The Parking Deck.

   I've always had an interest in editorial photography. The way stories can be told, created, and just the pure creative force that can be put into making one image is like nothing else. There are no rules here.

   I've finally found some time to explore it myself. I have no expectations, so I could be awful at it. But I can't say there's a lack of trying. This is one image from the shoot with a couple of my friends.  They were nice enough to stay up really late, "trespass" on a public parking deck, and allow me to do their makeup. I'll introduce you to them later. For now, this is the beginning of a long editing session.

Brand New Baby.

   A few weeks ago, I photographed my friend's sister's baby shower. We were welcoming Nolan to the world, as he decided to come a bit early. Now he is happy and healthy and such a cutie.

   Aunt Cynthia did all of the wonderful decorations and planned everything. It was a wonderful celebration of new life.

Everyone decorated onesies for Nolan as he grows

BHS: It Looks Better Now.

   Blacksburg High School; a couple of years after I graduated, the gymnasium collapsed. Yes. Collapsed.

   All of the students, and especially the teachers, knew this building was on it's way out. It didn't have much going for it in the first place.

   When it was first built in 1972, the location may have seemed like something off a postcard. The builders decided that it didn't matter that half the building was on a sinkhole. And also, BHS made its attempt at being new age-y with an open floor plan. This meant that you could be sitting in Mrs. Johnson's chemistry class, look over your shoulder, and see Mrs. Davis' English class being taught across the library (there were no walls).

   This might have been great when the school began, having the correct number of students it could handle, but as the number of attendants increased, it became impossible to keep it up. This meant that beautiful, vomit colored tin walls were put into place to keep the classrooms separate from each other. If you sat in the back of the class, you could tap in Morse Code on the wall behind you and possibly get an answer from the other side. There were holes everywhere, so if you were bored with Mrs. Smith's math class, you could mentally jump to Mrs. Creedy's biology class going on behind you.

    These walls also wreaked havoc with the air conditioning system. Because the system was originally designed for the open classroom setting, putting the tin walls in screwed it all up. Some classrooms would be as hot as the Sahara, while others felt like the North Pole. As a general rule, though, it was always winter inside the building.

   As you can see from the front of the building, windows were hard to come by. Most students joked that it looked like a prison. The teachers knew it was falling apart and routinely put posters up in places to hide the enormous chasms running through the walls. Half the school was sinking into the ground, and it was showing. The year before I got there, the front stairwell detached from the building. What did they do to fix it? Well, re-attach it of course! The concrete looks different around the bottom, and the glue they used must have been amazing.

   As I look at it now, I don't remember it too fondly. But one thing has changed; I think the gym collapsing has improved the look of the building.

The Lyric.

   The Lyric Theatre has been around for a long time. It's one of those staples of a town that is taken for granted until it's gone. But the Lyric isn't gone.

   Rumors surround it's construction in the early 20th century. As a child, I routinely heard stories of a ghost in the balcony that could be seen late at night in the darkness. That ghost is supposedly from one of the builders that died when he fell from the rafters during construction. 

   Built at the start of the Great Depression, it was designed by an architect in Roanoke, Virginia. It originally had the recognizable theatre masks on the front, but have since been taken down and mysteriously disappeared. The Lyric began in a different location down the street and moved twice more before finally making its way into the current building. And it was one of the first theaters in Virginia to show "talkies."

   Now it relies solely on donations to keep it alive.

Source: 

http://www.thelyric.com/history/

BMS: Only a Field.

   Middle school is usually remembered as one of the most awkward times in your life. Bodily changes are happening, as well as finding new friends, losing old ones, and going into a new school altogether.

   This is the same for me, but I can't drive by my old school and reminisce about those awkward times. Why? Because this field is where my middle school was. I only attended this one for a year before we started in the brand new middle school that was built. But this one had character, and I remember it fondly.

   It's a beautiful field. There's no denying it. And usually, it wouldn't feel so strange if there was a mound of dirt or some large construction equipment around. But this field looks as if nothing was ever there at all. This is only a couple of years after it was demolished, but that also took a long time because the debate on demolishing a possibly-asbestos-infested building was never-ending.