Anatomy of a Working Shoot

Back in my earlier, more naive days of practicing photography, somewhere along the line I'd gotten it into my head that I had the stuff to do working shoots, photographing weddings and events and whatnot. This back when all I really had a grasp on was an innate sense of aesthetic appeal and amateur (at best) knowledge of the mechanics of photography from a more technical standpoint. These days I parade the equivalent around as "faux-tographers", even though they are little more than mirror images of a state of progress I myself stumbled through foolishly (about the only way one can stumble through such a phase, really).

For the better part of 2 years I booked occasional weekend wedding shoots. The images I took weren't necessarily bad, but definitely indicative that I only had a shallow understanding of what and how to photograph a busy event. My tools at the time were none too helpful either; a Nikon E8700 (Coolpix superzoom), a wide and telephoto adapter lens for aforementioned camera, a fully manual off-brand Quantaray flash and lens hood to allow for filters. I'm rather convinced the only thing that set my images apart from anything that could've been captured with any old point and shoot was in the editing I'd put the images through once back home. Again, the results weren't terrible, nothing like the standard extreme white vignetting and flat black and white or selective color images that float around these days from "faux-tographers", but certainly not material from a competent and established artist and businessman.

After a few gigs, my taste for paid, working photography declined sharply. Photography was still about discovery to me at the time, not about homogenization and putting out a consistent product. Granted, although we never stop learning, the collection of knowledge of new techniques and which practices worked and (arguably more importantly) which didn't was too much at the forefront of my growth experience in the trade and working assignments rarely allow the latitude of quality consistency to allow for experimentation of growth in one's imaging style.

Fast forward 3 years.

Earlier this year I was already 100% gun-ho about starting my own business and once again stepping into the realm of working photography. Granted, that motivational drive suffered one hell of a setback with events that precipitated exactly 1 day before their full crystallization (in the form of a signed studio lease), but after months and months of time wasted dwelling on events long past and goals delayed due to events out of my control, I'm once again at that point from 6 months ago, ready to leap into my art form as a business venture. I've been posturing it quite nicely already, what with low key marketing and mostly web-based awareness campaigns designed to emphasize my own eye for things more than a product or service (just yet, anyway). After a few years shooting strictly for myself, my portfolio is horribly dry of material from working photography sessions, so I knew I would need the help of local, likely known clientele, friends or family or co-workers, to construct a portfolio of images exemplary of what I could consistently produce on contract assignments. And sure enough, my first customer contracted me last week for a shoot this past Sunday, a family oriented (but mostly daughter oriented) photoshoot. Once again, I had to get my business face on and work my professionalism into a less dusty state. Luckily, the clients being known friends and co-workers, this first shoot out of "retirement" was much more comfortable and casual than even past shoots ever were. Still, it was good to get my toes in that sand again.

Being good buddies already, we met up at a mutually agreed upon location such that I could drop off my car and hitch a ride to the location of the photoshoot. The client's in-laws happened to have a little horse ranch and small collection of their own equine pets, and the subject of this shoot was very generally kept at arranged family and (mostly) candid daughter photos while she rode horseback on her very own pony, Beauty. We'd been humoring this shoot for some time, but I was reticent to take up the job until my Olympus 45mm f/1.8 came in. As clean as the images are from the Panasonic 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6, and as fast as Olympus' own kit 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 is in the 25-35mm range comparatively, nothing would quite stand up to the kind of crisp and creamy subject isolation I knew would be possible with that 90mm f/1.8 equivalence of Oly's 45mm. Eager as we both were to enter into this shoot, I knew it would be worth waiting. And my oh my are we both glad we waited for the "pro tools" to come in.

Once we'd arrived at the ranch, I introduced myself to the in-laws who would inevitably be part of the shoot, firm handshakes and all. The in-laws themselves being strangers, I took the professional route and declined the beer I was offered. Most importantly, I introduced myself to the dogs adamantly slobbering for my attention (everyone knows if the dogs love you then you must be an okay guy). Without much ado, my client got her daughter dressed up in her most cow girlish outfit (sans hat, unfortunately, although that isn't to say we didn't try) and got right into shooting.

