Shore Line Trolley Museum | mikepillowsphoto

“One Person’s Treasure, Is Another’s……”

"Next Stop...Yesterday"

Old, useless, discarded… these words could be used to describe people or things. As I would never like to describe people in that sense, I will be describing things as in trains, trolleys and buses. They had seen better times and have been discarded to make way for newer models. To me this graveyard of useless vehicles became my treasure.

I was invited to shoot at “Shore Line Trolley Museum” in East Haven,CT, by two very creative professional photographers, Roman Kurywczak and Susan Candelario. We were there to shoot trains, some of them restored and others left to be worked on another day. While shooting, I quickly became entranced by all the discarded heaps of metal. They seemed to ooze with history. The rust and decay became enticing abstracts. You could envision the memories of days gone by. Other shots transformed their past into an “Old is the new NEW”

There is comfort in the past, some would say we should have a greater appreciation of it. Old is not useless, for these trolleys and buses their time is now. I believe the past can give us a sense of stability. You can feel this as you walk between each of these relics. When I began, I didn’t know where I would end up. This is so true with my photography…. I began with one preconceived idea, and after arriving, this sense of place and of times gone, but not forgotten, transformed my vision into timeless treasures.