But…

I, of course, wanted to explore Gadsden’s small downtown. And so I wandered about early one weekend morning. This is one of my favorite things to do; there is something so compelling about a small town. And this time, I was all alone.

I’ve been meaning to share these images with you for a bit. This is what I saw. I hope you enjoy them.

It is hard not to be aware of the intersection of old and new. The abandoned house is constructed of rock - its roof partially caved in, its windows broken, its rooms now in ruins, but holding parts and pieces from long ago. The main road is newly repaved; a side road is also newly repaved and leads to the subdivision’s new entry gate. One large house is already under construction.

Just a short distance from the rock house are signs with lot numbers spread across what was once farmland with gently rolling hills. You can see the house as you drive around the subdivision.

I photographed the house months ago, before the new subdivision was marked and its lots offered for sale. I was able to walk into the house and through its rooms. When I stopped by to visit again the other day, a newly installed gate prevented entry.

The company selling lots is using the rock house as part of its marketing material and so perhaps they plan to restore it or at least keep it.

I don’t know much about the history of the house and can’t find many details. The house is small; it could have been the farm family’s home or an overseer’s cabin.

Some of the nearby signage talks about six generations of ownership over the land and references 1932. The land where the new subdivision will sit and where the rock house sits is adjacent to a former plantation.

When I walked into the house to photograph it, I expected to see nothing but empty rooms. But there were remnants of the former occupants. There was a stove, a wood-burning heater, a room with an interesting door pulled off its hinges and set to one side.

I tried to feel what it was like to live here. The occupants must have been close to their land; several windows looked out directly onto fields and the doors are just yards from those fields.

Like so many things I am finding in this part of the country, the history is right in front of us and progress has literally passed it by. I’ll watch what happens to this place over time. If there are changes, I’ll post more photos.

Thank you for being here and I hope you enjoy the photos.

On the way to this place, I passed a brief stretch of modest, well-maintained homes. But then came the despair.

I was in Camp Hill, Alabama, on a hot and hazy summer morning. Its small downtown area was empty except for the shells of abandoned and decaying buildings, some without roofs. There was a single traffic light which had obviously stopped working long ago. There were few cars despite it being morning commute time. One driver passed by in an old car with a flat tire. He did not seem to pay it any attention.

Something terrible has happened to Camp Hill. The phrase, “post-apocalyptic” is over-used. But it seems appropriate in this case.

I walked alone, up and down the stretch of buildings. There was no one else. There was no sound. It was as if I was on a film set. Just off the downtown area was an old police station that was still active. Twice, police cars pulled out and drove past. I felt as if I was being watched.

The sadness and despair hit me hard. I’ve seen plenty of abandoned buildings and have always been aware of the human beings who once brought them to life. But this place represented something bigger than a single building or business. Whatever happened here happened to an entire community. And the community’s struggle is ongoing.

I know this is not an uplifting post. I am sharing it because I once told you I would write and photograph what I experience in Alabama. There is good here. There is also bad here. I need to share both.

The internet says Camp Hill was once a modest, but functional town. There was cotton, brick-making and textiles. But the stores and businesses along the main street area began to close after their owners died and no one took their place. Then the industry left. Then those people who could afford to leave, who had somewhere else to go, left. Then the state re-routed a major road that had served the town.

There have been efforts to revive this area, but it does not seem those efforts have been successful yet. There is also a well-known, faith-based, boarding and preparatory school in Camp Hill. To get to the school, you have to pass through the downtown area.

There is one other thing: Not far from downtown, there is a historical marker that tells the story of six Black people who were lynched or otherwise murdered in the county that holds Camp Hill. The details are beyond awful. The lynchings and other murders took place from the late 1800s through the late 1940s. In one case, a white mob that included the police shot indiscriminately into a segregated cafe and killed a pregnant Black woman. No one has been held accountable for any of these incidents.

I share this because as I walked through what remained of the downtown area, I could not help but wonder if this can be what happens when evil weaves itself into a town and its people. The racist killings happened decades ago and I am not saying Camp Hill’s current residents have anything to do with what happened or carry the same hatred. I am only saying that what happened may have damaged this town for generations.

Thank you for spending time with me.

I’ve already written about this. But I can’t help myself.

As photographers, we all love light. We study light and how it behaves. Like you, I love light in all its forms and intensities. But I really love light when it demands our attention - when it stops us in our tracks and says, “Look at me and what I’m doing.”

This happens a lot with light in cities as it splashes across buildings and people - sometimes creating hard lines with a beginning and end: an edge. It reveals itself in lines, shapes and shadows.

