Category Archives: Newtown
Newtown the Beautiful. Part 4 of 4
When I started this self made assignment, I didn’t know what to expect. The only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to capture beautiful images of Newtown / Sandy Hook. I didn’t expect to come up with any answers for why something so ugly could happen in a town like this.
We will never know all the facts that led to a poor deranged boy doing the unimaginable, but for me; I can only surmise that we, as a society, let him down in some way. We didn’t do enough to prevent this tragedy from being an option for him. We didn’t take these mass killing weapons out of his mother’s, and therefore, his, hands. And we certainly didn’t take away the idea that we care about anyone other than ourselves. That is my opinion and I am allowed to have it. I also have the freedom to write about my opinions.
We will all hear a lot about freedom in the upcoming months. I believe there is a line somewhere between ultimate freedom (You know? The kind we see in the movies like Mad Max, where everyone does whatever they want), and a communistic culture where we can do nothing without approval. I hope that line is far away from either of those two extremes, but the point I am making is that when people use the word freedom as an excuse to stop change. Let them know that we will still be free, and that those 20 children should have been free to grow up and call those people idiots if they wanted to.
Goodbye Newtown
So I really didn’t expect to come away with much more than my photographs when I started this. I never talked to anyone there yet the town and this project gave me so much more to take home.
On the last morning I would be taking photos there, I woke extra early because I heard on the news that they would start taking the memorials down that day. It was the day after Christmas and very cold outside. I had not intended to go to the memorial in town at all when I began this, but as my hope began to grow on that last trip, I thought I should at least take a walk through the memorial and say goodbye in my own way.
There was no one around that morning. The road to the school was still closed, but there were no more police. No mourners walking around. Complete silence and I would have wanted it no other way. I strapped my camera over my shoulder to take some personal photos, but it never moved from there. It was both a great, and an awfully sad walk. My thought to the victims: I hope they become the most influential people of all time. The ones who truly changed the path of a country.
I walked back to my car, over the bridge lined with frozen teddy bears and flowers. The same one that crosses the river I would be photographing for my last image.
Day 4 – Pootatuck River, Sandy Hook
As I entered my car; I hadn’t planned where I was going to photograph. I wanted to get to the memorial and walk around before it was gone. I planned to drive around and find a place to photograph later. Well, that spot was right where I was. As I turned left, away from the memorial, I saw a large parking lot with some sort of stage or something. A park, I thought! Perfect for a photo within Sandy Hook! It was more of a parking lot for the downtown area, but it had a nice walk that lined the river that runs through town, and that offered up a nice view as it rushed under the bridge I had just been on.
If I am going to photograph water, I almost always use a tripod because I like to slow the shutter down and make it look smooth. It was pretty bright out so I used my polarizer filter to help give me a longer shutter speed. I took many different photos here because each one was a little different due to the random nature of water. I chose this one because I liked the ripples curving around on the bottom. I liked the overall photo because it was right for an ending photo for this series: The memorial just out of the frame on top and the water continuing to move on below it. Just like we have to.
As a final way for me to do something, I will be making the fullsize version of all four photos available for download. I will have a link to get them in my post tomorrow.
As I left for the last time on this project, I passed the same sign I had the previous three trips. It said: “Overcome Evil by Doing Good Today”.
Newtown the Beautiful. Part 3 of 4
After I had left the diner the previous day, I quickly drove up the road towards Main Street to try and grab a photo of the general store. It has a classic New England look to it and I thought it would be perfect for this series. I first noticed it on Saturday morning on my way to Mill Pond. It was still dark out but I really liked how the inside looked all lit up. Just like when I passed the diner, I made a note to return.
This time, after leaving the diner, I had a feeling there would be too much light to get the image I wanted. I was wrong though. Very wrong. There wasn’t any light at all. In the store anyway. In fact, all the lights that made me want to capture it were off. I was in vacation mode and forgot that it was Sunday. Closed for Business. Back home I went with my 5 photos of the diner and plans to return the next morning, Christmas Eve.
Hope
Many thoughts raced through my head as I drove up I-84 for the third morning in a row. Most of them of the families in Newtown, but also for the others who wouldn’t be getting a chance to enjoy this holiday season. For those still dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. For those that have had to fight this economy more than the rest of us. And those that are, well, just dealing. It is that merry time of year after all.
