By the end our session I was more than happy to leave right away, but before I could, Brown asked if I could help out with some much needed ‘work’. He insisted his years have caught up to him and could use my youth. He lead me over to the side of the house where there was a huge wood pile. As he slowly lifted each piece of wood one by one, I could barely make out what looked to be a bright yellow rain coat. I quietly, instantly started inching back, step by step, ready run as fast as my feet could possibly take me. He must have noticed the look on my faced when he asked me -

JB – ‘What’s the matter with you?! Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Me – ‘Who me? Naaah, I’m fine….so…um… what’s under the wood pile that you need help with John?’
JB – ‘Have patience, you’ll see.’

Patience I didn’t have as I started to turn to walk away. At that very moment, I felt something or someone grab my arm as if it were caught in a bear trap! Brown had me, it was just him and I and nobody else around. San Bernardino is that way, desert for miles, and he and I both knew it. Faster than lighting he had axe in hand ready to chop!

You wouldn’t believe me if I weren’t here today writing about it. Old John Brown really did need help. It was not a yellow rain coat as I thought, it was a beat up old Slip n Slide his kids used to use years ago. It had gotten so rain soaked and full of mud, slime, and debris, that Brown couldn’t lift it by himself. So he used his axe to chop it into smaller pieces, and I used the pitch fork to pile it all into a trash can. And it turns out his ‘victims’ were just the local road kill, you see John Brown used to work for the City of San Bernardino and be the head of the animal clean up until he retired in 1997.

Funny how reality isn’t what it seems sometimes.

ps. This story is untrue and these portraits are of my dad, Happy Halloween.

The next couple of portraits were up in Everett at Boeings own Future of Flight.  Here, Boeing displays there latest advancements in the aeronautical industry to the public. There’s even a tour where you can hop on a bus and drive around the air strips with all the foreigners you can muster.

Last was the Museum of Flight Restoration Center also located in Everett. By far this was my favorite place to shoot and visit. There is one paid employee and the rest of the crew are volunteers.  I’m guessing that most of the older gentlemen I met there were in either in WW2, or the Korean War, judging from their hats and jackets, with all their decorative pins, and their demeanor towards a civilian like me. At this facility they have dozens of historic jets, planes, vehicles, and props that are then fixed up, repaired, and shipped down to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

I have not had much interest or thought towards aviation, but visiting these sights really made me appreciate the industry and culture. The technology and advancements towards faster, lighter, more efficient planes is incredible. This shoot was definitely my favorite over the summer and hope to do more!

(This last shot is 3 of the volunteers at the Museum of Flight Restoration Center and is my personal favorite)

The building is old, the building is historic, and the building has tons of charm and character.

Around 2-3 months after shooting these photos, Mars Hill down town made the announcement that they finally ‘had the keys’. The announcement seemed to be well received by the city- “They’re not just a Sunday church. They have an active, urban mission that will be a community asset” – The Seattle Times.

It’s going to be fun and interesting to see what Mars Hill does with the building, then these photos will be about what the building looked like way back when.

I can’t wait to see what’s next!

Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ -James 4:13-15

Over the past 17 years as I have been shooting abandoned places, houses, things. I have encountered not just the dilapidation of man made objects, but also the decay of those animals that have found their final resting places within or around these once vibrant homes.

In a recent conversation with my dad, we laughed about the saying – there are two guarantees in life, death and taxes. Yet there is also the amazing gift of life, that is why you are reading this now, because you are alive. It does trouble me that this life is fleeting, that time goes quickly (whatever time is), that there is nothing we can do about it but wait. But I know what matters is how we wait, how we spend our time, how we live this short life and who we are living it for. We only have one, and then it’s over before we know it. So this begs the question for us all, while we are still breathing, what are we doing with our time?

Valerie shot at Magnuson Park
Billy shot at Rosewood Guitars
Tim shot at Dots Delicatessen in Fremont. (Amazing meats here, I highly recommend this place)
Tad at Burgermaster
Ken at Boeing
Jenny at the Seattle Public Library
Adam on location at Teague
Cameron at First and Pike News in the Pike Place Market
Devin at the Olympic Sculpture Park
Tom cooking at his lovely home
Heidi at the Pike Place Market

Valerie


Billy
Tim

Tad

Ken

Jenny

Adam

Cameron

Devin

Tom

Heidi

1. alternative for coffin
2. a decorative box for valuables

These are some the photographs that visually describe some of my thoughts and insides. The feelings that come after the consequences of poor decision-making or the uncontrollable circumstances in life that took me by surprise in the most horribly elegant way.

Every person knows of this place in his or her own life. We all have certain ‘rooms’ within ourselves that are disordered, chaotic, hectic, confused, jumbled, in disarray, terrifying. Maybe some of us choose not to go into these rooms and shut the door and act as if they don’t exist. Yet I think inevitably, sometimes by force, we will all have to face these rooms and make the decision to walk into them or to continue to try and paint over them. To cover the doors up with sex, drugs, alcohol, or whatever one chooses to numb the reality of them.

I have discovered in this process of life, which I have the privilege to express through my photography, it is by far the most difficult painful gut wrenching beautiful fulfilling incredible honest real surprising, challenging time I have ever entered into. Making the decision and choosing to open the doors and walk in, with others support, is truly the most difficult.

Sometimes I am…2 empty chairs…collapsing…an abandoned room…erected chaos…the worn shoes underneath the bed…a broken window and open door…a fucked up room…a filthy sink…sleeping in confusion…a dark winter sleeping…redeemed in Him.
…2 empty chairs.…an abandoned room.…erected chaos.…the worn shoes underneath the bed.…a broken window and open door.…a fucked up room. …a filthy sink.…sleeping in confusion.…a dark winter sleeping.…redeemed in Him.