“I love things that are old and glittery, that come with layers of glamor and past lives.”

-Candace Bushnell

 

Our Story

I picked up a camera when I was still in the womb and …just kidding! We aren’t that boring, and hope not to bore you with the same old story you’ve heard 10 times already 🙂 The truth is, I didn’t become interest in photography until I was a freshmen in college.

The REAL Story.

Mystery, layers of stories and the sense of the people that came before us – this is what I live for. The old pillars and architecture in this old mining town of Butte tell the stories of mystery, big money and miners. The cracked and peeling paint are like the wrinkles of an old woman – the beautiful battle wounds of a well-lived life that tell of past memories.

When I walk the streets of Uptown I often imagine the trolleys and horse-drawn carriages that pulled people along in this booming mining camp. I often wonder, what did they look like? Who were they?

Layers of stories – this is how I see and how I photograph. The story of the 100-year old business-owner of Matt’s place – her face has aged but the background of the business is still the same. As you visit the Original during the Montana Folk Festival, you can almost imagine the miners holding their lunch pails filled with pasties and gravy. During a walking tour, you can smell the history in the underground speakeasy that was packed during prohibition.

We are made from the people and events that came before us. For me, my great-grandmother was born in Elkhorn, Montana, which is now a ghost town about 45 miles from Butte. Since I was a child, I have been fascinated with the layers of intricately-designed wallpaper and leftover box springs in these homes that are now vanishing into piles of wood. It was always an adventure to explore the buildings – the worn, broken floorboards, the roofs falling in, and the stairs falling sideways. My history lies in Elkhorn – but my future history resides in Butte.

I believe in Butte, and I believe our youth, community, Montana and the rest of the world should see us as we are – a town that helped support the war efforts via copper and other metals, a place where you are not afraid to let strangers help you change a flat tire, a place where you can see, smell, and even taste the mysterious tales that seem too overly fantastic to be true.