Central Purpose

I grew up around cornfields. All of my schools – elementary, middle and high school – and my neighborhood had at least one cornfield butting up against it. So imagine my delight when I headed back to Central PA for a BBQ at the house of one of my oldest friends’ father’s, to see myself entirely surrounded once again by cornfields!

Okay, I suppose it wasn’t that much of a surprise, as Mr. Thomas does live on a farm, but the only other time I’d visited was ten years prior at her rehearsal dinner once we’d finished the trial run for her wedding. Dusk has already fallen by then, and there were so many cars I barely recognized the place!

On this visit, however, my husband and I had time to explore. But first, we enjoyed the easygoing festivities of a pool party: casual dining, endless jumps off the diving board and generally playing whatever water game my niece and nephew could contrive.

Despite the blue skies, a rainstorm rolled through our midst, although I don’t have any photos of that, as I spent most of my time in the water! After all, how often are you fully prepared for a downpour in summer while wearing an already wet bathing suit! Once things had dried out though, we walked around the farm, complete with red barn and an old pickup truck hidden away in another outbuilding.

And then it was time for more food, games and lots of laughter as more company arrived, friends I’ve known most of my life even if it’d been years since I’d seen them.

Although I hadn’t intended to capture moments throughout the afternoon, as most of us photographers can relate, my camera became an extension of my hands seemingly with their own central purpose, documenting these moments I’m happy to return to, even if I hadn’t realized it in the moment.

Of course most days almost all my photos, including these, were taken with my trusty iPhone X, but I was feeling incredibly nostalgic from the company of old friends, so I edited these photos using VSCO’s Kodak Gold presets for desktop – now obsolete – as I can remember shooting with this film, with many of these very people, at least thirty years ago.