But then my thinking began to shift. I thought about what I was doing; why I was awake at 6 in the morning scraping off my frozen car, trekking out to take these photos. I was doing it because it was what I could. Given my skills, this was the best I could come up with. I finally realized that what I was doing was enough. Up until that point, I think I was searching for something more. Some unattainable answer for all of this and it was driving me crazy. The reality is that people came together in the days following the tragedy. Not all people of course. There will always be a few misguided individuals that try and take advantage of any situation no matter who suffers, but they are the minority. The rest of us however, are doing what we can. That was enough to give me hope as I exited for Newtown/Sandy Hook one more time.
Day 3 – Newtown General Store
I remember the first time I took photos of a building like this under a dark sky. It was well past sunset in Woodbury, CT, about 15 years ago and I was looking for anything to photograph that night. I drove by an antique store that was closed for the night but the front window had two very bright lights which showcased some cool looking old items. This was back in the film days, so there wasn’t the instant feedback of knowing whether you nailed the exposure just by looking at the back of the camera. To make sure I got the shot right, I took two, 48 exposure, rolls of film that night. I really wanted that shot!
Taking the knowledge I learned from many nights and early mornings just like that one helped me for the quick 3 photos I took of the store here. Similar to the day before, I was feeling uncomfortable pulling my tripod out in Newtown, but there was no way to get the photo I wanted without it. Yes, I could have cranked up the ISO, but that would have made the photo grainy. The higher end SLRs have amazing quality at higher ISOs, and my mid level one does pretty well, but when looking for the highest quality, go with your camera’s lowest setting. That means a tripod is a must in low light because the shutter stays open for a long time. Everyone has a length of time they can handhold the camera for without getting blurry photos. There are many variables that change that length, but for me, it is not very long. I drink lots of coffee and anyone who has seen my handwriting will tell you it looks like chicken scratch. That is not a good sign of a steady hand.
So, guilt creeping back in, I changed the settings in the car. I jumped out, crossed the street to get a good angle, mounted the camera and three clicks later I was back in the car.
I drove passed the memorial again on my way home, and for the first time, I did it with a little hope on that Christmas Eve morning. Hope that the lives lost in this small New England town will not be lost or forgotten, but will act as the catalyst for change. Because we are doing what we can to help make it that way.
Tomorrow, I say goodbye to Newtown in part 4
Newtown the Beautiful. Part 2 of 4
Guilt
I wrote a lot in part 1 about my initial reactions to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. I am sure you all have your own stories about that dreadful day. For some, it was much worse than that. It is hard for me to even imagine what those poor parents, husbands, sons, daughters and boyfriends had to go through that day. To think about the poor innocent children who had to hide and huddle together, some for the last time on earth, is almost too much to bear.
So I started to block it all out: Facebook; the news; anything that might remind me of what happened. That wasn’t possible though. For one; everything reminded me of it. A Christmas song on the radio; an advertisement of a boy and his dad together; or simply looking down and watching my own kids playing. Two of them twins, and their older sister, who is so very sensitive that she cried really hard when she found out one of the victims, Noah Pozner, was also a twin.
But it was the feelings of guilt that really made it so hard for me to let it go. Guilt about how I first reacted to the whole thing. Guilt about how I treated my friend that day, and guilt about trying to block it all out. It wasn’t right that I was trying to forget what happened. Why? Because we should never forget what happened that day. It should pull at you to reject what happened as just another senseless act. For me, It was so much more. It shattered an ideal that our youngest students our safe while in school. It opened my eyes to how we should of seen this coming. I don’t mean that this incident should have been stopped. I mean that we have seen a constant progression of hate over the years and I pray that this act in Newtown marks the beginning of the decent.
These were the thoughts going through my mind as I was back on I-84 heading for Newtown on Sunday, December 23rd at 6:00am
Day 2 – The Diner
From a photographer’s viewpoint, going into Newtown so soon after the shootings created a new sense of guilt. For the previous 9 days, the town had more reporters and members of the media in it than ever before and you could tell that it was starting to get to some of the townspeople. A few “No Media!” signs were along the road into Sandy Hook when I visited the day before and that had me thinking a lot about whether I was “media” in this instance. In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter what I thought. If one person there saw me as media, then yes I was and I didn’t want to be the cause of any more pain for these people.