Prior to the full preparation of the star of the show, I stepped outside to tune my camera to the light available. Daylight savings time had kicked in the night before and my judgement of sunset's arrival was unfortunately quite off. Light was very quickly waning behind the cover of trees, and my shooting was mostly decided by the location it best gleamed through the interrupting branches. It all worked out in the end, though, with enough light to allow for reasonable shutter speeds but the proper lack of it to permit the delicious bokeh of f/1.8. We tried to get some moving shots, but sadly the light wasn't bright enough to permit anything but still capture. Still, the images came out gorgeous, the lens rendering important subject features with the crisp look expected, and Olympus' e-portrait algorithm providing an even better base image from which to tack on my considerably subtle layers of edits. It was a fantastic shoot, and the client was/is more than satisfied.

After the shoot was the part of a photographic effort I'd usually skipped in my younger years, but certainly proved pleasant and an appropriate closure to the evening. After a good hour, maybe hour and a half of shooting, we all retired to the Quarterfield Grill and sat down to have ourselves an absolutely delicious dinner. Granted, I already had a previously strong relationship with my client this time around, but assuming we'd known nothing about each other, we engaged in avid conversation that constructed the basis of what I'd understand to be good rapport. She liked the shots even before I'd gone at them in post, and with an already good impression made the experience leaped from professional encounter to casual chit-chat. Once home, I immediately set forth to touch up a few choice images and put together a DVD consisting of the original images, 4x6 crops and 8x10 crops, the sizes most commonly printed and certainly more than necessary given how simple printing is these days. Before handing off the disc the following workday, I'd already uploaded the choice edits to Flickr to share (after previously attaining permission to upload the images, of course). The client was only more eager to get her hands on the final disc.

Compared to my experiences years ago shooting images within the working frame and mindset... the experience has been night and day. The weddings and events I photographer between 2006-2008 felt like work, with minimal enjoyment involved and the lack of creative experimentation permitted at the time feeling like a clamp on my muse. Granted, being that this recent session was with a friend and co-worker the experience is ultimately bound to be more positive by default, but the experience of shooting felt very different nonetheless. I didn't feel the strict set of rules bearing down on me this time around because I already knew what was going to work and I already knew what I wanted the images to look like. On top of that, there was no doubt in my mind that the images I was shooting for would be liked by the client because I already had a portfolio to share of similar images and the client already liked them. Unlike 2006-2008, I have a style now, a trademark method and vision that is desired and deliberately sought after (so much so that the client was willing to wait 2 months for a lens acquisition). The working experience of photography is now less a stumble through swampy waters of unease and MUCH more a determined, marathon jogger's pace of following a defined route from checkpoint to checkpoint. I am not guessing at my performance and behavior anymore. I know what I am doing.

Time to find the next gig to book!

Coffee House Encounters (Playing with the 45mm)

If the day is sunny and the quality of light is good, it's hard for me not to gravitate immediately to the coffee shop behind my apartment, camera in hand. Paired with a direct invitation, I will tie up my boss and shove him in a closet just to sneak out early and spend some time around the photogenic people I've occasionally heard referred to as "friends".

Yesterday Autumn found herself bored and with a lump of free time, and she was gracious enough to give me a ring to see if I would join her company at the coffee house once I got out of work. Not meaning to come off as desperate (but totally doing so in spades), I informed her that I would leave work that very moment, drop my car off at home and be right there. Autumn ends up being the subject of my coffee house shenanigans fairly often. We were good friends in high school and continue to be uniquely awkward to the rest of our tribe of friends, but we both like out on-the-line outsider stance and appreciate one another for walking that line. Usually I come by her by chance as she's sipping a latte and reading a book. On this occasion she was specifically pleased with what she'd done with her hair that morning and, knowing she'd probably never manage the same "do" again by intent, aimed to not only play our weekly game of pastime catch-up, but to also have her "do" immortalized by the lens. I was certainly not one to object. I'm a hair guy, after all.

Needless to say, we had a good time chatting, sipping coffee and shooting. Easily spent a good couple hours afterward idly blabbing about our work, squatter's rights in regards to foreclosed homes and "fauxtographers" (my favorite subject). Good times all around.

On a side note, at the suggestion of a good friend I've taken to increasing my activity on Flickr, from spreading out into more groups, actually participating in those groups instead of using them as hollow photo dumps and basically using Flickr as it was always intended to be used (not just an online backup). Reluctant though I was at first, I am now thoroughly addicted to the more social aspect of Flickr. I'm bouncing from group to group actually eager to see the next post, making connections with other photographers directly, contributing suggestions and participating in thread-run topics and contests... it's a lot of fun. Wish I'd been doing this all along.

Oh, and as a side effect, my typical 40-50 views a day has suddenly rocketed to over 1000. Whoops! Who knew?   :)

Holiday Nostalgia (Where Were You?)

