What Remains - Preserving History Through Photography
Hey everyone! Welcome to Photog with a Blog, where I talk about all things photography! This edition is more of an emotional one, and it dives into my beginnings as a photographer and what it means to be preserving history with a camera. More specifically, I want to share my first official series of photos: What Remains.
Back side of JW's - where the bowling pin machine would have been
JW's Bowling Alley
(Sometime after my last visit, it was sold to new owners and was renamed B-52 Roadhouse & Lanes. Because it was JW's growing up, and I never went there when it had the new name, I will be referring to the bowling alley as JW's for this post.)
On September 4, 2023, a fire destroyed the bowling alley in Harvey, ND. JW’s was my childhood. I’ve made many memories inside the building, and it’s still hard to believe that it’s gone.
Photo by Alex Larson - Retrieved from KFYRTV
When I was younger, my mom would occasionally take me to her bowling league on Thursdays if I did well on my schoolwork and if I didn’t have class the next day. I remember coming home one day so excited from my 3rd-grade class because I got an A on my science test, which meant I could tag along with her for bowling. I didn’t do any of the bowling, but I loved to sit and drink shirley temples while I watched her kick butt on the lanes.
My grandparents would also sometimes take us to eat at the restaurant in the bowling alley. I remember the ice-cold water in the red glasses and trying to win a stuffed animal out of the claw machine. I ate there many times; it was one of my favorite restaurants in Harvey.
Growing up in Drake, Harvey was the closest town with a bowling alley, and it was faster to go there than to Minot, so if we ever did go bowling, it was in Harvey. The 4-H club I was in would sometimes have meetings there, where we would eat pizza in the party room, have our club meeting, then go out and bowl a round or two.
I hold all my memories close to me. I had a strong emotional connection to JW’s, so of course, upon learning the news about what happened was devastating. Like any artist, it gave me a source of inspiration.
One of the firefighters was able to open the fireproof safe with untouched money inside of a cup
What Remains
On September 9, 2023, just 5 days after the fire, I photographed my first official series of photos: What Remains. I traveled to Harvey with my 15-year-old Nikon D3000 and photographed everything that remained.
The bowling alley was a site for sore eyes, it reeked of terrible smoke and half the building was dilapidated. What immediately caught my eye was the chairs holding up a part of the roof of the building. Not only was it extremely impressive that the burnt stacked chairs could hold up that much weight, but the chairs were stacked exactly like I remember them being in the party room during our 4-H meeting all those years ago.
My photograph Charred has been featured in 3 exhibitions and won first place in the Black and White Photojournalism category at the North Dakota State Fair. It also made an appearance in The Coup 2024 Magazine.
What makes photography so important is that you're capturing a moment forever in time. Everyone has their reasons for taking photographs, and for me, it’s preserving history and keeping memories. Those chairs only held up for a bit before they, too, eventually collapsed.
This would've been the bar area
An employee's time card from when they worked at the bowling alley, this has to be decades old
You can see all the food that was in the freezer
I photographed everything that remained of the bowling alley on that Saturday. A few months later, it was all demolished, scrapped, and sent away. JW’s is nothing more than an empty lot now.
Conclusion
I found closure in photographing what remained. Kind of like the sad conclusion to a childhood story. Photography has always had that profound effect on me, where even my work makes me feel a certain emotion, and allows me to reflect and ponder on what was, and I hope that my work has that effect on you as well.
I’ve recently been drawn to photographing places that are forgotten, in hopes of bringing back the memory and enlightening people on what’s still here and what we have. My Abandoned Dakota series is based on this premise as well: I photograph ghost towns with all their abandoned structures in hopes of rekindling memories or feelings about a place that used to be loved. What Remains was the catalyst towards working on my Abandoned Dakota series, and I’m not sure how my photography as a whole would’ve turned out if I hadn’t gone to the bowling alley that day. Would I still be drawn to photojournalism? Would I still believe that photography is meant to preserve moments in time? Or would I think it’s something else? Would I have even further pursued photography? With this being my first “real” set of images for my class, everything before that didn’t hold any significance or meaning; it was all just random images to meet the criteria of the class. No storytelling, no emotion, just pixels on a screen. Photography is much more than that. Everything has a story.
To read more about my Abandoned Dakota series, you can do so by checking out my Balfour blog post.
You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel as I will be publishing my Abandoned Dakota exploration deep dive videos starting next month.
To see more photos from my What Remains series, you can visit my portfolio here.
What does photography mean to you? Does it have any significance or meaning in your life? Let me know!
I'm Sadie Lynn, and thank you for reading this edition of Photog with a Blog. Until next time, bye guys!
Charred was selected to be part of the 2024 Minot State Juried Student Show
