The Dance

Conversation overheard yesterday between two co-workers:

Older guy: Music has no story, only the song can tell you what the music is about. (Being Jamaican I assume  he meant lyrics)
Younger guy: The music has a story.
Older guy: No, the music can not tell you anything, it has no story.

I stood there and said nothing. Some people do not see the story in an abstract tale, only that which is obvious. I think they are wired differently resulting in lack of a vivid imagination. They can not explore a subject independently. They have to be led.

All art tells a story. Some art is nothing more than someone's attempt to create, or more correctly recreate, another's work. And there is not a thing wrong with that--as long as credit is given to the originator.

A successful creation will live on for decades because it will always ask those who experience it what they feel and see--no two people will see such a creative piece the same. Each person brings something to the art from their respective lives.

When you create, try to create something that challenges the audience. Allow them to share in the dance.

Photography and the Inner Roark

I really wanted to make a difference with photography when I first started out. I look at my early work from California and I like it. I believe that I saw what no one was looking at and recorded it. I remember the feeling, the idea, that if I didn’t record this thing in front of me, no one else would. I remember thinking that someday, someone would appreciate my foresight—someone would say: “Damn glad someone got that.” That seems so naive now, but it is true. I had this idea that art, photography in particular, could show not only the important acts people were performing in the world, but the things people walked right past: things people were never seeing; things people were too caught up in their own worlds to notice. I wanted to reveal, through the photos,  how I saw the world--and I hoped someone would find that view interesting. I think this is why I’m disappointed with the current state of photography. I constantly see acclamations and praise for photographers and the images they post on social media sites. People admire the photographer’s “eye” or their “vision”—while I see a missed opportunity. Oh, trust me, I have fallen victim to such traps. I am far from immune, and possibly shouldn’t be talking about it, but I like making photographs, I feel compelled to do so. I have shot what I knew would be popular and would win praise. In those shots, I took the easy approach; the popular approach; the safe approach. In that respect, I can be, I should be, labeled a hypocrite. Except I’ve learned that those were mistakes.

In the past year or more, I’ve made an effort to avoid the obvious—to avoid the easy shot. To avoid shooting what I knew would bring “likes”. I began looking for the details that make something interesting, more interesting than its whole. Instead of shooting so many images I fill the card up, I shoot only what a roll of film would limit me to—and of those, I’ve realized a truly critical eye will eliminate all but a few as useless.  Instead of making my “work” harder, this change has actually made my work easier. It has freed me from the constraints of public opinion; from the worry of what will someone think about me as a photographer; me as an artist. I realized the work was about what I saw, and what I felt. I found joy once again in photography. I even began moving back to black & white film and developing it myself—though I have to admit I’m stingy with film’s uniqueness and only rare friends and clients have their portraits taken with film.

I finally realized that no one else mattered. They either got it, or they did not. Those that did not get it were not the audience I was seeking. In the novel, The Fountainhead, Howard Roark knew this.  I finally decided to follow my inner Roark.

Altamont Pass, California in the 1980’s →

          Standing between the hills, between the asphalt of the old Lincoln Highway and near the rails of the Union Pacific Railroad, is a lone palm tree. It seems out of place in such a desolate little valley.  A palm tree usually evokes images of beaches and salt water, not of ranches and railroads. Yet, here stands a lone palm among the golden hills and dry grass. This little valley is hot and dusty during the summer, cold and wet during the Northern California winters.

           Altamont Pass, formerly Livermore Pass, was the location of what was once the town of Altamont. The town grew around the railroads that came through the pass completing the last segment of the Transcontinental Railroad. Altamont was the summit where helper locomotives needed to haul long, heavy trains up the hill were uncoupled, their job completed, and turned back to the rail yard to wait for the next train needing help. Around this railroad activity grew small industries, a hotel, a school, and a church. 

