to wither and tossed them in the already overflowing trash cans. The customers had passed over them and they had begun to die. Roses, by nature, have always been one of the most picture-perfect subjects. Their symbolism abounds with love, beauty, purity, and frailty. Something inside me caused me to pick out four of these wilted throwaways and carry them out of the store and into the night.

At one in the morning...the time of night when the world moves slower and thoughts flow easier, I put the blacklight behind those flowers. Their silouettes created something that was moving that I couldn't quite understand. And rarely will I understand how an image moves me until I look back at the moment and see how much of my thoughts and feelings are reflected and are now held there forever. It was a fleeting rare moment (here in my basement at one a.m. of all times) that the image truely and to the deepest level becomes a reflection. I once had an English teacher years ago that writers create some of their best work in moments of extreme excstasy or in moments deepest despair. That was what happens the moment you allow your entire self to come through. And I am thankful of those moments.

The first is titled "PostLustPop" and the second is titled "That's Love, Not Lust..."