Storm Drain Near Gateway High School

Storm DrainBack in the 1980s, I went to art school, and I along with all of the other illustration majors were required to take a minor course in photography. We had to shoot the photos as well as process the negatives and make prints. I don’t recall what the particulars of the class assignments were although I can tell from looking at the negatives which were the assignments and which ones were shot just to finish off a roll. The shots to finish a roll are usually more interesting than the contrived, arty shots. While my fellow students mostly resided and shot their photographs in the vibrant metropolis of Philadelphia, I lived and did most of my shooting in and around the staid and solid small town of Westville, New Jersey.

As I’ve been reviewing these negatives while scanning them, I remember shooting most of them. This one I don’t remember shooting, but obviously, I must have shot it. At first I assumed that this was near the pond in Westville, but once I scanned it, I recognized the facade of the building in the background as belonging to Gateway Regional High School in Woodbury Heights, New Jersey. I’m not sure why I was wandering the fields around the school snapping off exposures of Pan-X film. I probably wasn’t sure why I was wandering those fields back then either. As I’ve written before, I was waiting for inspiration to strike me. Until it did, I wandered and shot and hoped I’d wind up with something worth printing. I did, but it took me a few decades to realize it.

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2 Responses to Storm Drain Near Gateway High School

  1. Old NFO says:

    Looks like somebody was falling down on the road maintenance up there… 🙂

  2. Joe_Williams says:

    Yeah, it did look sort of beat, but I think that’s what I liked about it. Like part of a set of a horror movie.

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