Begin Here. End There.
It all started with Route 66. Sort of.
I didn’t plan to make a photo essay.
Not at first.
When we drove Route 66 back in 2021, it was meant to be a safer, slower way to reach Missouri. Flying felt fraught, and we had the time. So, we took the old road, detours, diners, ghost towns and all.
Somewhere east of Barstow, we drove through one of those barely-there towns where the iconic Route 66 emblem is still painted in the middle of the eastbound lane. That emblem, reminiscent of the past, was my present.
There was something else about the emblem in the road, like it was the real beginning of our journey, like it was saying “begin here”.
After several days of motor hotels, vintage cars, and ruins of “must-see” attractions along Route 66, we came to an old bridge on a stretch of the road that had been bypassed by one of many realignments. You can walk the bridge but its days of transporting travelers across a river are over. Road Closed signs blocked the way. I thought, this makes the perfect ending. End here.
Route 66 today is filled with echoes of the past. Some of those are crumbling and in ruins and others are kept alive thanks to people carving out a living from travel and nostalgia. I had my beginning, my ending, and all nostalgic images of a bygone era in between. That’s how my first real photo essay, America’s Main Street, was born.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the impulse to bookend a journey, to turn it into a story wasn’t new.
Back in my wedding and portrait days, I designed albums for clients. I didn’t think of it as storytelling, but that’s what it was. I wasn’t just documenting a day. I was telling the story of a momentous occasion and shaping how it would be remembered. The album-maker in me was still there, and I was still thinking in story-of-the-day mode.
Fast forward to New York City.
As I wandered through Midtown, trying to be Alan Schaller – no, really that’s not a metaphor. I mean, I was literally walking around New York, camera in hand, thinking: What would Alan Schaller do? – when I started noticing something else.
New York is never still. It pulses, pounds, beeps, shouts and shatters. In the midst of all the movement and noise, New Yorkers could be in their own quiet spaces; there were these surprising moments of aloneness.
Four months later, I was back in NYC. Again, I had the days to myself to explore the city. Have I mentioned I really love my sister’s job? This time though, I had lots of time to think about how New Yorkers find solitude in a crowd. Or suddenly find themselves in a pause in the rush, the ebb within the flow. So, on this visit, I went looking for it. Could this be another photo essay? An as yet undefined project? I didn’t know yet.
But the more I looked for it, the more I saw it.
People alone on benches at Bethesda Terrace, claiming the space so they could be alone.
Rushing through a crowded train station, and right into a space where no one else was.
Sitting quietly on the edge of a fountain.
Having lunch in the architectural niches of Lincoln Center.
Walking down a busy street. Alone.
Staking a claim on a small piece of subway real estate.
Always in their own space, apart from the rush around them.
It didn't matter whether they'd chosen it or slipped into it, those moments were real. Even in a city like New York, solitude was there, even in fleeting moments.
This is just a glimpse. See the essay from beginning to end here.
The Space Between started as a tangential idea while working on something else. It morphed into a photo essay: an exploration of solitude in the city. I think I made this photo essay because I’ve lived at both extremes—alone in the woods, and invisible in a crowd. I know what it feels like to crave being a part of humanity, and I know what it feels like to need space, even when there’s none. In the city, I saw people claiming those small spaces. I understood it and saw a story in that.
After my season of discontent, this was another thrilling revelation: what excites me most is the story.
The way a group of photographs can say something bigger than any one frame on its own.
So, if you’re wondering what to do with all the photos in your collection, maybe take another look. Perhaps you’ve got a bigger story to tell.
Then, somewhere along the way, the phrase The Space Between took on a bigger life. It’s not just about finding quiet in the chaos. It’s also about the space between people. The space between the beginning and the end.
Between one frame and the next.
And sometimes, that space is almost invisible. The pause between beats, the flicker of an idea. It’s in the instinct to move closer, step back, reframe. Zoom in, zoom out. Try again. It’s all part of “working it”, where we’re not just taking pictures; we’re seeing how the subject changes when we move, when we get closer. How it feels. And trying to capture that.
Sure, sometimes we get lucky. But that space — the space between frames — that messy, floaty space where ideas drift, circle back, and suddenly click; for me, that’s when the good stuff happens. That’s what makes it a photograph. My photograph.
Have you ever noticed your own space between? What do you find there?
— Denice
I like"the circle back, the reframe, zoom in, zoom out...". Sometimes that happens while I look thru my lens, sometimes it happens just in my head, as in, I need to do that next time, I wonder what would happen if...". And the thing I think I love the most is that feeling in my brain when it flashes on to a new realization, the stretch and grow feeling!
The Route 66 road trip was a lot of fun and a lot of nostalgia. We just took another road trip to Montana, travel is so different now, the roads are better, the cars are better, and we have air conditioning and GPS. It is interesting to think about how different travel was back then.