The place I called home for the first 29 years of my life was Pennsylvania. On the occasions that I go back to visit family, I am continually plotting on how to stay there. There is something about the place where one grew up – the smells, the climate, the terrain, and, of course, the people – that touch on something deep in one’s psyche, especially when one is away for a long time.
I come from Berks County, and later Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. It’s a mostly rural area with a few exceptions, namely Reading and its surrounding suburbs. I grew up walking along the tracks of the Reading Railroad, (which is immortalized in the “Monopoly” board game), romping on the deciduous forests in places like Swatara Creek State Park, crossing the Tulpehocken Creek, or riding bike to the Millardsville quarry.
There’s a certain smell of the soil there after rain that smells like home. On summer evenings, after a long, hot day, the thunderclouds gather, and the air gets still. Lightning bounces from cloud to cloud, and then to ground. Then comes the downpour, and relief from the heat. I would stay outside as long as I could to feel the still air, and the gathering electricity. I miss it. I miss a lot of things about home, but Oregon is also home, and in Oregon I will stay. I will return to the East as fortune will allow, and will always have a camera along.
My wife, Gaia, hails from waaaayyy upstate New York, in a town called Potsdam. It’s so far north, it’s practically Canada. The first picture you see in this gallery is of the Raquette River in Potsdam after a sudden April snow melt that made the river almost shed its banks.
©2012 Gary L. Quay
I lived in Myerstown from 1972 to 1986. I took many of the town’s finer features, such as the architecture and rural setting, for granted when I lived there. After so many years away living on the West Coast, returning meant discovering what I was missing back then.
This is a lock from the long defunct Union canal, which ran along what we called the Tulpehocken Creek. I’m not well versed on the history of the Union Canal, but there are a few folk songs about it.
Camera: Super Speed Graphic 4×5.
Lens: 135mm Rodenstock Optar.
Film: Kodak Tri-X developed in HC-110.
©2012 Gary L. Quay
I had a Speed Graphic camera along for a New York trip in 2012, and my wife’s sister drove us around a little so that I could take pictures of the barns in the area. A lovely time was had by all.
Camera: Speed Graphic 4×5
Lens: 135mm Kodak Ektar
Film: Kodak Tri-X developed in Kodak HC-110
©2007 Gary L. Quay.
I took this picture in my sister-in-law’s back yard in near Potsdam, New York. There was a stiff wind that day, so not much of the foliage is motionless. I had high hopes for it.
Camera: Hasselblad 500 CM with A16 back,
Lens: 55mm Carl Zeiss,
Film: Kodak Portra 160 VC
©2012 Gary L. Quay
This is from my East Coast trip of June 2012. This is a barn near De Kalb Junction, NY. They do have some pretty barns in the area.
Camera: Super Speed Graphic.
Lens: 90mm Nikkor.
Film: Kodak Tri-X 320 developed in HC-110
©2009 Gary L. Quay
This is a resurrected images from the “Great Speed Graphic Fiasco of 2009.” This involved a roll film back that had I had never used before, which had light leaks. I used up 4 prescious rolls of Konica Infrared film only to be horrified after developing that most of the pictures were unusable. As I have gotten better with Photoshop, I have been able to clean some of them up to make them presentable.
This one is of a bridge at Gring’s Mill, near the Penn State University Berks Campus, where I went to school for two years in the 1980s.
Camera: Speed Graphis with 6×9 roll film back.
Lens: 90mm Nikkor with Red 25 filter.
Film: Konica 750 IR, EXP 1990!
©2012 Gary L. Quay
This church is made of a distinctive type of sandstone found around the Potsdam area. It’s quite red, and impressive. Naturally, I photographed it in B&W because I was traveling light that day, and had only my last few Fuji Acros Quickloads.
Camera: Super Speed Graphic 4×5.
Lens: 135mm Rodenstock Optar.
Film: Fuji Acros developed in Ilfotec HC.
Printed on Kodak Fine Art RC developed in Ilford Bromophen 1:3.
©2012 Gary L. Quay
This is from my east coast trip in June of 2012, when we flew out to PA and NY to visit family, and didn’t get out much to take pictures. On an few occasions, I did make forrays into the hinterlands with my Speed Graphic, and photographed some old barns—a favorite subject of mine. I usually try to steer clear of having power lines in my pictures, but this time it was unavoidable, so I composed the picture with them coming diagonally from the corner to make them somewhat compositionally pleasing.
Camera: Speed Graphic 4×5
Lens: 90mm Nikkor
Film: Kodak Tri-X 320 developed in Kodak HC-110
©2012 Gary L. Quay
I made this photograph in Robesonia, PA, which is where I was born. I grew up walking, and sometimes rinding a small bicycle, past this place. I have always thought that it looks idylic.
Camera: Super Speed Graphic 4×5 with 6×9 back.
Lens: 8″ Cooke Anastigmat (uncoated) with a polarizer.
Film: Kodak Portra 400
©2007 Gary L. Quay.
19th Century shed door near Potsdam, NY.
Camera: Hasselblad 500 CM
Lens 250mm Carl Zeiss
Film: Fuji Acros 100 developed in Clayton F76+.
©2007 Gary L. Quay
It was a windy morning in late October, but the day was bright and warm. The trees blazed orange, gold and red.
I was there to photograph my mother-in-law’s third marriage. The shoot didn’t go well. My strobes were insufficient, and the guests were shooting their tiny digital cameras, and setting off my flashes just before I did, causing many of my shots to be underexposed.
I went with Efke film and PMK pyro for the developer for this because I wanted the impression of what Ansel Adams called a “soft, enveloping light.”
Camera: Hasselblad 500CM.
Lens: 120mm Carl Zeiss.
Film: Efke R 25 developed in PMK Pyro.
©2012 Gary L. Quay
This is a historic mansion near Robesonia, PA. It’s made of the white granite that many houses are built out of in the Berks County area. Houses and barns that used that stone are not only sturdy, but they are also beautiful.
Camera: Super Speed Graphic 4×5.
Lens: 90mm Nikkor.
Film: Kodak Tri-X 320 developed in Ilford Ilfotec HC.
©2017 Gary L. Quay
In January of 2017, I was back in PA for my father’s funeral. It wasn’t a picture taking trip, but I did take a walk one evening along the tracks of the former Reading Railroad (now Norfolk / Southern) as it passed behind the elementary school I attended in 1968 and 1969. I didn’t have a tripod, or a camera capable of taking train pictures at night (not to say that I didn’t try), so I laid the camera on a rail, and set the shutter for time delay. This is what I got.
The death of a family member makes one think about how to live life, and how to make art. I have not taken many chances over the years. I’ve been afraid to stop traffic to get a once-in-a-lifetime shot. I don’t trespass to sneak in a hidden wonder. I don’t even pull onto the shoulder where there’s room, but it says “emergency stopping only” to catch a view when the light is perfect. Walking at night around a small, dimly lit town without a tripod gave me the chance to experiment with different angles, and the chance to not expect perfection. I laid the camera on trash cans, stuck it into trees, used my foot to support the lens, and even laid it onto railroad tracks. It was liberating.
Camera: Nikon D300
Lens: 24-120mm Nikon VR.
