It's one thing to experience a photo journey in a city that's new to me.  And it's another thing entirely to go on a photo journey in a city I know all too well.  This journey was in Akron, a city I know and love because it is right next door to my own hometown of Cuyahoga Falls...and so, by proximity is my secondary hometown.  For all it's faults, it will always be home, will always remind me of my childhood and will forever have my undying devotion. I hope to do explore my relationship and history with this city through more photo journeys, but for now...

I love that my husband (falsely) accuses me of being a reckless driver and always insists on driving us everywhere.  Being a passenger means I can let my thoughts wander and stare dreamily out the window as beautiful landscapes blur by (which I also tend to do while driving...which come to think of it, might actually make me a reckless driver).  Occasionally I'll see a place...a field, a tree, a building...so lovely that I have to return with my camera.  This is one of those places.  

Doesn't this chip in the wall look like the state of Ohio??

A few posts back, I wrote about how Debra and Brian invited me to New York City to document their engagement session.  Since my hubby and I had never been to NYC and rarely get to take vacations during wedding season, we decided to make a weekend of it.  Normally, when we visit new cities, we try with all our might to avoid looking like tourists, to look like we belong.  But as our giant airport shuttle drove us into the heart of Manhattan, my face pressed expectantly against the tinted window taking in the mass amounts of people, gritty streets, ornate architecture, street festivals, sidewalk vendors, endless, endless, endless buildings forever disappearing into the horizon...I knew that I was going to be one of those open-mouth, looking-up, camera-around-the-neck tourists. Meh, c'est la vie.

We spent three days wandering, eating and sightseeing our way through Little Italy, Soho, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, Midtown, Murray Hill, Times Square and Central Park.  I thought I would create a million images.  I thought my camera would be permanently affixed to my face.  But it turns out I was so mesmerized by the city, by the stunning architecture, iconic movie locations, the subway, the sidewalks, the shopping, the people, the heat, the Empire State Building, the food, oh sweet baby Jesus...the food, the heart-wrenching artwork at MoMA, the Brooklyn Bridge, the tops of buildings disappearing into tiny specks in the sky, the sprawling, historic, endlessness of it all...my mind couldn't process it fast enough. 

I was sure that I would be taken by the glamour of the city, you know...bright lights, big city.  But what resonated with me was the sense of personal history, the thought of thousands of hands that touched thousands of bricks, the raising up of buildings, families, careers, hope, and the comforting connectedness of a past that left grounded, physical evidence of it's existence.  I'm certain on my next visit, I'll have some much needed perspective and will create lots more imagery. But for now...this is a tiny handful of what was in my heart that weekend.