Holidays are fun because they're a great launching point from which to leap back into memory and see where you've been, how far you've come, so on and so forth. Sometimes it's just fun to sit and think back on what you were doing that day. And, being a holiday, it's usually a tad easier to remember than, say, some random day in the middle of September.

I remember Halloween last year pretty clearly. Helps that I enjoyed a bit of photography and exploration to ignite the synapses. It was a mostly cloudy say, chilly but not bitter, and I was horribly bored. Ventured to Starbucks for a change of scenery and had myself an Americano, quad shot, 3 packets of Splenda and a heap of creamer. Ran into my friend Autumn who was also bored that day and opted to enjoy some fresh air over a good book. I sat down with her for a short while and we chatted about this and that, but then we got the crazy idea of indulging in a bit of urbex to mark the holiday proper. At the time, there was only really one place worth going (and I will forever miss it), so we ventured to our spot and proceeded to inhale the stale air and enjoy ourselves, immersed in the history around us.

We landed ourselves in the offices of abundant filing cabinets and patient files, record books and incident reports. Most of our time that evening we spent absorbing the lost textual record of the goings on of the place. It was Autumn's first time being there and words had always held her attention better than lonely chairs and peeling paint. We sat in a room full of student desks, sunlight just barely pressing over the concrete wall outside and pouring through the long shattered bay window. She read from the records and reports, telling me stories of violence and delinquency, all while I snapped photos of the various relics collecting dust and cobwebs in the room. It was a good time.

Lately I've actually been rather sad that this particular locale has recently outweighed its risk/reward balance. A definite shame, I feel as if a great potential had yet to be unlocked with all of my visits there. But that's another story entirely. Besides, I'm quite happy I had the chance to enjoy the place at all.

So where did you folks spend your Halloween?

Playing with Pop Art

Friday of last week I was itching to shoot something. Seems to happen whenever I go too long without photographing something meaningful for myself - the images resulting may look like crap, but it's the act, and the zen state of mind associated, that calls me back behind the lens. The day job consumed just enough of my morning to let the good light shine in, and then it was off to one of the calmer, more low-key locales to hike and snap a few for enjoyment.

I'd had Olympus' 45mm f/1.8 lens on order for nearly 6 weeks, and would have much rather been out and about with that speed demon mounted on the E-P3, but instead I made do with Panasonic's 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom dialed all the way in to 45mm to try and force myself to learn and think with the 45mm (90mm, really) focal length. Locked in at f/5.6 as my best speed, the only method I had of isolating a subject was through proximity, so I pushed the lens as hard as I could to behave in macro fashion. And it held up surprisingly well, with a fairly close distance available in manual focus. More often than not, I found myself focusing by moving myself in and out rather than turning a dial. Novel method of focusing, really.

This Autumn has been the most colorful. Likely due to the incessant, pummeling rainfall that has plagued the Northeast since early Summer, a majority of the vegetation was in a black-and-white state of either alive or dead. Disappointing, really, since Autumn's defining aspect is the flood of warm color associated with it. Utilizing my own custom color profile for the E-P3's JPGs, everything looked depressing no matter the framing. Let down by my own presets, I decided to give some of Olympus' art filter modes a whirl.

Typically I avoid built-in, canned filter effect modes, but I remembered having a good amount of success with them when using the XZ-1. Olympus really does work some magic with its JPG handling - not only is every facet of how the camera generates a JPG available for your tweaking pleasure (all the way down to tone curves), but its preset options work like some genius magic. The first art filter mode on the list of the E-P3 was "Pop Art", and swtiching to it, the color on the back of the LCD exploded into an array of deliciously autumnal hues that blew the real-life equivalent away. Contrasty reds and blues invaded the world as seen on that little LCD panel, and suddenly I was inspired to shoot everything for sake of seeing how gorgeously the E-P3 would render it.

That camera is really spoiling me.

Aside from the array of filter-augmented JPGs I did try some RAW shooting. Curiosity got the better of me, and since ACR finally acquired RAW format support for the E-P3 I knew I wouldn't be content until I tried it, so I shot a few bracketed RAWs for assembly into HDR images later. Far less satisfying than simply getting a great JPG while there on the scene. The HDR images came out okay, but were not nearly as thrilling to capture knowing that most of the work would require slavery to post. But for sake of making the process easier during shooting, the E-P3 again impressed me by seeming abnormally quick from shot to shot. I remember shooting the GF1 bracketed for RAW capture and the process began with 2 quick shots and 5 more lumbering and slow ones. With the E-P3, each shot came and passed as quick as the last with no lag time associated with shutter reset. Nice. But I was more excited to be cranking out awesome JPG after awesome JPG.

