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Magic Door: Bassamp and Dano. Photograph by Thomas Crone.
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Jarred G.
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Ian F. & Ryan Thomas C.
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Nicole H.H.
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Magic Door: Milo M. & Sheepie D.
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Larry B.
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Bassamp and Dano
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Misty Rose M.
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Joe K.
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Black James
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Steven F.S.
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Emily K.
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Michael R.A.
At some point in time, the Journalism Gods decided that you couldn’t just be a writer. Instead, you had to transform into a content producer, someone capable of adding (still and moving) images and sound to stories, in order to put together fully formed editorial packages. For those of us old enough to have worked in the profession in the simpler, pre-web days, it’s been an interesting transition, to say the least.
In that time, with digital photography still looming (and expensive to break into), a friend in the business mentioned his own desire to begin writing more, in the process becoming a “self-contained journalism unit.” Funny enough, to this day he doesn’t remember making the comment.
With a couple of decent cameras coming into my hands in recent years, I’ve enjoyed taking pictures, but my online collections show a tendency to shoot little more than half-demolished buildings and esoteric atmospherics. People, though, I’ve needed a gimmick to photograph them.
Luckily, I’ve found the Magic Door.
Walking down a Northside alley a month or so back, I noticed a door. It was made of wood, but also affixed with all sorts of metal. In time, the mechanic next door told me that the metal bits were car doors, which made sense once I looked more closely. The collection of colors and shapes made for an interesting look, and I snapped off a photo, threatening to start photographing people in front of this space. The idea of calling it “The Magic Door” was an affectation, or so I thought.
Then the first shooting day came around. Having not talked to the owner of the business attached to The Door, some interesting negotiations had to take place. It took about a half-hour of questioning to get the OK to shoot there, but that was even a tenuous one. But a classic “St. Louis moment” occurred, suggesting that there may be a hint of magic there, after all.
With the dubious owner coming around the back of the building, my first subject, Zach, pulled up. Well, I was going to photograph his ridiculously photogenic kids, but it was Zach behind the wheel. And, as it turned out, he was somehow (through birth, marriage, or some other means) related to the business owner, Otha. With a minute, or two, of conversation, my presence was okayed for good, though there’ve still been some interesting encounters.
Over about five visits to the Door since, the police have been by once, sent by a caller suggesting that weird things were happening. And, I suppose, this location would seem a strange place for any kind of photo session to take place, with The Door opening up to a large field, one of the myriad “gaps” in the Northside’s built environment. Pedestrian traffic is pretty sparse, so far squashing my hopes of simply talking someone into a shot; to date, I’m oh-for-one on that attempt.
Even in a short-lived project, a couple of St. Louis realities continue to prove true.
For starters, this town is full of characters. And people that you don’t even know to be characters wind up being just that when you give them a chance. Tell ‘em to “bring whatever you want,” and you wind up with someone fish-hooking themselves with a large metal trident, or pushing a stroller full of sinister-looking baby dolls. (Well, with those folks, I might’ve known as much.)
Another truth is that you can pretty much get away with anything in St. Louis, especially if you go just a touch off the grid. The Magic Door’s only a few dozen yards from a major Northside intersection, one that was bustling and busy in the mid-period of the century. These days, it’s less so, but there’s still this weird sense that you’re in a space that’s not-fully-urban. The other day, for example, a larger-than-ever-before-seen crow made himself a part of the scene, caw-ing from a nearby telephone pole. With a sound as simple as that, the whole alley suddenly felt as if slipped into another time or space.
It was an odd sensation. Not the first felt at The Magic Door, and unlikely to be the last.
Photographs by Thomas Crone. Larger versions here.
