All It’s Cracked Up to Be
I do miss my daily commute into Albion, if only for the chance to stop and capture the seasons.
Taken last February: a wintry scene along the Kalamazoo River.
albion
Bad Ground
On the first of October last year, I took a walk in the Whitehouse Nature Center in Albion, Michigan. It was a beautiful fall day, one that only hinted at the darkness to come. The leaves were just starting to fall, and I wanted to play with the light and see what I could capture.
This what I came up with – edited and processed more than a full year later.
I’m doing this more and more: letting projects sit for a while, and then addressing them months (or a year) later to see what sticks out, creatively. For these leaves, I knew I wanted to let them marinate for a while.
Here’s to the last days of October.
Around the Albion Neighborhood
Summer. Walks around the town. Noon sun staring down at all of us.
And gnomes watching our every move.
For the past few summers, I’ve made it a point to take long walks around Albion’s neighborhoods. The challenge is to find the photo-worthy in everyday life: yards, signs, porches, etc.
It just goes to show that no matter how “boring” you think your area is, there’s always something to find.
Brian Vander Ark Live
Brian Vander Ark is one of my musical heroes. He’s a local guy (from Grand Rapids, Michigan) who has worked awfully hard to get where he’s at.
It starts with The Verve Pipe, of course. Everyone’s heard The Big Hit, but the whole Verve Pipe catalog is great. I catch them (almost) every year in Ferndale, Michigan, for their holiday concert.
Brian takes his solo show on the road, and a few weeks back he came to Albion to perform at the restored Bohm Theatre.
Channing and Quinn joined him on stage for a few trio songs, too, and the whole show was really great. Brian snuck a few Verve Pipe songs into the set, and lot of his solo songs and covers.
He put on a great show for the audience that turned out on a spring Sunday evening, and it was great to shake hands with him before the show and introduce myself.
This Halfway Home
This Halfway Home – Concord, Michigan
An abandoned home, near the railroad tracks, that is quickly falling apart. The kitchen is something to see.
At the Drive-In
You can see it from the road, clear as day, when the leaves are gone. It’s right off the side of the road after the highway exit.
It just sits there.
I drive by an old drive-in movie theater in Albion often. By the road, there’s a pair of old abandoned houses, with a drive next to them that leads to the drive-in.
The drive-in concession stand sits way back in the weeds, surrounded by a rotting wooden fence. The speaker poles are still out there – an invisible grid to a long-ago torn down screen.
As soon as the snow melted, I ventured out there to see what it was all about.
Years ago, the drive-in did pretty well. It drew in people from all over, thanks to its handy interstate location. But then things took a downturn, and the drive-in had to specialize. What did it pick?
Porn. Of course.
And much like anything else, you know you’re on the downturn when you resort to smut. So the drive-in closed. And rotted. And the screen was torn down and turned into scraps.
One story says that cars would pull over on the side of the highway to watch the on-screen smut. So the drive-in owners installed spotlights to shine into the roadway, blocking the view.
Now, there’s no shining. It’s all dark. The snow is melting, and everything is dripping and peeling.
