Little house in IA

I'm in Algona, IA. I have been here fore a few days, tortured with lovely clear blue skies and was unable to go out and explore because of work. The truck stop is filled with trucks and their Wind Turbine parts, and the delivery site is slowly allowing everyone to unload. All this delay because of the crap weather from last week. Farm fields are extra soft and the crewmen can only do so much in a day. Since we have to wait until it is 100% sure that we are not delivering I can't roam too from the truck stop.

Sigh....

Fortunately today I was able to break free and drive about 15 miles or so East from Algona and venture into another house!

The house was amongst overgrown weeds and inside were several pieces of farm related equipment such as tractor tires and metal barrels.. The roof in the back of the house had collapsed in and the room was filled with earthy organic material. Windows were broken and the front door was left wide open.

I gingerly stepped in and carefully explored the first floor. There was a second level and I was brave enough to venture about four steps up before I thought better of it and quickly returned to the base level. I am NOT brave enough to explore an unstable second level without someone around to help.. Not yet at least. :P

Mason City, IA

Just a few images I took while walking around the downtown area of Mason City, IA.

Back in Iowa

We stopped in Algona, IA yesterday with plenty of daylight hours available for me to go off an explore a little old farm house about an hour away. I saw it while we were driving to our destination. The composition of the property was so enchanting I knew I had to rush back and explore the premise with my camera!

This wasn't a completely abandoned property, though the house is far from being used by anyone! While looking around the house itself I cam across several bee hives and metal barrels used to help smoke the bees for honey collection. I was lucky that it was a cool October day otherwise I might have pissed off some angry bees!! :P

The house itself was very small! Not much was left behind from previous occupants except for a twin size bed in the tiny front bedroom and a kitchen sink attached to the frame of a window. There was no going inside! the floor was obviously to fragile!

I was actually worried that I would be caught snooping around this house. It was located off a busy Hwy and a farmhouse was located not to far from the place. I wasn't sure if they owned the bee hives or not..

Though the light wasn't so bad at certain angles, it could have been better. A Midday sun would have been better for photographing the tiny bedroom in the front. In fact the hole front side of the building was in the shadow because of a late afternoon light source.

Wandering Kansas

Again I am in KS with tons of extra time to kill! So I figured that I could just drive around and look for "new" Old houses to explore. I did find two decrepit buildings, but they lacked in interest compared to previous buildings.

The first one (pictured below) kinda scared me a bit. The front was filled with large buzzing flies and inside the main room was a small dead bird hanging from a wire. This is NOT the first time I came across a dead bird inside an abandoned Kansas house. I'm beginning to think that there is some strange cultish activity going on in the Sunflower State.......

I also didn't enter the building because the inside looked unsteady to me. I make it a rule not to damage, touch or move anything when I explore decaying homes. Partly out of respect and partly out of not wanting to leave any evidence of my presence to the current owners of the property.

The second building that I found may not actually have been abandoned. It caught my attention because it was brightly colored with green and pink walls. Most of the property around the building was mowed and there were plenty of cement bricks laying around. It looked like the house may have been recently under renovation but the project was put on hold or something. I did walk up to the where a door would have hung and looked inside. the place was a mess but I could see from an odd angle that there was a telescope and a printer still there. Also I think I may have hear what sounded like a TV around the corner. The sound was faint so I am not really positive if I actually heard it or not. Surely if there was anyone there they could have heard me walking up to the door. I wasn't exactly quiet as a mouse with my feet stomping through the overgrown weeds. I thought it best to walk away toward my car and head out. Don't know how someone, if there was anything there, would react to my snooping around.

Post Cards and Statements!

Picked up my postcards for the Passing Strangers exhibit this November.. They look good for what I paid for them.. I couldn't afford the high quality cards that the Trinity Gallery paid for for my last show but I am happy with what I got from Staples..

Its not a real gallery that I am showing my work at this time. The Cafe Ole is a cafe chain in Downtown Trenton. The owner has wall space available and allows a different artist to present his or her work each month. The artist is responsible for everything from hanging to promoting the show. A lot of work but the pay off is that there is no commission to pay if a piece sells.