           The two railroads that wound through Altamont were the Western Pacific (WP) and the Southern Pacific (The Espee).  In 1915, the railroads were joined by a gravel highway which quickly became notorious for wrecks and deaths at one particularly sharp curve. Once the road was paved, the death and injuries decreased and the number of automobiles increased. The Summit Garage serviced cars and trucks traveling the Lincoln Highway in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Between 1936 and 1938, the highway was realigned for a more direct route and one with less of a grade. The town slowly ceased to exist. The school stopped being a school in 1955. The Summit Hotel had been torn down. The Espee’s depot eventually disappeared also. The garage continued on until the late 1950’s. Trains and cars rushed through Altamont just like the wind—passing through and never stopping. Altamont would later become famous for a rock concert gone wrong and then forgotten once more.

           I began visiting Altamont in the 1980’s because of the railroads. The WP had been sold to the Union Pacific Railroad and this was the final days to see WP painted locomotives roll through the pass. I watched and photographed the trains as they glided through the tunnels and around the hills. When there were no trains to watch, my wife at the time, Karen, and I began to walk around the area exploring and speculating on what it might have been like decades before. We found old bottles, but even with a metal detector, not much more. It was mainly our way of escaping from our suburban existence in the Livermore valley below. Altamont was our spot. We imagined the Model A’s being gassed up or repaired at the garage, the folks arriving for church, or the kids playing around the one room school house during recess.

            Around 1985, the Southern Pacific brought in a switcher engine and some freight cars to teach managers how to run a train. The company was anticipating a labor strike. I think what they found was that managers could manage offices, but not a locomotive and its cars. The strike never happened, but this was the last freight train for the 100-year-old road bed. In 1986, the railroad abandoned the Altamont route and began pulling up the rails. I photographed those final days, and the photographs reflect the feeling of abandonment and loneliness I was feeling in my personal life as well.  Karen and I separated and I decided to move back to North Carolina for a few years. I made one final stop at Altamont before leaving. I ate Jack In the Box tacos and looked out over the Altamont Hills wondering how it might change before I’d return. I’d never return to Karen or Altamont Pass.

           Today a commuter train shares the Union Pacific’s rails, taking workers from the town of Tracy, into the Bay Area and then home again. The Southern Pacific’s route is now a biking and hiking trail. Thanks to Google Earth, I can continue to visit Altamont Pass when the mood strikes. With the Southern Pacific gone, the property has been sold and apparently is now a ranch. Summit Garage there still, and is still in use. The old water tower can be seen along the UP tracks.

            Also visible on Google Earth is that lone palm tree.

The Kornegay Family Farm →

   --a photo documentary of a classic Eastern North Carolina farm

                The Kornegay family of Duplin County can trace their roots to George Kornegay, the family’s sole survivor of the Tuscarora attack on the then new settlement of New Bern in 1711.

                The journey began in the Palatine region of Germany and was marred by a series of mishaps that included politics and pirates. The family of John George Kornegay endured being shuffled around England in an effort to keep their voting power in England. When they finally were given permission to sail, French privateers attacked and stole their belongings during the ocean voyage, a voyage that would cost the lives of half their group of 600. They finally arrived in North Carolina just as the friction between the colonists and the Indians came to a head. Less than a year after their arrival, the Kornegay family was wiped out, save for one ten-year-old survivor, George Kornegay.

                George and another orphaned little boy, George Koonce, would be raised by a prominent family, the Millers, who lived along the Trent River. Both were to be cared for and educated until they reached the age of twenty-one. George moved to Duplin County in the 1740’s, where he met and married, Mary Fisher. The Kornegay family as it exists now in America began with this union.    

For three hundred years the Kornegay family prospered and became an important part of North Carolina’s history. The farm buildings here were built by Zollie Kornegay in the early 1920’s. In 1926, his son, Rodney Zollie Kornegay Sr. was born in the front room of the home his father had built here in the Glisson area of Duplin County. Rodney Zollie Kornegay Sr. lived, worked, and raised his family in this home. In 2010, he passed away in the very same room.

                 This is a look at the legacy of Rodney Kornegay Sr. through the items and buildings that were a part of his life for 83 years. Rodney Kornegay played here, worked here, loved here, and raised a family here. His children played here, worked here, loved here---and now, so do his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The tradition continues.               

