Photographing Cleveland

Every weekend I try to get out of the house while my daughter naps, just to snap a few photographs. My husband is game enough to go along with this plan, since it gives him some peace and quiet of his own, and I get to wander around the area and get pictures. This plan, I love it.

Of course, there are some difficulties. I always start out wondering where I’m going to go, since there’s so much to see. One of my favorite places is the West Side Market, but I like to get some variety. Today I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Saint Theodosius, to capture the beautiful domes I see every day on the way to work.

It’s always calming, wandering around and taking photos. It lets me see the city through different eyes — allowing me to see beauty and interest in places I’d normally overlook. It also takes me to parts of the city that I normally wouldn’t travel, which is great.

As the mother of a toddler, I don’t get out too much. I go on walks, I go to work, but I don’t do much adventuring, except during these one or two hour expeditions. I relax, I look through my viewfinder, I’m on my own. It’s an experience that I’ve missed.

Back when I lived in Northwest Ohio, I used to explore abandoned houses along the flat and windy countryside. It was fascinating to see what people would leave behind and how nature would reclaim what was once man’s. Sure, I’d occasionally run across a faulty stair or a wall-dwelling raccoon family, but it was invigorating.

I got some great photos, but I also learned how temporary possessions really are. I’d talk to neighbors, try to get a feel for what happened to the owners (most had died or were put in assisted living). I’d try to leave the place the same as I’d found it, with the exception of a skull (animal, not human) in perfect condition that I carried away from one site in a baggie. I know, it’s a little morbid.

Photographing a city is different than photographing those old, broken houses. For one thing, the city has a life that breathes through every sight. Even the buildings seem to breathe. An abandoned house seems like an echo compared to a city, where the past, the present and the future coexist in the streets and buildings.

The city is kinetic — steam and smoke move through the air as cars fly past on the freeway. A city like Cleveland has a history different from the derelect farmhouses I once explored: where their stories are in the past, Cleveland’s story is still being written. Photographing that story is something wonderful. It’s taking a moment out of time and fixing it, to be remembered as a moment of past and present with a hint of the future yet to come.