16″x 24″ The Way Out of The Way In – Quincy Tunnel – Milwaukee, WI

16″x 24″ Long Exposure Photograph of the Quincy Avenue Tunnel in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee. Door created by a basic flashlight; ambient color created by Protomachines flash and streetlight. For as long as I’ve been living in this neighborhood, I dreamt of creating this image. I’m not quite sure why it took nearly 15 years. Perhaps the fact that it was only a few blocks away (rather than a day’s travel) stood in my way, as if its accessibility made it too easy and I took the magical little spot for granted. Or, surprisingly, I subconsciously knew the photograph would prove to be one of the toughest in our career. While a single shot alone took less than 30 seconds to create, the final image you see here took over one hundred shots and two nights to get “right” and I use that adjective loosely. As you’ll notice, it’s still far from perfect. The door waivers and you can see the faint ghost of Katie at the end of the tunnel. But these imperfections are the mark of the human hand, rather than the precision of a Photoshop perfectionist. I hope this image conjures an invitation into your own unknown Rabbit Hole—some mysterious Wonderland that looks familiar, yet is probably quite the opposite. Don’t wait. Open the door. We all need a little more trippy, hilarious, and mystical experiences to prove that the work is worth it, to show us the way out of the way in.