Photographs and a story

On Sunday I met up with friend and fellow shooter Bob G. You might remember the article I wrote a few weeks back about Bob’s photographs from Parson Paper. While giving Bob a few quick lessons and some tips about photography we stumbled into local business owner. He was gracious enough to give us an underbelly tour of very essence of what comprised Holyoke’s once well know mode of production. We spent the better part of two hours talking, walking, and making photographs of some of the most private parts of Holyoke’s rich history. We were pretty blessed to get into the locations we were in. I learned quite a bit more about the vast history and the importance Holyoke used to serve. Holyoke is growing again, in more ways than one. And, in more ways than completely visible to the average person. While my photographs are completely subjective and more artistic in nature, you can still get a sense of what we were seeing.

One thing we did learn of, there is a huge market for a certain type of brick. A common brick that was used and stuffed on the inside of the walls of a lot of the buildings in Holyoke. The term for these bricks are called, clinkers. They are miss shaped, deformed, warped, out of character bricks that still retain their strength and can very much be used in constructing buildings. The Halfway House, a local bar, in South Hadley is made out of this type of brick. Very interesting to know. It kind of makes me want to buy enough of these bricks to build an un-aesthetically pleasing house.

Take notice how the brick has separated from the rest of the wall.

These pipes make for a great composition. The quality of light is what drew me towards them. Plus the contrast with the dark background.

This is very interesting. These are 120 Film negatives hanging in an apt window.

 

These two photographs of the chair are my favorite. The way they are just posing in the room and how the light is coming in from one broken window really pulled this composition together.

These two photographs area visual metaphore and poem all in one composition. The stairs leading towards and empty exit.

FIN