I rationalized that I was not going to be intrusive and also that I would leave right away if someone asked, but as I pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Colony Diner, I was definitely feeling some guilt. I drove around the building, peeking inside to hopefully find an empty diner since it was still early. Unfortunately, I saw an older couple sitting in a booth in the corner closest to where I parked. That changed my approach for taking these photos immediately as my camera would be pointed almost directly at them. I did a quick walk around the front to see if there was a better angle, but my initial instinct was right and I would have to take it from the original area or come back another day. The sun was just beginning to lighten the dark sky that I wanted as a backdrop, so waiting out their breakfast wasn’t an option.
I decided I would work as efficiently as possible, take only what I absolutely needed to make a good image and get out. So I changed all of my camera settings in the car and then quickly pulled out my tripod and locked the legs down. I took a grand total of 5 images that morning and a little piece of each one is in the final image below. This will be the first time I mention HDR, but it won’t be the last. If you don’t know what HDR is, I suggest you visit http://stuckincustoms.com. Trey Ratcliff will explain it better than I ever could, but i will definitely be writing about it in future posts.
Come back tomorrow for part 3. Another building I decided to photograph as I passed it on day 1.
Newtown the Beautiful. Part 1 of 4
When I decided I was going to do these posts, I wasn’t sure how it would go. I was very emotional as I exited I-84 for Newtown/Sandy Hook. From what I have read over the last few weeks, I know I am not alone in the pain felt over the thoughtless act that occurred on December 14th.
It didn’t start that way for me though. You see, I had my work holiday party that day and was driving there when I heard over the radio that police were responding to a shooting at a school in Newtown. That is just 30 minutes west of where my daughter was in school and where soon, she would be in a school-wide lock down until they knew it was safe. The sad thing is that it didn’t even phase me to hear about the shooting and I assumed it was either one student against another or against a teacher. And I also assumed it was a high school or middle school. Like that would have been OK. It is a very sad truth, but we have become accustom to hearing these news reports in our society.
So I just continued on my way to the party and a few hours later, when a coworker told me that 20 children were killed, I knew for the first time that something on a larger scale had happened. I still went to the post party happy hour that happens every year, but being a big tough thirty-something (OK…in my mind I am tough) at a bar full of happy people, while inwardly weeping, was not a good place for me to be. I put on a good act for a while, but when I saw a friend outwardly emotional about what had happened, I didn’t know how to react. I wanted everyone to continue having a good time at the bar, but I was emotional about it too. So what choice did I make? I told her she should leave because she was bringing everyone down. Yes, I know I am an ass and told her so the next day. I left the bar early and immediately got a bad stomach bug that kept me up all night…served me right. Anyway, during the week that followed; I saw so many heartwarming stories and acts of kindness that I knew I had to do something too. A town was weeping and as I read on and on, I realized that it wasn’t a town, but a state; a nation; and a world that was weeping. And as we scoured the web in search of answers, we saw countless images of beautiful memorials in town; of the beautiful faces that were taken from the planet way too early; of the grieving that so many were going through; but I had been to Newtown many times in my life and that was not how I knew it, nor how I wanted to remember it, so I decided I would go as many days as I could on my holiday vacation and photograph the scenery of Newtown.
Day 1 – Pond Brook
As I entered Newtown before sunrise on Saturday, December 22, I couldn’t help but notice the local diner right off the exit. I would have stopped and photographed it right away, but I had been up a few hours already that morning and had planned out my trip so that I could be in a certain area by a certain time in case the clouds opened up. So I made a mental note to go back there another day and continued to my preset destination. When I do these trips I often open up Google maps and zoom into a wide area around my location. From there, you can see rivers and ponds, state parks, etc… And that is exactly what I did to end up here at Pond Brook. It was actually snowing out a little when I arrived, so my hopes for good light coming from the sun were pretty much over. That was until I was packing up the car to leave after taking about 15 or so mediocre shots. I noticed just a hint of the sun on the far trees.
I pulled everything back out, mounted my camera back onto my tripod and began snapping away. I only took 75 photos that morning, which is low for me on something like this, but I knew I had some good images and was satisfied. As I left I decided I would drive over near the school to see the memorial. I didn’t get out of my car, but I gave a nod and a wave to the policemen guarding the entrance to the school road. It was a very emotional first day.
Tomorrow I will share the Image of that diner I mentioned and bring a little color to this blog.
