Alvia Urdaneta
Documentary Photography
May 11, 2014
Professor Ray
Missed Opportunity
One evening
last fall, my father and I were driving around Long Island. Being from
Pennsylvania, my family rarely gets to come out to New York, and when they do
it is always for some sort of special occasion. I cannot remember anymore where
my father and I were going that evening, because one moment has overshadowed
the entire visit.
At one
point in our drive, my father and I were driving through an industrial neighborhood
on Denton Avenue in New Hyde Park. The street has a great blue-collar vibe
during the day, with husky men walking around covered in grease on their way to
the deli on the block to lunch. But it was nighttime and the street was empty,
it was cold and very dark. It was then that my dad (a fellow photographer)
stopped the car suddenly as we saw a school bus parked next to a junkyard,
burnt up and destroyed from what must have been a fire.
The bus was captivating. We both
could not stop gawking about what a magnificent site the bus had become, but
were also conflicted with the idea of a school bus on fire. We both instantly
started listing ways we would want to photograph the bus, and could not get
over the visions of how the photographs would look. Unfortunately, neither of
us had our cameras, so I took out my phone and snapped this image of it with
promise to come back.
By the time I returned to look for
the bus camera in hand, it was gone. Just like that the opportunity for all of
those great ideas was missed. Since then I have thought about that bus and
tried to think of ways to have that opportunity again. Now with summer
approaching, I hope to reach out to some junkyards to see if they will let me
photograph inside the yards.
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