Sharing beauty and history through photography

Upon hearing I'm a photographer, people of course first ask what it is I take pictures of. One day, instead of giving the brief rundown—old cars, old and often abandoned places, and generally beautiful things—the answer tumbled from my lips: "I shoot America." This not only piqued my listener's interest, but their asking me to elaborate on my answer left me feeling more relaxed in speaking with them and explaining not only what I photograph, but why I am so in love with crawling through tick-infested brush to get closer to an abandoned filling station or cottage, or why I am actually totally fine with lying on blacktop (in a dress, my uniform) to get the perfect view of a glamourous 1930s chrome grille. I had a new friend, and a new way of sharing with others what it is I do!

A lifelong history buff with a camera in her hands from a very early age—shutterbugs litter both sides of the family line going back to the very first widely-available camera!—it makes sense that I'm drawn to old buildings, both loved and abandoned; to old automobiles, both showroom-beautiful and rusty; to beauty of all kinds, both nature and man-made. Sharing the things I find through my photography gives me almost as much joy as discovering these wonderful places and objects...especially since not many of us can bring a Greek Revival home to stick in the backyard, and since (alas!) few of us can afford our own version of Jay Leno's garage...much less the insurance tab.

My actual photo shoots tend to begin early in the morning or during the early evening hours. Kit carefully stowed in the car, sipping coffee or tea, my husband and I hit the road in search of things that get my heart pounding and me squealing, "Stop the car, stop the car!": a gleaming Buick, a charming Main Street, a crumbling farmhouse, a neon sign, garden-framed porch steps leading to a home no longer here. To me, all of these things speak of our past and our present, and of their creators' hope for the future. They spark my interest and spur my imagination to wonder about their days and years; upon the joyful discovery that others felt the same way about such places, sharing my photographs to grace their homes, too, just made perfect sense.

I began selling my documentary photos in 2008. An illness keeps me from a traditional job, but photography has turned out to be a perfect outlet not only for my inborn creative streak, but something I can do that doesn't wear me out too much. Once the pictures are taken, they're uploaded to my much-loved senior-citizen laptop...and sit. They sit for a month or two, at which point I can go back through every photo, mercilessly culling the herd until only the best (and, okay, my favourite!) photos remain.

After cropping and editing to best show what I see—a process that can take several hours on a classic car photo, for instance, since I prefer to remove distractions like power lines and the reflections of myself and passers-by—the photo is considered 'done'. I usually don't do too much fancy-fying, to be honest; though many others do a marvellous job creating amazing dream worlds through their photos, I prefer only to remove the distractions from the point of my photographs; this probably stems from my philosophy of seeking for and sharing truth, beauty, and goodness. You might say I'm an optimistic realist; if one cannot see the fallenness, there is no real optimism to be had. Though I see the broken, beyond it I can also find hope.

Despite having an illness that leaves many unable to work at all, I find myself regularly travelling America's byways and back roads, a journey of discovery that draws me closer to history, to my ancestors, to a better understanding of their ideals and failures, and their dreams. Moreover, thanks to the internet, I'm able to share these things with others, knowing that my photographs are, if nothing else, bringing beauty and warmth to their own homes and everydays. And hey—if you see a woman with a camera who looks as if she just stepped out of the 1940s crawling around an old car in a dress, or stumbling through the mud near an abandoned gas station, do say hello. That woman is probably me!