Sometimes, these areas cover the sides of buildings. Sometimes, people enter and leave these areas without seeming to even be aware. You can observe this from a distance, say across the street.

There is much to ponder. The visual beauty, the boundaries, the separation of dark and light, and all the metaphors we can think of about that. Of course sometimes, it’s just a great shadow.

I love this kind of light the way I love a heavy rain or strong wind when nature’s own hand touches us directly and says, “pay attention to me.”

Maybe there is reassurance when what is normally taken for granted asserts itself.

We were in New York City recently and the light was great. Edges everywhere. So here goes. I hope you enjoy.

People come into our lives from all directions. Sometimes, at least for me, we tend to see them in one dimension: the portion of their lives that directly impact our lives. We don’t take time or energy to understand more than that.

It’s like a TV show where the characters don’t have extensive back stories. There is just what we see and what serves the larger story line.

I used to work for a major entertainment company - one with film studios, a network, TV shows, theme parks and more. (No, it was not Disney). The work was extremely hard, stressful and fast-paced and I often allowed it to consume me.

I wound up working with a UK-based public relations person who had consulted for our company for many years across multiple divisions. His name was Stanley Bielecki. He spoke with a thick Polish accent and frequently told stories about his time in the business. He had strong opinions and could be quite irreverent. But he had a proven record of success.

It’s fair to say Stanley was a little quirky. And to those of us who were coming up, he represented the old school. Eventually, the decision was made to part ways with Stanley and it fell to me to tell him.

I flew to London, visited Stanley at his home and told him our company was going in a different direction. It was difficult for me and obviously more difficult for him. But he was gracious and, in fact, as part of my visit showed me around his home and pointed out some photos he had taken earlier in his career - photos I quickly glanced at without really seeing. This is where I should have realized there was so much more to this man.

Like all of us, Stanley wanted to be recognized for the entire person he was. And here’s the thing: he was the real deal.

This is who he was: (this is pulled from a website in his name; the photos are also pulled from various websites. We’ll see if I am able to do this without getting in legal trouble).

Stanley was born in Lvov, then Poland (now Ukraine) in 1925. He was deported to Siberia at the outbreak of World War Two, where he remained until joining the Polish army in 1942. After six years in Italy, where he found himself a refugee at the end of the war, he went to London and began his career as a photojournalist for the travel section of the Sunday Times. He opened his own photographic studio and lab.

For the next 15 years he worked for a wide range of magazines - specializing in photographing some of pop music’s biggest names. Toward the end of the 1960s, Stanley began to specialize in photographing film sets and actors for publicity shots. He then expanded into public and media relations work.

Websites tell us Stanley worked on many films including The Omen, The French Connection, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life and the Rocky Horror Picture Show and was also involved with the Star Wars, Superman snd Alien movies as a PR consultant. He worked with a wide range of Hollywood’s most famous directors. He has more than 60,000 images to his credit - many of which were eventually gifted to the Motion Picture Academy.

I did not know any of this while I worked with Stanley. And I had no contact with Stanley after my London visit. He died in 2016. But as I look back on my career, I regret not really seeing him, not knowing all he had done. He was a great photographer who lived a big and incredible life. I wish I had allowed myself to understand all that back then.

Hopefully, I am honoring him by telling you his story and sharing some of his work. And, hopefully, I have learned a life lesson about truly seeing the people in our lives. Thank you for being here.

We were staying in a house near a beach. It was after dark and I had walked with my tripod and camera to watch the ocean. It was a powerful moment: the darkness, the wave sounds, the solitude, the stirring that comes with being near the ocean.

That night, the moonlight was hitting the water perfectly - and yet there was still so much darkness. I stood for the longest time just so I could be fully immersed in it all.

I grew up on Long Island and spent a lot of time at the beach - sometimes at night, resting in the dunes and listening to the waves. And so this moment called to me in a special way.

I began to take photographs - allowing the camera’s ISO to creep up and keeping the shutter open for a bit. Given the moonlight, the remaining darkness and the movement of the water, I was not sure how the photos would turn out.

These are not postcard photos, but I like them. Most came out very dark and so I adjusted the exposure to empower the moonlight. I found that doing so took these photos to a different place. I like the slightly surreal feel they offer and the way the water looks. They remain quite dark and I like that too. I’ve converted some to black and white and left some in color.

I had a brief conversation with myself about whether my exposure adjustments were appropriate. But then I realized photographers much more talented than me have been adjusting light and dark in their photos for a while - in some cases quite dramatically.

I wrote I was mostly alone that night. But at one point, someone crossed in front of the camera just as I was taking the photo. You will be able to see him or her in the next-to-last photo.

