Derelict Beauty

I left off at around middle school age, so that's where I'll pick it up.

Eighth grade, for me, was about the same as all the grades before it. It was the same school that I'd been in for the previous two years, and I already knew all the teachers from seeing them around. The subject matter we were learning was basically the same. The most boring thing of all, for me, was art class. The only art teacher at the middle school, Mr. Martin, was...awful. He was the most bland teacher I've ever had, even to this day. I think he was HIRED as the wrestling coach and then picked up the art classes so he'd have something else to do. Needless to say, he didn't do a whole lot of inspiring my creativity. That,  I had to do on my own.

It was the summer after eighth grade that I began to truly become a photographer. I realized that high school was coming, and that meant I'd have a lot more freedom as well as a lot more specialised instruction. I'd seen the work my brother had done in high school art and I was anxious to start my own portfolio. I started a tradition with myself - around once a week, I took photo trips. They were nothing big - I couldn't drive yet, so I'd just walk to areas around my house. And it's not like I had some expensive camera, or anything - I still had that Nikon EM from my mother. But these photo trips got me going. I would shoot roll after roll of film and then spend all the money I had on getting them developed.

I remember one trip in particular really well. It was towards the start of my photo trips, but it was a successful one all the same. I started off early that morning, walking straight from my house with camera hanging from shoulder and film cannisters making my pockets bulge. When I took these trips, I never really had a destination. My goal was to find something new, not just shoot something I already knew about. This particular morning, I headed north. My parents' house was about three blocks from the town square, so it didn't take long for me to reach the park. I halfheartedly shot off a few frames but I couldn't seem to find anything inspiring. I sat down on a bench and started gazing around. Seventh Avenue, all the shops, the restaurants - it was nothing I hadn't seen before. None of it was anything I hadn't seen before. I'd lived there my entire life. But with time, everything changes into something new, and as I continued to swing my gaze around, I noticed the post office. Boring little brick building, the Marion Post Office. But as things do, this thing had changed. The town had built a new building at the edge of our growing town to better house the business, and the old one was sitting here in front of me, abandoned. I got up from my bench and started to walk towards it. This was it, I felt my fingertips start to tingle. After walking around the building once, peering through the windows, I found a way in. I had to crawl through a small window in the back, and drop to the floor. When I landed, I checked my camera...and started shooting. I found frame after frame of interesting subject matter. Only a post office...turned into something beautiful. I exhausted a few rolls of film and paused, only to hear my stomach grumbling. I decided I better solve that problem, and crawled back out the window to head towards home. I was dusting the dirt off my shorts when I looked up and saw something else beautiful. A block or two away, the town had bought all the properties to build a new city hall. Construction workers were in the process of tearing down all the old buildings to make way for the new one.

But there was one left standing. I started to walk towards it, feeling that tingle and forgetting my stomach. The block was enclosed in a chain link fence and there were construction workers milling about, so I didn't sneak inside - but I got one single gorgeous picture. This gigantic brick house, overgrown and abandoned, empty windows and derelict edges. Beautiful.

When I got this roll of film back from Hall's and saw this shot, I knew. Capturing the beauty, this was what I wanted to do, every day, my entire life. I was a photographer. And my career hadn't even begun.