Hello everyone! Sorry again for the delay in posts this month, it has been a crazy month of traveling. I have been up here in the Windy City shooting a 3 day chorus competition, my dad's band, and a few other random things for the past week.
Today we were in Gary Indiana (about 20 minutes from downtown Chicago) to do some fashion shoots. For those of you that are not familiar with Gary, it is a bit of a ghost town (veeeeery creepy). Decades ago the majority of the population moved away because of a very weak job market. The city has had a very hard time recovering, and now there are abandoned buildings EVERYWHERE, including the theater that Michael Jackson grew up performing in and an auditorium that Martin Luther King used to speak in. Our past intern and good friend Logan James went with me and we spent 2 days shooting some of these abandoned buildings.
Let me just say for the record that I am a huge scared-y cat. As my family will attest, you will not ever find me watching horror flicks or scary movies. They scare the living crap out of me. So for me to go into old abandoned buildings where there were homeless folk, mice, rotting floors and creepy basements was a major deal. Logan on the other hand... Not so much. Let me tell you about Logan. This guy is about as fearless as a person gets. On Monday, he was leaving me alone to go explore pitch black basements and dark desolate rooms by himself. (PS.. .Did I mention that Gary used to be murder capital of the nation... and still has a very high crime rate?) He even was not afraid when a homeless dude with a CROWBAR came up behind him in a dark room. Instead of letting out a blood curdling scream and running for the hills (like I would have done)... When this homeless-crowbar carrying-character walked up right behind him he simply turned around and said, "Hey man... What are you doing here? Whatcha got that crowbar for?" I almost passed out.
So today, we went back. This time with 4 models in tow plus a friend to act as our security guard. We had zero problems and managed to get some REALLY kick butt photos. Logan did finally meet his match however. We all agreed to stay in a group (my suggestion, just so this didn't turn into something out of a horror movie where people start disappearing one by one.) Logan again decided to go off by himself and explore, this time going to the top floor of an old abandoned apartment building all by himself. About 20 minutes went by when Logan came busting out of the place, pale as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. We asked him what happened.... Apparently he had been going through each abandoned room by himself, opening doors, looking in closets (ya know.. the typical horror story stuff... ) He went through the entire 2nd and 3rd stories when he finally came to a door that wouldn't open. He tried to push on it, and it still wouldn't open. Then he heard a noise. He thought it was the wind. There was a hole in the door where the doorknob used to be. So he slowly leaned down, and put his eyeball up to the hole in the door. When he looked through the hole, what did he see .. but ANOTHER FREAKIN EYEBALL LOOKING BACK AT HIM!!!! AAAAaarrrrggghhh!!! Someone else was hiding up there in the abandoned building and was holding the door shut! Can you believe that!!!
Okay, I'll stop with the Scary Gary stories now.. It's late, I don't want you all getting nightmares. Lol...
We are driving back to TN on Saturday, I have a wedding Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday I will be shooting a new show for MTV/CMT out in the Smoky Mountains. Should be fun. Brooke and Andrea have been hard at work at the studio getting all of your photos processed and ready to go while I am gone. By the end of next week we should have all of your recent photos posted and be totally caught up. Whew!
Hope you all have a great week and I will talk to you soon!
-Krista
