Not just looking really seeing

Today i was looking for an old picture i wanted to print out and i ended up finding a ton of pictures i had taken years back when my interest in pursuing photography just began to emerge. some were taken when i was just about to leave Los Angeles and i had bought a crappy digital just to snap some pics of all the things i was going to miss after i left. others were taken the 1st few months- few years i was back in Buffalo some were taken with a crap film camera i had, some with my 1st generation Iphone. those first months/years in Buffalo were extremely hard for me all the friends i had made in my past 12 years were all back in LA. i was beyond lonely and insanely depressed by the cold, dark winter here and the seemingly negative attitude that seemed to come with it like a storm. Times were so tough i couldn't get a job out here to save my life. every time i did finally get hired somewhere the jobs i got just felt so beneath me. i don't want to sound cocky at all i just really didn't like the sleazy environments i was in. Oh screw it, i'll just tell you i was cocktail waitressing at Rick's tally ho and it was awful it was soul sucking! never in my life out of all my travels or the big cities i lived in LA, Vegas, San francisco at my work places did i ever encounter drugs or prostitution. there it was right before my eyes on the corner of transit & genesee street. every night i was there i'd smoke a cigarette on the patio and wish i was dead. i just have always felt like this pure artist with all these great ideas and aspirations. watching those dreams crumble like ashes from my cigarette into the snow night after night till 4 am was heart wrenching. i did meet some cool people and some book worthy characters, i guess it just made me sad to see pretty girls with just as much potential as anyone else degrade them selves and snort & shoot up their life away to a drug induced coma. i'll never forget one night one of the bartenders told Rick (the owner) that he caught one of the girls giving a customer a hand job and Rick's response was "hand job? what's a hand job this is a strip club not a church!" well needless to say that was it for me, time to get out of a situation thats only getting worse and worse. i think a few months after i left that place was raided and a bunch of people were arrested so sometimes you gotta know when to get out! that 1st winter back here the only thing that brought me joy was taking pictures i'd walk around the forest lawn cemetery, delaware park, hoyt lake, the old train station, allentown, ellicottville and just shoot things i found interesting. those little walk around assignments i gave myself really made me start to "see" things it was the begining of my discovery. i really loved how the things i found mundane would end up being my favorite shots, and when things just fell into place accidentally. the whole process of learning was all very exciting and furfilling. now that i always had a camera in hand it seemed to somehow give me license to walk around by myself and no longer feel anxious and lonely. the camera was my buddy and with it i could enter other's lives. it became a great ice breaker and got me back out there socializing again. when i wasn't shooting i was watching movies, documentaries and reading books about famous photographers. i eventually got a job as a tour guide and that was a great experience being in nature all the time and entertaining a crowd. i loved it and had a great time but it was seasonal so by fall i ended up trying to find work again. it just wasn't in the cards i had so many awful interviews, and basically a lot of doors slammed in my face. i started to think i was this horrible undesirable candidate for a job. i really think that life is a constant test the force from above basically hands you situations just to see how you react. i decided to take all those lemons and make some amazing lemonade. i started my own photography business and have been doing that as "my job" for over a year now. i'm not gonna sugar coat it and say i'm rolling in the money cause i am not but i am getting by and i am doing it my way. so i guess the lesson in todays blog is sometimes the bad things that happen to you are like arrows pointing you in the right the direction. you just gotta hang on and roll with the punches. i think now of all those people who were mean to me at those interviews i think of how low i felt, how i really let them effect me and doubt my self worth. i think it was all worth it cause if it wasn't for them i wouldn't be where i am today doing what i love. so if anybody ever reads this and you have a dream and you think that the crap hand life has dealt you is going to keep you from it, i am here to tell you "you can do whatever you want, you create your destiny, you make it happen". i am glad i found these pictures today, back when i shot them i don't think i thought they were any good. seeing them now i think they are great! i really love to see the process, to see where over time i have improved. its nice to see that even with the crap cameras i had back then i still got some amazing shots. the one up top of the guy in B&W looking like it was taken a long time ago he's dressed like a nice young polish boy. thats my brother and one of my 1st models! that photo won a photo contest a while back and was published in The Art Voice.