                A storm had taken away a work shed a couple of years before. Mr. Rodney’s tool chest, an anvil, and other assorted instruments associated with manual labor and skill lay rusting on the concrete slab left behind. Mr. Rodney was an avid beekeeper at one time. Beehives and boxes filled with jars of honey are still stored in the old pack house. In the big barn, on a dusty work bench, stands an unfinished corn cracker. Other assorted items from traps to old drive belts hang on the wall as sunlight parts the spaces between the wood slats of the barn. His Farmall tractor and bass boats sit under nearby shelters, their hulls waiting to once more touch the waters of a Duplin creek. While his son still works the farm, the old home place was pretty much as Mr. Rodney had left it.

The face of this part of the state is rapidly changing as we lose the old farms and country stores that were once so vital to rural life. While the Western part of North Carolina tries to preserve its culture and ways of life, in the Eastern part of the state there seems to be a rush to demolish and forget….or maybe it is forget and demolish?

                 The Kornegay Farm in Duplin County is a jewel among these cherished family farms. The aroma of flue-cured tobacco from decades ago still lingers around the old tobacco barns. The Kornegay family history reads like an adventure story dating to the very beginning of the United States. It was a thrill photographing these buildings and preserving them digitally and on film for the future generations of the Kornegay family.

The result of several weeks of photography and research into the family's history was this book. If your or your family would like information on such a project, please contact me at dandjphoto@gmail.com

City Barber Shop, Ayden NC →

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”

                Albert Einstein

Time travel exists. There may not be a doctor with a booth nearby as a clue, but the evidence is here--right in Ayden. You can leave 2014 by entering the City Barber Shop on 3rd Street. Here, years seem to have become intertwined.

The circa 1959 barber chairs are imported from Chicago. All three are a rich burgundy with chrome trim. The worn footrests say, “Emil J. Paidar”. The bases are painted sea foam green.  Behind the chairs are matching pedestal basins, and behind them is a large cabinet with mirrors. The cabinet is a blonde wood, typical of the 1960’s, with lights that remind you of the trim on a 1957 Oldsmobile. The words “Antiseptic Sanitizer” are stenciled on the glass doors. A television on a faux brass metal stand sits at the back wall, the rabbit ears askew. A western with Barbara Stanwyck is playing.

The proprietor is Douglas “Doug” Williams. Even at 72 years old his hands are steady and sure. With a comb in one hand and scissors in the other, he lifts locks, then with lightning fast flashes of the scissors, he snips. Hair is lifted, then you hear the “shweet, shweet” of the scissor’s blades. A small tumbleweed of hair rolls to the floor. This is repeated dozens and dozens of times. He cuts hair with the confidence that comes with 50 years of barbering. After the essential hair cutting is completed, the sides and back of the neck are shaped with the electric clippers. “Do you want me to taper the back or block it,” Doug asks one customer. “Are you going to keep the beard or shave it off when you get home…if you’re keeping it I can blend it,” he tells another. This is styling, this is barbering. It has been a tradition at City Barber Shop for decades.

Doug entered the Army in 1964. He served two years and returned to what he had been doing before--cutting hair in Goldsboro at the Sunrise Mall. In 1966 he decided to return home to Ayden. He worked for Lyman Baldree, the original owner of City Barber Shop. Mr. Baldree had cut Doug’s hair when he was a little boy. Now, Doug was working for him and continued to for years before taking over the business. “Mr. Lyman,” as Doug called him, was getting on in years and wanted to take a step back. Doug bought him out and the employee became the boss. A photo on one wall shows Lyman Baldree with a large group of barbers at a 1960 convention of Associated Master Barbers in Goldsboro. When Doug talks about this time, you can hear and see the admiration he had for Mr. Baldree.  

“He was a better boss than me,” says Doug. “My boss now won’t even give me a day off.” He chuckles at his joke.

You might say that time travel first happened in 1984. Everything in the barbershop was moved here from the building next door. This 1930 era building has been City Barber Shop’s home since. 

