Friday, February 8, 2013

This is Mr. Frosty. Mr. Frosty is in Denton, TX...the place I grew up. Well, actually I moved around a lot as a kid and I moved to Denton as a college sophomore and moved away 7 years later. However, I still feel a deep connection to it. It's only 12 miles from where I live now, but I don't get much of a chance to spend time in Denton. Denton has grown into a pretty big city/college town, but people still picnic on the courthouse lawn and and you can feel pretty safe walking down any street at any time of the day. People in Denton could care less what kind of car you drive. Live music can be heard any night of the week and you could eat for a year without ever having to hit a chain restaurant. Tonight I was working on a project for a client in Denton and roamed around the places I used to love. A deep feeling of nostalgia washed over me and I was a little lot heartsick for Denton. It's the place where I met every single one of my best friends. It's where I met my wife and learned to dance. We even had our children delivered in a Denton hospital. If you asked me why I don't live there now, I probably wouldn't have a good answer. I used to think I had to be close to Dallas, as if Dallas was the big time. Now I realize that,in the words of Billy Joel, "if that's moving up, I'm moving out". Will I ever move back to Denton? I'm not a big fan of change, so I don't know. But I'll always dream about it. If I could convince all my friends to come with, I would in a heart beat. What does this have to do with photography? I'm not sure. Maybe it's about how we need to look back to the basics? Maybe it's about looking deep in yourself and trying to find out what you need, as an artist and as a person? Maybe it's finding beauty in other places? Maybe it's about not having to try and out do everyone in University Park? I think I need to call some old friends.