Abandoned

Until I was seven, I grew up in a small Massachusetts town named Middleboro. Just about an hour south of Boston, Middleboro was a sleepy town with a hospital at its center. St Luke's Hospital was where my brother was born, as well as my best friends at the time. It was where I was rushed to when I broke my collar bone, and when I needed six stitches to seal a gash in my arm. Forty years after leaving, I returned to Middleboro to find that the hotel had been abandoned since the 80's. As a photographer, I envisioned a building caught in time, decaying slowly with old beds, operating rooms, etc. So I set forth to gain access to photograph this part of my youth. My wife, Evelyn and I have a love of old abandoned buildings and rusty things, so we knew we had to get inside.

I discovered who owned the building and sent them an introductory email explaining who we were and that we wanted to photograph this once grand building. Along with the owners, I also sent the same email to the Sheriff of Middleboro. I could remember walking from my house a half a block to visit my mom when my brother was born and I was excited to get back inside. Almost immediately I received a response from the sheriff's office stating that there was no hospital in the town of Middleboro and I must be thinking of another in a neighboring town. I couldn't believe it. I had grown up literally next door to St Luke's and had seen the building only last year on a visit. I replied that they were mistaken and told them the street names of the corner on which it stood. The replied back with an email that I was indeed correct, they had Googled the locations and discovered a hospital there! How the local law enforcement could have missed such a large building at the center of town all this time, I had no idea.

Thank goodness Carl Soares came through! Carl emailed to say that he was Director of Facilities for the company who owned the property and if I really wanted to get in, he would arrange it. He also said the property had been completely gutted and if I was hoping to find old beds and such I was going to be disappointed. We decided to go for it anyway, and Carl met us at the agreed upon time and opened the building to us. He gave us full run of the place, there was nothing there we could damage, and we had a great time. There was plenty to photograph and it was a sufficiently creepy afternoon. Here are some of the photos, what do you think?




























































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Custom Bokeh

What the Hell is Bokeh? Well technically speaking, Bokeh describes the rendition of out-of-focus points of light.

Bokeh is different from sharpness. Sharpness is what happens at the point of best focus. Bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus.

Bokeh describes the appearance, or "feel," of out-of-focus areas. Bokeh is not how far something is out-of-focus, bokeh is the character of whatever blur is there. And an out of focus background is very popular in portraiture these days. But with a simple technique, the blur can take on a different feel. We created these floating heart Bokeh to show what could be done with a little imagination. Each heart was actually a carnival light at a local carnival.

We will be offering a Bokeh portrait workshop to teach you how to put these floating hearts behind your kids! Let us know if you are interested!





























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Monday Mayhem: March 5, 2012

We tried something a little different with this photo. This week we have removed all color and created a mystery photo in black and white. All guesses must be made through the blog here! FB guesses will disqualify you from the current contest! Good luck!

Here is this week's mystery photo:


And here is what you win!









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Zombie Walk 2011

It was like a scene from The Walking Dead! Thousands of zombies converged on downtown Long Beach this weekend. It was a surreal night that ended in many of the members of Oingo Boing reuniting for a concert. No Danny Elfman was a no-show but the show was alot of fun. While we did not "shoot" the event, here are a few snapshots.































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