Now  in 2014, I’m taking photos and talking to Doug between customers. He stays busy. It seems as soon  as he tells someone in the chair they are almost done, someone new walks in. There are no appointments—everyone just ambles in and sees if there is time for a haircut. I myself didn’t come in expecting to get a trim. Not having much hair, I haven’t seen the need for a barber for many years now. But, after watching Doug at work for several hours, I began to get the feeling that not getting a haircut would be like watching Wolfgang Puck prepare a dish and not give it a taste. After cutting my hair at home for almost two decades, I can say that for now on Doug will be doing the honors--I’ve retired. 

Doug gives me a tour of the shop when it slows down. We look over the chairs and admire the quality. Doug isn’t impressed with the modern chairs he has seen at other shops. He shows me his new clippers. Someone kicked in the glass front door one night not long ago and stole all Doug’s clippers and tools. He takes me into the back storeroom. There, like an apparition from a past life is a shoe shine stand. Doug wants to display it up front since it is a part of the shop’s history. Unfortunately, he would have to pay for a privilege license to do so. This is because a shoe shine stand is considered a separate business from the barber shop.

Before I leave, I ask Doug for some timeline dates: When did City Barber Shop first open? When did he buy out Lyman Baldree? What year did Mr. Baldree pass away?

“Well, if you hadn’t asked…” he says, his voicing trailing off. The dates escape him for the moment.

What do dates matter anyway? It is only time, and, at this barber shop, years seem to run together—to be happening all at once.

Update: This piece and accompanying photos were picked up by a local magazine. You can check it out at http://www.downhomemagazine.com/

McCurry Hardware, Ayden NC →

It can be surreal walking into a place that evokes strong childhood memories. It is almost as if the memory has come to life. Being raised in this small town, I’d grown up with the sometimes pungent aroma of the grocery stores, the dime stores, and the hardware stores with their wooden floors, counters, and shelves. These places were filled with the smell of food, cloth, lubricants, iron, wood, and plants—a combination seemingly unique to each store, yet something that bound them together like cousins.

              McCurry Hardware is just that kind of place. This store is the place you get the hard-to-find items that many people depend on the internet for nowadays. There are cords for percolators, cast iron pans, double choppers, sledge hammer heads, straw baskets, washboards, galvanized wash tubs, and cedar wood birdhouses. At McCurry’s there are bins of screws, bolts, and nails. There are metal scoops to scoop the nails out of the bins and scales to weigh them. Here, you buy nails by the bag, not by the box.

                The McCurry’s building is an old Dodge dealership that was converted to a hardware store in the 1970’s when Bob McCurry decided to stop selling car parts on the road and stay in one town. There are a few fragments left that give a hint of the building’s past and age. The most obvious are the outlines of bricked over doors large enough for a car to drive through. If you look up you will see stamped tin ceiling panels. If you look down, you’ll notice evidence in the floor where car lifts stood or where walls divided the building’s interior into offices.

                McCurry’s is worth a visit just for the nostalgia. Bob McCurry is usually behind the counter, a slight stoop in his posture, and as likely to make change from his pocket as from the cash register. If you need seeds for vegetables, he’ll meet you at the seed counter. It is a beautiful cabinet with rows of drawers, each marked with a name and picture of its contents---or at least a picture of what it is destined to be. Bob will weigh your purchase on an old balance scale. If you need a sack of fertilizer taken to your car, Leroy his jack-of-all trades will be glad to do so. Leroy will also cut glass or PVC pipe to your specifications, as you watch and wonder how he lost several fingers on one hand.

And, if you really, really like McCurry Hardware, you can walk up to the counter and inquire about buying everything---McCurry Hardware is for sale. After decades of advising customers about which plant works best in the local soil, or helping solve a customer’s complicated problem with a very simple solution, Bob has decided it is time to retire. This isn’t a hardware store that markets itself as part of the past. This is the real deal. Visit before it is too late.

For photos of McCurry Hardware feel free to visit the gallery---just click on the JWCurry Photography Gallery tab at the top.