Nothing is more pleasing than having a strong image right out of the box needing the most minimal touch in post to electrify with beauty.

As fortune would finally have it, my 45mm f/1.8 arrived in the mail this past Tuesday. It's rainy, but I'm slated to meet with some good friends at the local coffee house to enjoy some conversation and candid photos. I'm lucky to have a group of friends versed enough in my company to ignore the camera. I get the best shots with them.

Hopefully I'll have some nice samples to share after today.

Missing the Old Timey Tech

Last night was a weird night, marked by multifaceted dreams that explored some oft neglected elements of my psyche. My subconscious saw fit to have me lewdly behaving in a department store, exhaust myself in a full sprint for 20 minutes running from police, and out of the blue, purchasing a traditional DSLR and indulging in the simple joy that I do find myself missing at times - composing through an optical viewfinder.

It's been just over a year since my diving board leap into the mirror-less pond. Not that I regret the switch at all, the advantages of size and weight with a mirror-less system are enormously beneficial to a person taken to photographing the things I'm most apt to photograph. The cameras are small and easy to finagle into tight spaces, the lenses are tiny and only require a pocket instead of a bag. Perfect matches to the urbex aficionado. But I'm not exclusive to shooting scenes of abandonment. And although these tiny mirror-less wonders are just as capable of capturing a strong image as any bulky penta-prism equipped behemoth, there's a very abstract, unquantifiable level of connection to the subject that can be experienced when photographing through an optical viewfinder that no EVF can match.

Shooting through an LCD screen introduces a degree of detachment that can make candid photography difficult. The screen may have some ungodly refresh rate, the signal boost that makes low-light imaging on the screen possible may be clean and superb, but my mind recognizes the experience like viewing a television screen. I am not there, what I am viewing on the LCD is not actually happening and I am just taking a snapshot of the program that's on. It's a weird feeling, honestly. With laborious and slow landscape shooting it doesn't tend to be so bad because my attention is directly on the subject and my mind is calculating how to capture much the way the mind process shooting a classic large format camera. There is time to consider the shot. But with candid snap shooting, sitting at a coffee shop with friends and taking photos or sitting around a dance circle as other artists engage in their own art form, the screen is an interruption. Through an optical viewfinder, I am still there, I am still engaged with the scene and acting as a participant. Through an EVF, I am an observer, disconnected and watching the show on TV. It's a very strange feeling.

In this past year, shooting with EVIL cameras has taught me many critical lessons about imaging. I am now much more mindful of aspect ratios and how aspect cropping can lend strength to an image (before I was typically locked into the 3:2 native aspect forced by Nikon's optical viewfinders). With the electronic level built into the E-P3, I've learned a great deal about balancing parallels in an image and correcting for inherent distortion in whatever optic I happen to be using. But there are many times when I wish I could simply forget those now deep rooted considerations and relearn how to shoot the subject for sake of shooting the subject. I take to photographing candid images frequently but find my ability to do so comfortably is spoiled by distractions such as "these lines aren't parallel" or "the verticals aren't straight" and actually devalue an image based on those very fickle pretenses.

This stage in my artistic process seems very convoluted. Recently I became aware of the relative unknown site that is Beauty of Decay, an international collective of urbex photography that pushes the envelope of art in much the fashion of 1x. The images hosted by the gallery are absolutely gorgeous, painterly as opposed to documentarian (which is where I feel my images now stand). My appreciation for the high art of photography is very much at odds with my appreciation of the experience of photography that I enjoy, and so I am at a crossroads. I can either pursue the high art, photograph much the way I have been in the past year and hone the skill to produce emotive, quality images, or I can stagnate to the point of artistic degradation, act in true Zen fashion and forget the process and knowledge I have attained so that I can enjoy the act of photographing all over again without the muddied considerations I've adopted. Much as I dwell on these choices, they do not seem to blend at all. They are mutually exclusive paths. The pursuit of one can only come at the sacrifice of the other. I will either be the revered artist or I will enjoy taking pictures.

It's a headache inducing train of thought, really. I miss when photography was simpler. Alas, now I am burdened by knowledge.

That Warm Blanket Feeling (Part 2)

More post-rock musical wonderment played over the car's speakers, familiar walls of sound that put the heavier aspects of thought at ease but let the creativity and inspiration to flow through, like a mental filter.

