563 - Pink House
In my last adventure, Castle in the Clouds, I decided to dip my camera into a stream to see what would happen. Turns out, it kills the camera.
This left me in quite a sticky situation. And I’m not talking about rice. Yet.
For one, I didn’t have a camera for the next couple weeks of fall colors up in Acadia, Maine. Which was the entire point of coming to the east coast. This trip was years and years in the making.
And, even more urgently, I didn’t have a camera for the portrait shoots I had planned this weekend. Which, to be specific, was two. Two extremely rare shoots. It’s not everyday that you can attend a model/photographer meetup in a haunted, Victorian style house.
But here I was, in the middle of nowhere, with my dick in one hand and a water-logged camera in the other.
I figured I had two choices. I could either (a) hope my camera works after sitting in a bag of rice for 24 hours, or (b) bite the bullet and get another camera. Which, frankly, I couldn’t afford.
Well, alcohol and sex it is. For the next 24 hours, I paraded around the college town of Amherst, Massachusetts with some girl I met on a dating app. It was super fun, but my camera’s dark fate always lingered in the back of mind.
By the time the morning rolled around, my brain felt like a gooey mush of serotonin and anticipation. But it was time to see if my camera had survived the night.
I plugged a battery in, turned the honker on, and waited.
The lights sprinkled in, then circuited off after about 20 seconds. The sensor had severe spots on it. I tried again. Same results, except it lasted maybe 30 seconds this time. (Kinda like me last night.)
FUCK.
Well, I thought to myself, time to put a camera on the ole’ credit card. It’s the American way.
I bought myself a Sony a7rIII. The same camera I had before all my gear got stolen in San Francisco. A minor step back from the Sony a7rIV, but completely unnoticeable to the general public, and $1,000 cheaper.
I went about my weekend like a normal person. I attended both portrait meetups, which turned out to be ridiculously cool. The first was at Indian Orchard Mills (an old warehouse,) and second one was at the Shirley-Eustis House (a Victorian style haunted house.) Feel free to check them out.
That leads me to today’s adventure. The Pink House. Since I detoured down to Massachusetts for the weekend, I couldn’t make it up to Maine by Monday’s sunset. So, after a bit of research, I settled on this place which was on the outskirts of Boston.
As it turns out, the Pink House is a cultural icon of the area, and has a pretty nutty history. It was built during a couple’s divorce in the 1920’s. As a part of their settling agreement, the husband was required to build the wife a house that exactly resembled their current family home.
The catch was that the agreement never specified where it was to be built. So the spiteful husband built the house in the middle of a marsh by the ocean, and wired the plumbing with salt water. This rendered the house basically uninhabitable, but eligible for the agreement.
A nice little revenge story.
But the real reason the house is famous is because of how long it’s lasted. The house was poorly built in a windy, uninhabitable area. The fact that it’s survived for more than 100 years has made it legendary in the greater Boston area.
I showed up about a minute before the sunset, and got this photo:
“Pinky Winky”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sony 12-24mm f/4 G
[ISO 200 ~ 12mm ~ f/7.1 ~ 1/125s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
….
And I’m not kidding when I arrived a minute before sunset. I pulled up and didn’t even have time to set up my tripod. I saw that the light was disappearing rapidly, and snagged a quick photo. 10 seconds later, all the sunshine disappeared from the side of the house, and twilight filled the land.
Impeccable timing.
And then, as if granted a gift from the photography gods themselves, a flock of birds flew into the sky. I snagged a quick pic and layered them into the shot you see above.
I welcomed myself back to the photography game, and got another photo of a tractor off in the distance:
“For the Boys”
Taken with Sony a7rIII + Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3
[ISO 800 ~ 400mm ~ f/6.3 ~ 1/200s]
(Want a Print? Get one here.)
As you can see, we’re still in that prime fall color season.
Phew. I sat back and relaxed for a second. The insanity of the weekend was finally over.
The amount of random, unplanned obstacles that come with this career path is insane. At this point, it just seems par for the course when you’re dealing with mother nature. She doesn’t care about your gear, mindset, or plans. She just exists.
But, at the end of the day, I can look to houses like this for inspiration. Perseverance through the difficult moments, for the light at the end of the day.
Stay tuned. ACADIA NATIONAL PARK IS COMING.
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