I hope you like these. Thanks for being here.

I was walking around downtown Jacksonville, Florida, last week. It’s a great city but, unfortunately, the downtown area has a lot of empty buildings. As I was walking around and peering inside them, I thought: I’ve never really photographed the inside of abandoned buildings exclusively from the outside. And so here we go. You’ll see shots taken through a keyholes and a mail-slot, shots taken through grim-covered windows and shots taken through gaps in doors. The last two photographs are of an old firehouse. There is a lot of commentary I could offer about the state of these buildings, the stories they hold and the people who once brought them to life. But I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Thanks for being here and I hope you find this interesting.

Sometimes in those moments I find something deeper than a photograph.

Recently I was at a meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, and had the chance to explore the city afterwards. I intentionally strayed beyond the capitol area to see the city itself. Soon, I had that rush of discovery - and it came with an immersion in history that delivered a rush of its own.

I noticed a building as I drove past: an abandoned four-story brick structure. I parked and began to photograph it, taking my time and getting a few different angles.

For those first few minutes, it was just a wonderful, old, abandoned building. I would have been happy with just that. But then a friendly local woman stepped out of her storefront across the street and told me more. It was at this point, I understood the true nature of what I was photographing and the moment I was having. I was photographing a piece of history.

The Ben Moore Hotel and Majestic Cafe opened in 1951 at the corner of High and Jackson Street in Montgomery. It was built by Matthew F. “Ben” Moore and included a restaurant, barber shop and rooftop nightclub. There are a few online references that suggest Moore named the hotel after his father, who had been a slave.

According to various sources, it was the first Montgomery hotel to serve Blacks and was listed in the Green Book, which offered a list of safe places for Black travelers.

This is all significant enough.

But then I learned the deeper story of the Ben Moore Hotel. It served as a meeting spot for civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy. It was a hub for local leaders to organize and plan - and to hold meetings and negotiations with Montgomery’s elected leaders.

Musicians including Tina Turner, B.B. King and Clarence Carter performed at the upstairs club.

Apparently, Dr. King was a regular customer at the barbershop and it is said he may have gotten one of his last haircuts there.

The hotel has clearly fallen into disrepair - a sad thing, given its legacy. But there is good news. The Conversation Fund, which protects important historical sites, is partnering with a Montgomery group to preserve the hotel.

And so I hope that one day, I can photograph the hotel as it so proudly stood when it first opened in 1951. For now, here are some photos - beginning with a photo that is on the Conservation Fund website of a 1951 voting rights march. Dr. King is at the center and the hotel is on the left.

And here are the photos I took that day. Thank you for being here.

At center below is the barbershop where Dr. King is said to have gotten one of his last haircuts.

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I’m guessing many of us have them: inherent traits or thinking patterns that influence the kind of photos we make or don’t make.

I’m going to share some recent thinking about my own barriers and how I found a moment to push against them.

Many times when I’m taking a photo, I’m thinking about capturing a perfect representation of something - finding the right angle, lighting and composition to communicate what I am seeing. This tends to mean a documentary approach. And while I definitely find creativity within this approach, I sometimes default to what I see rather than what I feel.

This approach can sacrifice the wild abandon, spontaneity or edge that comes with different approaches. For me, that’s the higher level I’m talking about.

For example, I am very drawn to abstract and interpretive photography and art. But that is not my default style in my own work.

There might be a few reasons for this. We all bring stuff to our work. Maybe it’s just the way I’m wired. Maybe it’s because I loved to build things as a child: highly detailed cars, planes, boats that relied on complicated plans. Maybe it’s because my career path often blended highly creative work with fact-finding, careful analysis and some restraint. Meaning: no running barefoot through fields without first considering the implications, risks and rewards of what I was doing. Make sense?

And so…

A few days ago, I sat in my car near a large group of trees. My eyes were drawn to light coming through the trees and how it was hitting the leaves that still remained despite the winter. There were beautiful splashes of color and light as some of the leaves twisted in a slight breeze. This was a powerful moment for me.

I wanted to photograph the leaves - but realized what was really impacting me was not the actual leaves so much as the feel of what I was experiencing.

It would have been automatic for me to photograph things exactly as I saw them. But instead, I decided to photograph for overall impression - to blur the actual leaves and instead make subjects out of color, light and loose shapes. I wanted to capture and communicate what really moved me that day. And it was not precise shapes; it was the overall experience. The photos may or may not be “good.” But they are of a special moment.

So here are some photos of leaves that reflect what I was seeing with my heart that day, not just my eyes. Thank you for being here.