Both suffering from pangs of hunger interrupting the serenity of our otherwise candid moment, we decided upon a very hole-in-the-wall looking buffet which only portrayed itself in such a fashion from the bland, blank exterior. Inside, fountains and tall ceilings and a sprawling banquet awaited us, and we indulged in it proper. A filling hour long interlude during which we brainstormed our next adventure from approach to execution. Bill paid, we made our way back onto lonely Pennsylvania roads.

The drive was short compared to the one preceding it, far less distance needing to be covered. It did bring us through a before unseen portion of the city we found ourselves in, and if not for time constraint laid upon us by prior scheduled engagements we could've spent the rest of the day walking those streets and photographing the very old architecture that screamed early 1900's origin. Being a Sunday and still early by Sunday standard, the streets were effectively empty, making the few wanderers navigating the concrete jungle stand out as starkly removed subjects against a mostly stone and brick background. We mutually agreed the city required a return at some point for an early morning street walk and photoshoot, but our objective at hand was in a far bleaker region of the city.

Parked and again loaded up, we made our way to a familiar location. My "guide" had frequented the old industrial icon more than half a dozen time, knowing the place in and out, its dangers and risks and where the best light showed through. Some time early in the year I'd made my own journey to the place for some early morning images myself, but we were arriving at noon, and the light was bound to behave very differently. Despite a familiar entry and familiar layout, the deep spaces within the building harbored a completely different look than ever before, almost bleaker, certainly more depressed and gray than when cast in the encouraging glow of morning's rays. Because the origins of good light were limited, our shooting session did not last particularly long. Only one space managed to carry any semblance of warmth, a machine space with a mostly destroyed window frame. Our passing had kicked up a storm of dust that made the beams of light visible, tangible things, so clear that one could almost touch them, grab them and shape them. Easily the most beautiful scene the place had to offer at that time of day. A quick venture to some other commonly frequented spaces and we were very much ready to turn ourselves into the much more mundane schedules awaiting us for the rest of the day.

The ride back to the park & ride was quiet. We were both exhausted from a solid half-day of adventuring, both churning through ideas on how to best present the images when the time came to sit in front of the computer and slave away in post. Something about the nature of the shooting we both had an affinity for conducting, for the rest of the day everything else felt amazingly droll compared to what was accomplished prior, like a soldier who had seen much heavier realities than the one he came home to. Not that it necessarily was a depressing line of thought that ruined the rest of the day, quite the contrary. I had just returned home from being out at sea for months and exploring uncharted islands and bringing home souvenirs to share with those mutually curious. I felt pleased, enlightened, eager to share the stories of the places I'd been. Were I less sapped of energy I would've asked if my partner in crime felt a similar pedestal of enlightenment complex after returning to more normal things after having been so completely detached. Guess that's one for next time.

We parted pleasantly, both of us with things to attend to. So much time had already been spent in a vehicle that I took the time to stretch, my back aching as it's apt to do when locked into a seat of any kind for too long. It had been a good day, and I could've fallen asleep with utmost satisfaction that it could not have gone any better at that point, but alas there were still another 8 hours to spend doing something, thus I spent that time with family to bring myself down from my quixotic high amid good company. I shared my sense of accomplishment, shared some of the rough images on the camera prior to the editing I would later apply. I shared the story of the stranger I may as well have known already based on how ridiculously much we shared in common. And upon going to bed, the satisfaction of the day refused to wane...

...I dreamed of photographing some more.

That Warm Blanket Feeling (Part 1)

Setting an alarm the night prior wasn't even necessary.

My eyes opened with motivated intent to a dark room, the only semblance of light coming into focus being a street light bleeding through jostling blinds and casting uneven shadows on me and the wall. Squinting, opening wide, squinting again, I forced my vision into clarity on the digital clock a few feet away. 5:30am, on a clock that was ritualistically 15 minutes fast. Through the slats of the blinds there wasn't even a hint of twilight in the sky. A smile sneaked its way onto my disheveled morning face.

