The Mark Girls Allison and Paige braved the 100 degree heat to play in the park and let me point my camera at them. SO much fun!

Rescued From the Depths of my Hard Drive

Every once in a while I get the urge to look back through some of my older shots to see if there are any that I may have skimmed over or possibly just to give a different take on the processing.
This photo is a good example of that.

We saw this wonderful barn along side the road in Northern Arkansas back in February when we drove down to visit our friends. Originally I didn't like this shot as the sky was a bit murky and the contrast wasn't great. I love the barn so much, though, that I decided to give it another shot and I was quite happy with the result this time around.

What do you think?

Midwest Beauty

For my money Kansas has some of the most beautiful landscapes in America.
This sunset shot was taken in Geary County in the Flint Hills region of Eastern Kansas.

A Good Tip Doesn't Hurt

People often ask me how I find the buildings, cars and landscapes that often make up my subject matter. I generally respond, "I get lucky". Which is true much of the time. Often I will open up Google Earth, poke around and decide on an area that looks like it could offer some photo possibilities and point my car in that direction. Other times I'll just be driving on my way somewhere and spot something out of the corner of my eye and (much to my fiancee's chagrin) flip the car around and shoot it.
Sometimes, however, I'll get a great tip from someone on the location of something to shoot. This recently happened at the opening of my show "No Trespassing: Th Beauty in Decay". A very nice lady approached me and was expressing her affinity for an image of a barn I had in the show. She went on to say that there was a barn on her family's land that would make a great subject and even offered to show me where it was.
She was so adamant about it that I took her up on it. She sent me the whereabouts and a couple weeks later I headed to southern Johnson County just before sunset. And she was right, the barn was a thing of beauty. I was also able to capture a nice prairie shot just down the road.
I will definitely keep my ears peeled for future suggestions from other people.

School's Out for S̶u̶m̶m̶e̶r̶ Ever

If you live in Kansas City, chances are you are aware that over the past couple of years they have closed half of the schools in the city. Did you ever wander what happens to those buildings? Well, most of them are left to rot. I know, because I've begun exploring some of the schools that have been closed for many years.
I am always amazed at the things I find in these schools that was left behind. The buildings have such a air of sadness to them - one buzzing with kids, now silent.

My most recent exploration was of the abandoned John K. Stark school - found in Independence, MO on Blue Ridge Blvd & 18th St. I was unable to find any information on how long the school had been closed, but from the condition of the structure I would say at least 10 years. I was able to find, however, that the school was build in 1930 and was named after the original owner of the land who was a highly regarded dentist.

As with every school I have explored - the vandals had made their mark. Nearly every wall was tagged and most of the classrooms had been ransacked. However, there wasn't any sign of bums living there - as is the case with the schools closer to the urban core.



The exterior of the John K. Stark school from the back.


A desk found in one of the classrooms – notice the hornet nest.


First floor hallway


A ransacked teacher's desk


The gym - love the Pepsi sign

You can check out the full set here

Other explored schools:
Horace Mann School
Switzer School

On to the next school!

Her Evening Elegance

On the heels of my first photography show, I set out on Sunday evening with renewed vigor with camera in hand.

I decided to trek across the countryside north of Kansas City and angle up towards St. Joseph. Being from Kansas, I am still pretty unfamiliar with rural Missouri and am going to focus my efforts on those unfamiliar areas.

I was a bit disappointed not to find as many as abandoned structures or vehicles within eyesight of the road as I expected I might. Instead, I was rather surprised at how many rural "neighborhoods" there were out in the middle of nowhere. I guess that is just a sign of the KC metro's reach expanding and people searching for inexpensive land to build upon.

I had all but given up on my rural quest and was going to shift gears and head into St. Joe and shoot some of the cool buildings in the neglected old downtown area when I stumbled upon the rural abandonment jackpot. Sitting atop a hill about 200 yards off the road amid a sea of waist-high prairie grass was this beautiful decaying barn.
The scene was like something out of a movie, as there were two perfect tire tracks leading up to the barn from the road.

It wasn't quite sunset yet, so I headed on in to St. Joe and got some shots then headed back out to this pot of gold right at sunset.