I could not believe such a thing might exist. Having spent the last several decades of my life in Central Florida - where anything appearing ancient is likely a theme park re-creation - I had lost sight that such things, such history, could exist in real time where I now live in Alabama.

And so I drove to them, marveled at their vastness, and was frustrated by a fence that would not let me get closer.

Then, a few weeks ago, I drove back to Tallassee with the specific purpose of seeing if I could photograph the ruins of what were once textile mills. There were structures on both banks of the Tallapoosa River and I was able to photograph them all.

Last time, I shared thoughts and photos about what I found on the West Bank. Today, I will share what I found on the East bank.

The buildings on the East bank of the Tallapoosa are newer and take up more land than what is on the West Bank. They were built in 1897-98 and were known collectively as Mill No. 2. There are online references to these mills providing heavy duck cloth for tents and other equipment to the U.S. Army during World War I and World War II.

Mill No. 2 closed in 2005 - much closer in time than I would have imagined. It was destroyed by a major fire of suspicious origin in 2016. Today, various parts of the buildings of Mill No. 2 remain standing amidst rubble.

As I approached the Mill No. 2 site for my second visit, I noticed the fence was open. I was excited by this, but also nervous about whether I belonged. As I parked my car, an official city vehicle drove past and did not stop to check on me. I took this as a good sign.

I walked down a road and into the site. I noticed another road that would allow me to get even closer and took it.

Within seconds I was looking directly over the ruins of multiple buildings. This site is vast. I felt close to history, close to the hundreds of people who once worked within the mills. I was in the presence of something bigger than just me.

I feel a sense of reverence around significant ruins. And so for me, more powerful than the ability to take photographs was the ability to simply stand amongst these old buildings in the cool silence of the morning. To simply look at them and be with them.

I hope you enjoy the photos. You will see one photo taken from a bridge over the Tallapoosa River that shows the Mill No. 2 site from a distance and gives you a good overview. Thank you for being here.

They were breathtaking: two groups of ruins on opposing banks of the Tallapoosa River - a wide and glorious river that runs through town and is restrained by a large dam. You cross the river and the dam over what the town says is one of the largest curved bridges in the United States. It’s 143 feet in the air - but when you walk over it and look down on the dam and field of rocks that surround it, things seem much higher.

Months ago, when I first saw the ruins, I did not have the time to explore them, but vowed to go back.

And so last week, during the kind of cold morning you feel in your forehead and that makes ungloved fingers hurt, I went back specifically to see and photograph the ruins.

It has been a while since I have been completely consumed by a photographic subject. To stand near and among these ruins, with their silent, looming, presence and deep history was stirring. I was grateful for my time among them.

I thought about the silence and what was once not so silent. The people who had inhabited these buildings and worked in them. Their lives, their struggle, all the machines and equipment they used. The accumulated energy of these places and the time past.

I could just as easily been among ruins in Europe or elsewhere. They had that sort of feel to me.

To share all of this with you will require my first multi-part post. There is too much history and too many photos I’d like to share. Today, I will share the story and photos of what is on the west bank of the Tallapoosa River. Next time, I’ll share what I saw on the east bank. It has an entirely different look and feel. Then, I may share (Just) photos of the town itself.

The west bank holds the ruins of what was both a cotton mill and Civil War Confederate armory. It is a single, multi-story stone building surrounded by a somewhat compromised fence. When you stand nearby today, you can hear the wind blow through the building and the creaking of its old hinges and doors.

Websites that specialize in Alabama history say the building began life as a cotton mill in 1844. Its origin is ugly: the owners used slave labor to gather stones from the river for its construction. In 1864, as the Confederate army was losing the war, it converted the building into an armory for the manufacture of muzzle-loading carbines. The location was considered remote enough as to not be threatened by the Union Army. But that seemed to be a miscalculation: the workings of the armory were eventually moved as the Union Army advanced through the South. The 500 rifles manufactured in the Armory never saw action. There were a couple of nearby battles as Union soldiers probed the area - but the armory remained safe and was the only armory not destroyed during the war.

The building was converted back to a mill in the late 1860s and was part of an overall expansion of the business until it closed in the 1960s. The building’s owners eventually gutted it for lumber and other material and the roof collapsed in 1999 during a storm.

All that remains today is what you see in my photos. It is a ghost of what it once was. There seems to have been some local debate about what to do with the site. In other markets, the building would have been razed and replaced with riverfront condos or a hotel. But instead, the ruins remain - a skeletal reminder of the past.

I suppose others would want something different. But for me, the chance to be this close to history bears far more benefit.

Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoy my photos. See you next time.

(You may find some of my photos redundant. Sorry if that’s the case. This is one of those moments where I’m claiming artistic privilege).

