Midnight posts are becoming my thing, lately. I think that’s going to change when @guthrie starts school again next week. Currently, my days are filled with microcosms of concentration and actual work, separated by vast interludes of answers questions about his new PC, how to install and play games and general “dad business”. I’m happy to do it, but it does carve out a big section of my actual job.
Tonight, however, I can’t shoulder on @guthrie. @vermillionfox, @boxcar and myself just got back from another outstanding Slim Cessna’s Auto Club show at The Turf Club in St. Paul, MN. SCAC is my favorite band; full stop. This time last year, we saw them at the same venue. I made a lengthy post titled “The Commandments According To SCAC” album review!”. If you’ve never heard of the Auto Club, do yourself a favor and read that post. Brilliant, dark folk. Their shows are so powerful and unique. Slim always says “This is important. This is family.”, and it does feel like that. Every damn time.
I’m going back a ways with tonight’s photography. I believe this shoot was in 2012. One of the things I love about Steemit is that it does create a need for me to go back and thumb through old shoots. I’ve been on here for a year now and I post almost daily. Some of those posts have little or nothing to do with photography, and some are illustration/comics, but still, at that rate I do need to revisit shoots from long ago. This shoot was with a model I photographed in Scranton, PA named Sara. I’d honestly forgotten this shoot ever happened, and I’m falling in love with these images all over again.
Sara was the girlfriend of a guy I knew named Jimmy, also a photographer. I’d met her through him, and although they eventually broke up I remained friends with them both […it wasn’t an ugly break up]. During one of my trips back to my hometown of Scranton, Sara contacted me about shooting together. In the interest of good etiquette, I texted Jimmy to make sure that wasn’t crossing a line and he was encouraging of both of us to shoot. We set it up. Sara is a talented make-up artist/enthusiast with an extensive collection of vintage wardrobe, which always makes for a great shoot.
We snuck in to an abandoned coal breaker in Ashely, PA, which sadly doesn’t exist any longer. Coming across these photos reminded me of how badass of a location that was while it was there. Sara is a natural model with a clean, innocent, almost elvish look that was a perfect contrast for the dirty, desolate space we were shooting in. We made use of the entire space, shooting on every floor. On the top of the breaker, we found giant tired and generator cylinders she could actually fit in. One of my favorite aspects of shoots on location rather than in studio is never knowing what kind of crazy shit you’re going to come across. This was certainly one of those times.
We wrapped at the coal breaker and we made our way to Arts YOUniverse in Wilkes-Barre. This was a giant Catholic church that had gone bankrupt and sat abandoned for years. It was purchased by a philanthropist that turned many of the rooms in to studio spaces and left the congregation halls open for art galleries. A very respectable effort as Wilkes-Barre, PA is not known for it’s value of the arts. Through a friend of a friend, I become trusted by the management and they’d given me a key and permission to shoot there any time I wanted.
These photos were taken in extremely low light, at a slow shutter and high ISO. During this time in my career, I began experimenting with what’s called rear-sync or rear-curtain flash. It’s hard to get right, but you can make haunting images that seem to show a double exposure. They’re very dreamlike, and although I didn’t stick with the results, I can very easily imagine another reality where going down this path would have lead to another style of photography for me entirely. I still love the look. They remind me of still photos from the flashback/memory scenes in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”.
Thanks for the opportunity to unearth some old work. I post almost daily, so for more photography, art, illustration and the stories behind the work, follow me @kommienezuspadt!