My Lily Dale experience

Last year i attended a barbeque and over heard an old friend speak of when she went to Lily Dale and had a reading done by a psychic. i was intrigued what, when and where is this place? being the little curious george that i am i found myself asking her tons of questions and the next morning googling it as soon as i awoke. i read online that Lily Dale was the largest spiritualist community in the world and was an area mainly inhabited by mediums/psychic's. that is about all i read and then i map quested directions. i'm one of those let's just find out when we get there types. i love to really experience a place more than just read about it. when i pulled onto Dale drive i noticed a beautiful sparkling lake on my left so i jumped out of my car and grabbed my camera "i was shooting with film that day" and took some pics of the loveliness around me. the trees, the lily pads in the water and then i noticed what appeared to be a white trash bag floating by. i thought to myself now what kind of jerk would litter this beautiful place! i turned my head for a second then looked back only to see it wasn't trash but before me was a stunning swan. amongst the warm glow of the sun it looked like a feathered gem in the water. i basked speechless, it was a breath taking view and i thought wow what a magical place. later on i read Lily Dale has 2 swans Lily and Dale. if i would have known that before coming i would not of had that wonderful surprise. its funny because i don't have a picture of that swan for some reason i was so caught up in the feeling of the moment i just forgot all about my camera. i drove slowly down the road and entered the gates of Lily Dale it is a very quaint village old rustic cottages, victorian looking houses, bed and breakfasts, a sign that say's speed limit 5 mph. i crept slowly up each street seeing signs on lawns with names on them and medium underneath each one. i felt excited and nervous i had no intent of getting a reading but at the same time thought it would be fun and spontaneous. so i parked and walked into the house and then waiting room of some random medium, i thought if its meant to be it will be. i found out soon after she was all booked up that day so i felt it wasn't meant to be so i headed out with my camera in tow. i took pics of the things i saw the decor, the museum, the forest temple, the areas where rocks seemed aligned for a purpose that i was unaware of. i walked onto a dock overlooking the lake and noticed the squirrels there were extremely friendly. altogether it seemed like i had gone back in time to a much simpler period and it was a nice thought. for a moment i imagined it was a place without internet, a small isolated country side village where ones talents are given flight by the society with in it. then i saw a sign that said cappuccino and i reverted back to reality. i walked onto the porch of a small coffee shop located in the center of Lily Dale and noticed a man that reminded me of "Gil Grissom" from CSI, my favorite tv show. he had that educated, scientist look about him with his high turtleneck and glasses. we started talking so i sat with him a while and he let me take his picture. his name was Curry what a great name for the character that he is. he told me how he and his wife were staying in Lily Dale for the summer so she could take classes on mediumship and so he could have a break from their regular life in New Hampshire. he told me he was a computer programmer how he was very narrow minded about the whole psychic thing before coming here. the things he witnessed had changed and even baffled his mind! so since he had the 411 on all the mediums i found it appropriate to ask him if he had any suggestions as far as mediums go so the next time i returned i could have one picked out. he gave me 2 names Joseph Sheil and Willa White. he started to tell me how Joseph Sheil was a spirit artist and he did these drawings, before he could finish i thought wait i saw his house and the drawings were in the windows and i remembered thinking since he had drawings with actual photos next to them what awful renditions they were. me being an artist and a slight critic of other artists. then Curry went on to explain to me that Joseph drew those drawings during a reading for someone and those were the images he was seeing of the spirits that appeared to him. so later on the families sent him photos so he could see how right on he was. i had to run back to his house to look at the drawings again and found them to be insanely dead on. i was impressed but i still found myself skeptical Curry talked of other things he saw there from spoon bending, to levitating tables all by the power of someone's mind. he mentioned another medium who was the youngest at Lily Dale but the best he had ever seen, he claimed she always had everyone she read in tears within seconds of the reading. he recommended her highly and said if i were to come back i should see her. her name Willa White i knew i would never forget. time went by as it does and it was around the 4th of July and my best friend Cristina came to visit me from California "my old stomping ground". i thought while she is here we should go to Lily Dale and get readings done. so i emailed Willa and asked her some questions about what kind of reading would it be could we ask about who we are gonna marry? she replied no that she was a medium not a psychic and she communicates with people who have passed on, she does not predict the future. i thought what a bust...who the heck is gonna come forward for me?? so i honestly wasn't all that jazzed about getting my reading because i truly didn't believe she could do what she claimed. i thought it was gonna be an obvious hoax and i'd leave feeling annoyed like i have at the state fair's "freak shows" where the world's smallest horse is just a pony. man was i wrong. she had me in tears within seconds. she had connected with a dear friend of mine who killed himself years back and all the details she knew were nothing she could of dug up on the internet. she said things he would say, she knew about paintings i had done, shrines i had made in my home. she knew private details about my family, quirks that make up who i am as a person. all in all my experience cannot be described well in words the same way a picture of that swan could not of encompassed that moment. that reading gave me so much closure it truly inspired me to keep striving forward. it made me feel less lonely like i had a team out there in the universe that was pulling for me, watching over me, loving me, hanging around and protecting me. i reflect back on times where i put myself in harms way and i still to this day can't believe i am alive, and i know now why i am. what i learned from my experience that i really loved was that i could still be surprised by life, and its nice to have faith and i'm glad that through all the negative there is out there that i still believe. i didn't read it in some book, i didn't watch some scientist document it on tv. i experienced a paranormal connection being made i had the spirits of people i lost all around me. i am no longer afraid of death i look forward to it in a way. i feel that one day instead of belonging to just my body i will be a part of everything. all the beauty, the wind, the light. a happy phantom with a boundless spirit. i had the privilege of photographing Willa White i got to walk with her in her shoes and around Lily Dale she is truly a colorful, sensitive soul. what she can do i can't think of a better word than magic. the connections she makes to people and their loved ones is something they carry with them for the rest of their lives. such a powerful gift yet she walks quietly as if not to disturb any of natures majesty. she breathes heavily as if to take it all in, all the beauty around us. all the wonder and infinite possibility around us.

Photos from the 14 days i lived in Pittsburgh PA