The statement:

My original intention was to express an innate desire to capture my subjects as I had originally found them. To present my viewers with images depicting unknown individuals who had evoked my artistic curiosity by seizing both my attention and imagination during my travels.

However, after reviewing my images for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me that I wasn’t actually photographing these wonderful individuals solely for their unique character and mystery as I originally thought or believed. I was, in fact, documenting myself.

The formation of an identity is a life long process and it is through these fleeting moments with complete strangers that I am able to see more clearly the complexity of my own identity both culturally and artistically. The individuals who I had chosen to capture with my camera are those who, in one way or another, reflected elements of my own uncharted and developing self. For me they represent my undiluted curiosity of the world around me, a gambit of emotions often felt at once and a constantly developing perspective. I see myself in Passing Strangers

Passing Strangers

I finally finally finally finished my artist statement for my show this November.

Why does it take me so long to write a few sentences about why I make the art I make??? I'm beginning to accept that words are not my creative medium. I can go on for ever talking/writing about the most random topics, but when it is time to focus on a subject my mind freezes up and all the wonderful ideas that came out so organically before is dammed up in some dark closet at that back of my mind! I envy those who talents lie with language.. i wish I could dance as gracefully with words as those around me do.

After a month of battling writers block with constant revisions I managed to finally find a focus and in the process was able to send everything in on time to the gallery director. :P

The show is titled Passing Strangers.

Its an exhibition of portraits that I had taken during my travels. Through these encounters with these complete strangers I can see or better understand aspects of my own identity. They reflect, for me, emotions I was feeling or they help me to better understand and define my own individual culture. We tend to see ourselves through our views of others.

Juke Joint Bartender (2008)

Opening reception is:

Friday, November 13 at 6pm.

Cafe Ole

126 S. Warren St.

Trenton, NJ

Monument Rocks of Kansas

Kansas adventure during the Labor Day weekend..

Small Town Texas

I have spent quite a bit of time in this small Texan town because of the windtower business. But for the first time this weekend I got to see the nooks and crannies that often eluded me. Why or how could I have missed these wonderful detail? I'm afraid to say that I had originally assumed that there wasn't anything here of too much interest. obviously I was wrong.

Great adventures happen only when the adventurer is ready to shed preconceived notions and run wild..

New beginnings

Today is the start of a new direction.. 

A better direction. 

A direction designed for me.. 

"It is not until we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves" - HDT

Memphis, Texas

Early morning hours in Memphis, Tx.. Birds were chirping like mad and the air was still cool on the skin. I love to stay in bed but appreciate those mornings where I am up before the sun. 

Kansas Adventure!

Finally we are back to work!! For the next month at least, not sure what is happening afterward. I was actually starting to get a little nervous to when this particular job project was going to start. The pickup date was postponed several times this Summer. 

We picked up the Windtower base in Coleman, TX  earlier this week and are traveling what feels like the longest possible route to IL. But I'm NOT complaining!!! The longer the route the more $$ I make. The best part of this project are the numerous abandoned farm houses I have been able to map along the way for future exploration! 

In Kansas I was able to explore one of these houses! The house was erected near the state highway nestled behind a row of almost barren trees. I was able to easily crawl under a large metal gate at the corner of the property before proceeding through a yard overgrown with tall weeds and sticky plants. Sticky plants would be a good reason to NOT wear flip flops in rural Kansas. 

Artist Statement

I finished and sent in my artist statement (see below) for The Center of Fine Art Photography International exhibit in Fort Collins, CO.  I wish I could actually attend the reception. It would be fantastic to meet the other artists and explore the Center itself. Also to see Fort Collins. :P

No Child Left...

As a photographer I am drawn to exploring abandoned and dilapidated environments of rural America through the lens of my camera. The decaying conditions of these modern day ruins and the mystery surrounding the personal belongings that are often left behind by the previous occupants are, for me, both intriguing and fascinating clues. As I visually investigate and try to make sense of these unfamiliar dwellings from various angles, I can’t help but make a connection between the decay and abandonment that I am seeing around me with the fragile condition of our own human existence and the societies we have created. To me these forgotten structures are struggling to still exist against harsh elements, much like how we struggle to hold nostalgic values during modern times.