(birds chirping) (camera equipment clanking) - My focus of my photography is finding beauty in places where you wouldn't expect to see it in.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) My favorite type of room to explore in abandoned buildings would be the boiler room.

(upbeat music) I'm fascinated by these big machines or these big pieces of equipment.

(upbeat music) We all register things differently through our eyes.

And for me, I want people to be able to look at what I see and still see beauty in it.

(door creaking) Like a old staircase with peeling paint and dust flying around.

There's something that looks like beauty to me when I see that kind of scene.

And for me, that always has this sense of a wonder, mystery.

I hope that people can see what I see.

(upbeat music) The staircase theme for me that seems like there's hope.

There's light on the top of the staircase.

You see, you're at the bottom where it's dark.

Something can be hopeful if there is something interesting up there.

Those kind of things draw me, like open doors, open windows, lights in the far off distance, that draws me.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) This is my nephew.

I took photos of him a lot when he was younger, so he's about a year and a half old here.

He's now grown, married, with two beautiful kids.

So it's interesting looking back on these photos.

So I started in art at an early age, and I always wanted a camera.

And when I was 13 when my parents bought me my first camera.

(zipper opening) It was a small, Vivitar 110, and I'd just take it everywhere and take photographs.

So this is a photo I took a 1995 of my father, downtown.

When I was in high school, I loved taking, my focus was night photography.

So my parents would take me out at night and drive around so I could take photographs.

I was taking a picture actually of the Usinger's building.

And my dad was just leaning against the building, waiting for me to finish taking my photo of the water and everything.

And I thought, oh, that's a great photo of dad.

He's leaning there, great, great, great pose.

I took a picture of my father, and it's one of my favorite photographs that I've ever taken.

I was a shy kid, I didn't talk much, 'cause I had a stutter.

And sometimes, just being able to photograph things and that would help me explain how I was feeling or how my thoughts are.

One of my undergraduate degrees is in photography.

During that time in college, started thinking about how my photography is being viewed, and what was I actually trying to say, communicate to people.

So that made me think about just not absent minded taking photos, just, oh, I'm photographing this, this, this.

Maybe I should think about what I'm doing and why, I can look more inward to myself.

(upbeat music) So I keep going back to Gary, Indiana.

Initially, it was because it was easy access.

The city has a smaller tack space than most cities, and Milwaukee, when a building closes down, it's boarded up and police patrol thing, patrol around to make sure no one goes in to damage it.

And Gary, when a building closes down or the owners move away and don't take care of it, it doesn't get boarded up, it just starts to decay on its own.

It's like this weird husk just dying on a vine almost.

And I started getting really interested in those buildings because I kind of thought, well, the beauty is still there.

It's just hidden underneath the decay, hidden underneath the spray paint, hidden behind the broken windows or broken glass.

One of my favorite buildings in Gary was called Memorial Auditorium.

It was a building where they would have concerts and plays.

I think someone mentioned Frank Sinatra performed there.

I think they mentioned MLK may have spoken in there as well.

When I was in Gary in 2020, one of my first trips, I saw that the building was being torn down.

They were in the process of tearing down, so one wall was already down.

I figured, let me just go inside and take a look.

And I walk inside, and there's this pink piano just sitting in a lobby area.

I entered that photograph in a contest that David Barnett Gallery is having just for local photographers.

And it was selected into the finalist stage.

And there was a contest where people would come in and vote for their favorite photograph.

So I actually won second place, which I was very happy about.

In a world where everything is so superficial and everything is all very TikTok or social media focused, this may seem corny, but go outside, look around.

There are things that you may not notice that are right in front of you.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Thanks for watching the Arts Page.

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