My family has had its share of health problems and usually we are the type that won’t go through to a hospital unless we absolutely need to.  Often we would say that we would “only go to a hospital only if we were bleeding out from our eyes”. 

What can I say, we’re a stubborn lot.

And although no one’s really ever bled out of their eyes, we have had some very important issues arise and require hospitalization, and even surgery. In one  such instance, my father was hospitalized for a procedure and my mother had gone deeper into the hospital with him. My brother was far to young to accompany her, and I was there to watch over him.

We were alone in the waiting area, quite early in the morning.  At first, the two of us tried to find a comfortable position, and get some sleep but the chairs in the waiting area proved far too uncomfortable for either of us to sleep more than a few minutes at a time. So to help time pass, we took to wandering the hospital just for a little bit. And to help distract my brother, we turned it into a little photography session.  Originally, we hadn’t planned to actually use the photos — it was just supposed to be a time kill.  But some of the photos actually turned out quite well and, I felt, powerful given the circumstances.

The Hallway

This was the hallway our parents had vanished down. After we had our small walk down the stairs and out and around the building and cafeteria, we came back to the main waiting room, with still no sign of our parents.  I had him sit in the middle of the hall (as there wasn’t anyone else around so I wasn’t worried about being in the way) and had him facing different directions.  Of all the shots, this was the best one where he was twisted to look down into the darkened hallway.

The Angel

Just outside of the main waiting area was a staircase with some angels around the banisters.  My brother needed a moment to sit and promptly hid his head in his hands. Even though he wasn’t unhappy or upset, at first glance I thought it looked like he was weeping.  With the white light from the waiting room practically over exposing the waiting area gave the darker stairwell just a touch of something, perhaps foreboding or a secret sadness.

The Arches

After finding the cafeteria, and being rather disappointed that there was no food ready (breakfast was over by the time we found it, and it was a while before the lunch menu was ready) we wandered outside to find another small waiting area of sorts, and promptly found ourselves locked out.  

The hospital had several arched open corridors that connected the outside pathways to the doors leading into the building and we spent a fair time trying to find one that actually opened into the building. Having just received a phone call from our mother with the all clear, this was our last chance at getting back into the building.  My brother was cold, and raced ahead of me to get inside sooner.

A side note about photography….

I find photography to be more of an artistic release, and tend to shoot for that purpose, rather than for commercial reasons or uses.

I engage in photography because I want to capture a secret split-second moment, and I want that moment to mean something.  Even if it’s something most see as trivial or mundane, it’s what I see and what that image means to me. Some of my images I have found to be able to transverse the artistic to commercial, but its only been in rare cases and never been the sole focus of this kind of work.

I was taught by my photography teacher that you can’t judge one’s photographic skill solely based on the gear they use. Sometime the best pictures can be taken from a simple point and shoot, and just because you have the latest model DSLR with the best lens does not mean you have instant photographic gold.

My photographic arsenal is equipped with a Cannon AE-1 SLR with multiple lenses, a Minolta Maxxum 7-Xl, a Vivitar film SLR, a Nikon Coolpix E4200 point and shoot, and Nikon Coolpix S4100 point and shoot, and occasionally the iPhone7.