Sometime back in 1997 – it was in the summer, I think – I decided that I wanted to learn more about photography. I had been back in Milwaukee for about a year, and I talked my oldest friend, Eron Laber into letting me borrow his medium-format Hasselblad camera. He had just started his own business, Front Room Photography, and was happy to teach me how to use a real, expensive film camera.
This was before I’d ever touched a digital camera, when my Photoshop 3.0 skills weren’t so great. I didn’t understand aperture, shutter or film speed. I didn’t understand how to take photos at night without a flash, but I wanted to learn.
Eron and I waited until it was a dark, clear night with a beautiful moon and we composed three photos. The first was looking east on Wells toward City Hall. The second was standing on the Wells Street bridge, facing south.
The third was in Walker’s Point, looking up at the Allen-Bradley clock. We shot the first two photos in color, and the third was in black and white. That third shot was actually my favorite, and one of Eron’s departing acts at the camera store he worked at while starting Front Room, was burning in the clock’s hands (in a dark room) and blowing up the square photos to 15x15. I remember it cost a fortune – to my 23-year-old wallet, anyway – to frame the photos, but Eron gave me the prints for free.
Over the years, I’ve hung these photos at apartments, homes and offices. In fact, they sat packed in boxes for the last six months until we officially moved to our new OnMilwaukee.com office on the 11th floor of CityCenter, 735 N. Water St., on Monday.
Preparing to hang them yesterday, I noticed something amazing about the second photo that I had never noticed before: the building in the center of the frame is CityCenter. The viewfinder is looking right at our office suite. When I shot that photo, I had no idea what that building was. It just looked cool.
Cool enough that I’ll spend at least the next seven years there.
Obviously, this is just a crazy coincidence. I don’t remember exactly why I chose the trio of buildings in this photo, but something just stuck out at me. I had no idea that this would be where I’d move the business that I hadn’t even launched yet, but had swirling around in my head.
Or, maybe it isn’t a coincidence. I’ve looked at that photo a million times over the years. When our realtor, Steve Palec, first showed us the building last summer, I liked it immediately. Maybe it seemed familiar. I didn’t think we could afford it (but we can), and I didn’t know if working Downtown was for us (but it is). We’re all really happy to be here.
And speaking of happy, whether that 16-year-old photo is a premonition or not, all I know is that I like it. Even more now than ever.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