Quietly, with the stealth technique employed by a child on Christmas morning, I slipped off the couch on which I slept, careful not to conjure a ruckus that might disturb my partner still asleep on the opposite end of that same couch. I'd showered the night prior, so a quick splash of cold water served as my only morning jolt before completion of all the other standard niceties of grooming. Clothes selection would be the most important choice of the day: long pants against which to defend against insect tag alongs and little cuts and scrapes, a long sleeve thermal shirt for warmth in the chilly morning and again to protect against those little scrapes, thick palmed gloves good for climbing, heavy, weather resistant boots for trudging through less than kind terrain... the essentials. Camera gearing choices were easy: the E-P3 equipped with the 14mm f/2.5 pancake prime, my primary workhorse equipments, and the XZ-1 for quick snaps, references and anything better handled in a focal length deeper than a 28mm perspective. No bags, no spare lenses... no need. Just a pocket rocket, a pancake equipped artist's tool and a sling bag to hang onto a sturdy, versatile tripod. If any photographer were to tell me I was ill-equipped for my intended outing I would've had difficulty fighting back the appropriate bellow of insulting laughter.

Loaded up and armed with a working man's Dunkin' Donut breakfast and coffee, I made my way to a local Park & Ride rendezvous with a fellow photographer with similar taste in subject matter. I'd followed his work for the better part of a year, and was finally set to collaborate with an eye which held my utmost respect, and working with him would certainly be no disappointment. Once I arrived and parked my vehicle, we made quick introductions that felt less like first impressions and more like reconnoitering with a friend who hadn't been seen in some time. But there was no time for lengthy chat in a parking lot, the sun was still barely readying for its rise, and a soft blue hue was sneaking into the sky from the East. We had places to go, at least one destination in mind specifically. With businesslike purpose and intent, we loaded up into his vehicle and sped off on the highways again, ready to exercise the creative engine driving us both.

The drive to our intended locale wasn't a short one, offering us ample time to make with the small talk traditional of first time encounters. Strangely, we only seemed to uncover commonalities. It was already apparent that our preferences in camera gear and photographic subjects were incredibly similar, a simple review of our online galleries and a look at the cameras in our hands would have told that story to a complete stranger. While on the drive North, however, the music playing over his car's speakers caught my attention, the telling, genre-defining sounds of post-rock invading my ears. Still a relatively "underground" style of music to date, though certainly accruing more and more market attention with its unique tone. It was an immediate ice breaker, upon which the conversation blossomed into shared experiences and stages of life where only more parallels were drawn. The resultant sense of ease, the warmth of company typically reserved for close family, the immediate brotherhood... suddenly the entire morning felt like a long awakening accompanied by butterfly warmth teasing the belly. A very good morning.

Past the foggy flat spans of farmland, past the bases of rolling hills and gorgeous morning mountain views, we arrived at our destination... sort of. Parked in a quaint little neighborhood, a burrow shoehorned into the sides of steep hills bleeding into the mountain range just miles away, we collected our gear and set forth, through thick brush and onto the disused steel tracks that would serve as our makeshift guide. The sun was still working up the muster to completely rise, peeking curiously over the horizon and bathing the retreating fog in a rich golden light. That sight, the slow and staggered process of the sun rising, would be the backdrop by which we conducted the remains of our journey, the awesome spectacle unable to slow us in our focused trek. We had a building to photograph. A history to record. Something forgotten to remember. We would see a thousand glorious sunrises before our lifetimes were spent. Our determination demanded we seek out a subject far more fickle and transient. And just over the hill, with a view over the sprawling flat land to the East, we met our fickle friend.

Inside the building we both entered the trance-like state iconic of the diligent worker, the focused photographer, attention impossible to divert. Words went unspoken, sound passe, we invested all of our senses into the act of photography. Softly stepping about the quiet, still space, we soaked in the atmosphere, the chipped paint and rusted hinges, stained doorknobs and splintered floor. We took time to recognize the relics left behind, scattered mail carpeting the floor and lost literature discarded, lost and forgotten. Hours were lost in that building, time spent to piece together a mental image of its better days. Crutches, rotary phones, cushioned chairs and sewing machines, all items that could've told wonderful stories of their own if imbued with the power of speech.

It was a wonderful place. A wonderful time.

With the same clandestine nature employed in our approach, we made our departure once the inspiration of the place was exhausted. Stopping only momentarily for the farewell courtesy of a few snaps of the building's exterior, we made our way through miserably dense woods and back to our steel tracked guide. The sun had finally managed to achieve a full presence in the sky, pleasantly bathing us in the chill of the shade. It shared the satisfaction of a job well done, of accomplishment. Once again at the car, unpacked and relaxed in the seats, we took a mutual deep breath, engulfing fresher air like some life giving mist. The clock barely read shy of noon, and already our parallel minds erupted with the same idea.

Where to now?