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..."

But as the light grows dimmer

From atop of this hill it would seem something out of a postcard. It must have some sentimental value; the cars still park alongside the road every now and again to get one for the family photo album. They are just passing through this neck of the woods and took the 30 seconds from their trip to capture this old structure nestled in the hills of Red House, MD. Two-hundred years young and it's still worthy of a photograph. If only everything in this countryside aged that gracefully...

And on this peaceful autumn evening you could imagine that this old dinosaur was doing all right for herself, standing solid and tall as the sun descends behind the hills in my home town. A picture wouldn't suggest diminishing attendance, an aging congregation, a discouraging financial struggle, and a decade of pastors who just didn't give a damn about the good people of this community.

This is where my father went to church, and his father went to church, and his father before him. It's sad to know that in a matter of years this church is on the brink of vanishing altogether. Of course, this photo-worthy building will stand for many years to come. But Christianity 101 is that a church is not a building but a body of people. What I never thought would happen, or at least would never want to admit, is that all it will stand for is as a memorial to 220 years of faith and hope.

Faith...I owe it to lessons learned on the Sunday mornings of my childhood. But as the light grows dimmer the faith fades faster.

"And once your gone you can't come back, when you're out of the blue and into the black."

- Neil Young

Chrome To Dust: An American Tragedy

I don't know how they got there. I don't know where they came from. I am not even certain what make they are...or were. What I am sure about is that when these dinosaurs roamed the American roads, no one foresaw the decline of the American auto industry that is being seen today. Everyday the papers deliver more news on the collapse of an American industry and the desperation in Detroit.

It was the late Johnny Cash that said "Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose, In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes." I wish I could still believe that we are "doin' mighty fine." Like these rusty frames, it looks like the big three in Detroit are being swallowed into the ground.

I'm no expert; I dont know the entire story of how things got to this point. And I don't know how these old relics of a younger and healthier auto industry made it onto my Grandma's farm to be forgotten. What I do know is this story is of an American tragedy being written everyday before our very eyes. So when will the last page be written? We don't know the ending to this story either.

Every Picture Tells a Story...

Everyone knows that a picture tells a story. What many don't know is the story behind the taking of the picture, which can be just as interesting many times. This shot was taken around 9:30. The building is the old Red House Elementary School. The school shut down when I was in the fourth grade. All the kids were shipped to the newly-built and modern consolidated school closer to town. And so this old brick structure stands down the street from my house like an aging ghost; and we all know that old buildings take on a form of their own at night. They have since turned it into an antique mall and during the day the seniors will brush the dust off of old glass dishes in a building that used to be bustling with the restless energy only kids can have at the end of another school day.

I figured I would give her, this now-quiet building where my dad and his dad used look out the windows and wait for 3:00 o' clock, one last visit. And in the night the presence of this building brings back memories of days gone by. Part of me was left at that school.

And to everybody else, this picture will not mean anything. But to me, it will tell all the stories of my school days, of my first friends, my first day of education, and the gym teacher's lectures for acting up in lunch (had a few of those lectures). Towson University is a long ways down the way from a small brick school in the countryside. But I'll always keep the memories of this building close to me.

Star Effects

There are many filters that can be put on the end of a camera for special effects. One that creates a unique effect is called a star-effects filter. For an SLR camera, digital or film, the lens is threaded at the end. A filter will screw into the end of the lens. In the case of a star-effects filter, the filter can be turned on the end of the lens once it has been screwed in. What it does is any point of light the camera is pointed at, such as a streetlight or the sun or the moon, the filter will create the effect of steaks of light coming off of that light, creating a "star" effect. If used properly, it can add a dramatic and powerful effect to an image. It will cause the image to stand out and take the viewer's attention immediately. One instance that I used the star effect filter was on a closeup of our Christmas tree at home, creating a radient image. The filter can be turned in order to position the streaks of light perfectly for the composition.

In order to show what is meant by a star effects filter, here are two images that have become favorites of mine. I took the same pictures without the filter and they are not worth a second look.