Asheville is a great city and I enjoyed my photowalks. There is an area of the city I especially liked, complete with a great used book shop.

I walked into the shop and liked it immediately. It was crammed with shelves of books. There was an older man sitting at the counter and we shared a quick hello. There were two rows of old movie theater seats bolted to the floor to serve as a conversation or reading area. There was a second smaller room. I walked into that room and noticed another counter area - and it’s there I saw her.

The woman behind this counter was leaning casually against a wall reading a book. She looked so relaxed, so at ease. She was holding the book close to her face with one hand, completely engrossed in what she was reading. She wore a knit cap and what seemed to be a one-piece work overall, like a garage mechanic might wear. She looked hip and perfectly placed. She never looked up at me.

The photographer voice screamed at me. This was a great photograph, this bookstore person reading quietly to herself while surrounded by books.

I studied her from several feet away for a couple seconds and walked away with the intent of turning back toward her and taking a photograph. I had my hand on the camera.

But I could not do it.

Over the years, I have taken photos of many people on the street - some of them at close range. But I could not take this photo. I had a fear of being noticed and having to explain what I was doing. The shop was a more intimate environment than the street and I also felt as if I might be intruding on her privacy. She deserved this moment to herself, I thought. Anyway, something stopped me.

I thought briefly about asking her if I could take a photo, but that would have transformed a real moment to a posed one.

Over the years, there are many moments I have walked away from and not photographed. The reasons are always the same: I did not want to risk an encounter (although I have had those and been fine with most of them), I felt someone deserved their privacy and did not want to be intrusive. Sometimes, my inner voice just said “no” and I could not tell you why.

Sometimes, we just have to let the moment be the moment. We have to listen to our inner voice, our heart.

An album of the moments I have walked away from would probably have some great photos. At least this most recent moment will remain in my mind and soul for a while. And that’s a good thing.

I don’t know if this sort of “no” moment is unique to street photography or if any of you have also felt this type of thing. But I thought I’d share a few thoughts about the photos some of us, for some reason, leave behind.

Also, it seemed appropriate to post this without photos. Just thoughts.

Thank you for reading.

Soon, I found the small town of Loachapoka. It is one of those places you pass through almost as soon as you realize you are there. The town was established in 1796 and gets its name from the Creek phrase some say translates as, “place where turtles are killed,” or where they “live.” (I saw no turtles while I was there).

The town saw action during the Civil War and was raided, its rail depot burned and its train tracks damaged. Today, census data says there are about 200 residents. Most of them likely commute to nearby Auburn or Montgomery for work, but there seems to also be some local agriculture.

I was quickly taken by the town; much of it seemed the stuff of interesting photographs. But when I got home and began to think about sharing those images here I wondered: how would they reflect on the town and its residents? Had I really captured the essence of this small place?

We all self-edit our work, sometimes before we even put the cameras to our eye as we decide what to photograph. Those decisions may or may not present a wholistic interpretation of what we are seeing and experiencing. They may simply be a reflection of what visually appeals to us.

And that is okay, of course. It is certainly our right as photographers and artists to decide what images to take and share. And unless we claim otherwise, those images do not have to be a comprehensive look at our subject. We should photograph what appeals to our eyes and our souls.

But we should also listen to our hearts. What are we feeling? Is there more to tell?

Here is where I landed with Loachapoka: When I looked at my first group of images I felt need to go back. I wanted to go deeper. I was not sure the set of photos I had taken was the whole story I wanted to share with you.

And so I took more photos, but also just opened up more to what I saw.

My photos focus on what was visually appealing to me. You will see some evidence of age, distress. What you will not see - and what I saw by returning and slowing down - is evidence of a strong community. Loachapoka has several churches, a Masonic Hall, a new park near its post office and multiple veterinary offices located near each other - perhaps sign of a healthy agriculture base? There are also signs advertising an annual “Syrup Sopping” Festival which is decades old and quite popular.

Within the still images I am sharing are people who are living their lives, raising families and likely very proud of the community they created.

And so I’m sharing images of things that caught my eye during two trips to Loachapoka. But there is more to this town. And I just wanted you to know that.

Thank you for being here.

I was grateful for all your comments and grateful some of you shared your own recurring themes. I mentioned I had more car and truck photos to share. And so here goes.

The first one below is the most recent, which I took last week in a small town called Loachapoka. (More on this town in the future).

There are other themes I’ve got running through my work - just like all of you. Some themes, such as this week’s, are not necessarily something I intentionally set out to establish; they sort of just happen. I’ll try to share some of them in the future. Thank you for being here.