Earlier this year my good friend and fellow large format photographer Joe Azoti reached out to me about a location here in Connecticut that he shared with me back in 2003.  My January 2004 7×17″ image is this month’s featured image, albeit with an unexpected twist. The Ansonia Opera House was featured on the paranormal TV series Ghost Hunters back in May of this year. Turns out the Ansonia Opera House is reported to be haunted, and as a result was the focus of a recent New Haven Register news article linked here.

   Lead “Paranormal Investigator” and self proclaimed clairvoyant Nick Grossman suggests, many older buildings rumored to be haunted show signs of 1 or 2, almost never 3 “entities” or unexplained other worldly activity. Grossman believes while playing music triggered roughly 40 entities during my time in the Opera House while he conducted his investigation this past April 25, 2021. Really, sorry dude, you lost me, I’ve spent hours in that abandoned and derelict Opera House, searched all three floors, including the frighteningly dark, cobwebbed filled basement by myself!! Never once did anything tap me on the shoulder or swoop in front of me or my camera!! Linked here is a YouTube video of Nick and his team during the April 25th visit. Now, the fact that the 1st Connecticut Convention of Paranormal activity, aka ParaConn is scheduled for late July, exactly 1 mile from the Ansonia Opera House seems to suggest there are $$ in the Ghost business.

   My friend Joe first discovered the abandoned Ansonia Opera House in 2003.  Joe knew I had an 7×17″ camera and recognized the potential the interior of the opera house presented using the panoramic format. Joe and I met at a quaint boutique named Only for Her on Main St. in Ansonia, CT. Joe introduced me to Libby, the shop owner. Her shop was located on the ground floor in the same building as the Opera House. Joe is a very engaging person, from that introduction and Joe’s endorsement, I was able to stop in and get the key to the second floor opera house anytime I wanted. I visited the opera house numerous times, even took a workshop there in later years.

   Whether the opera house is haunted or not, the experience was an important benchmark in my evolution as a visual artist. At the suggestion of another good friend and large format photographer I purchased the book, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. She is a professional dancer by profession and she has learned the older she gets the more physically demanding her routines become and therefore has to devote more energy to keeping herself limber and in shape, i.e. technique so that the creative process remains first and foremost in her dance routines.

   Do you practice being Creative?? I always thought true creativity was Heaven sent, some people have it, some don’t. Seinfeld, Williams and Springsteen yes, but not me. Then I read Tharp’s book, the big take-away for me, she suggests thinking back to the very first time you made a decision to be more creative. Try to extract the thought process which lead you to that change in thinking and identify for future reference. Photographers, painters, musicians, dancers, the list goes on, get lumped into a category called “creatives”. True told, for any creative performance or endeavor there is a tremendous amount of technique and preparation that goes into any final performance, or photograph. For most, it’s a never ending pursuit of excellence and expression. The viewer only sees the final result, never the years of practice to perfect one’s craft.

   The attached two photographs were made in 2004 and is the first time I remember making a conscious decision to make a change in the spirit of a more creative end result. Using my first 7×17” camera, a Folmer & Schwing made in 1907 I first composed Ansonia Opera House without the chair backs as seen in the 1st photograph below. During the 24 minute exposure I thought, wouldn’t it be more interesting if I were to include just a hint of the chair backs.  The silhouetted chair backs would lend a subtle understanding of the purpose of the opera house. The chair backs had a pleasing shape and including them simply made the photograph more interesting. I decided to recompose the image by backing up even higher in the balcony to include the chair backs using the same lens.  Naturally, the challenges grew more difficult to carry depth of focus and also to keep the verticals parallel in the final contact print.  Because of the Tharp book and also the Net and the Butterfly by Olivia Fox Cabane and Judah Pollack a creative mind is within everyone’s grasp once it is understood how to access the creative part of the brain. I continue to search for creativity in my work, even using a cell phone to simply arrange and compose images that never see the light of day, simply as visual exercise. The more comfortable I become with spatial relationships the more creativity is within my grasp.

Ansonia Opera House, 7×17” Folmer & Schwing camera, 9.5” Goerz Dagor lens, J&C 200 film, Semi-Stand processing in a large open tank for 45 minutes using PyroCat HD.  Printed on Kodak AZO, developed in Amidol and split toned in Thiourea & Selenium