Postcards from the Creative Journey

The Ansorge Hotel

A Room in the Ansorge Hotel

Curlew Washington is officially designated a ghost town. When we were there Curlew was a gas station, general store, saloon, a few empty store fronts and the Ansorge Hotel. The Ansorge Hotel is on River Street on the way out of town. It’s no longer a hotel, but a county historical museum.

We arrived the day after the “tourist season” ended. We called the number on the hand written sign taped to the front door of the museum. We asked the caretaker if we could photograph the museum. She came by shortly thereafter. After giving us the once over, she was kind enough to let us photograph the museum for a few hours. I photographed the interior of the building with an intensity brought on by a tight deadline. When I enter a period of intense concentration, everything other than the task at hand disappears from my consciousness. I felt that I was invisible as I photographed the rooms and the guests at the hotel were just minutes away from returning.

While we did not spend a great deal of time inside the Ansorge Hotel, the quality of the projects that emerged from that intense period of photography was very satisfying.

Ansorge Hotel: Reflections

Something’s in the Kitchen

The Fairview School

"A Boy's Song" books at the Fairview School,

from the Prairie Schools Folio

The Fairview School is a one room school on the plains of Eastern Oregon. At the Fairview School the only things left behind were memories and a shelf of books. I photographed the books but could only wonder about the memories.

Later, when I was photographing the front of the building, a car pulled up next to the school. An old woman slowly walked over and started telling me about the building. She said it closed about thirty years ago. Later, her grandson and granddaughter joined us, and told us that the school had been abandoned in the 1930’s. He allowed as that as grandma was getting older, her memory sometimes played tricks on her. We made small talk for a few minutes about the building and how memory changes with age.

Now I had a few memories to go along with the photographs I made. I thought that in a few more years, all that would be left are photographs of what remained of a one room school. The memories of that school will be buried with Grandma when she passes on to her eternal reward. 

Reid’s Shop

Frank Reid's shop, Eastern Oregon

It was kind of grey and wet day, an odd sort of thing for Eastern Oregon. The deer hunters left the campground before dawn in a cloud of diesel exhaust and high spirits. We left a couple of hours later heading into the Ochoa Forest. We came down a road and saw a grouping of old buildings. They seemed like a good photographic haunt during an autumn rain. Getting out of the truck I went to look at one of the open sided structures filled with tools and equipment. Brooks went to the house to see if we could photograph on the property. He went to knock on the door and I headed for the shop. I spent quite a while photographing in the shop.

After photographing in the shop, I headed back to the house to see what was keeping Brooks from coming outside into the cold and rain and being a “he-man” photographer. Brooks was kind of involved with some photography, but that’s not the whole story. In addition to some photography there was conversation (in the form of, shall we say ribald stories), shared beverages (dare I say alcohol might have been a component) and a friendship made when a couple of guys occupy the same spot for a few hours.

The camera acts as a catalyst not only between the photographer and the subject, but between the photographer and the people he meets when he photographs. Cameras are good for making images and more importantly they allow you to make friends. 

I Love the Smell of Sagebrush In The Morning

Main Street, Roundup, Montana

It smells like photography.

No town in the American West has a better name than my wife’s home town, Roundup, Montana. The best time of our visits there was the first morning. Still stuck on East Coast time, I would wake up a couple of hours before everyone (except the donut maker at Picchioni’s IGA) and venture forth with my camera in the early morning light.

The aroma of sagebrush and pine filled the town during the night. The smell was fresh and clean and I knew I was out west. Even though I was in town, the smell of the sage reminded me how close I was to the range land of Eastern Montana. For that hour or so before everyone starting moving through the town I could photograph alone and undisturbed. When the trucks starting coming through town, the still air was disturbed and the smell of sage was lost in the exhaust.

By then it was time to stop photographing and head to Picchioni’s for fresh donuts.

Maggie the Ghost

Room 5, The Jameson Inn, Wallace, Idaho

(Without Maggie's help)

The Jameson Inn in Wallace, Idaho is haunted by the ghost of a young girl named Maggie. Maggie is a playful ghost and likes to hide keys. The manager warned that Maggie would move keys around and sometimes she would hide the keys and then return them (maybe) weeks later. We vowed to keep our keys in our pockets.

I was about to photograph a doorway but a large boot shaped key fob interfered with my composition. Brooks stuck his head in the doorway and asked me to look at a photo he made. As I walked out of the room, Brooks watched me take the key out of the lock and put it on the bed, behind me. We went down the hall to look at his photo set up and we spent a few minutes discussing his situation.

I returned to the room where I was photographing and the key was back in the lock. We were alone in the building, well, except for Maggie the ghost.