Last night I drove down to Wilmington, just south of my home, where my first studio resided from early 2007 until this past December.\u00a0 Wilmington, as you may already know, was the former home of all things Marmalade (well if you came out to my studio anyway!) for almost five years.\u00a0 The #1 reason Wilmington attracted my eye in the first place was because of an amazing old building, a delapidated train depot built in the 1860’s.\u00a0 The depot stood majestic, beautiful, aged, glorious, despite being shuttered up with mismatched plywood boards, its’ facade crumbling in pieces to touch for anyone who dared near it.<\/p>\n
For me the depot was nothing but perfection.\u00a0 While I discovered the depot long ago, I rediscovered it for photography purposes in 2005 when I started scouring locations for my newly birthed professional children’s photography business.<\/p>\n
During the long days of summer, before I moved Marmalade Photography out there, you could find me and my (mostly) compliant (but often resistant) children at the depot stopping for some time in the shade of the brick building, photographing mini sessions together.\u00a0 In my dreams, dreams I had only shared with my husband during this time, I had this SOMEDAY dream that maybe I would hit the jackpot with the lottery and be able to purchase this building for my very own studio purposes.\u00a0 Was it illusions of grandeur?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 In my naive mind, the thoughts of a dreamer, it was completely attainable (no matter how prohibitive the cost!)\u00a0 I had huge plans for this old, decaying brick structure.\u00a0 I’d figure out a way to keep the old and bring it in with the new.\u00a0 It would be mine.\u00a0 I was mostly convinced of this.<\/p>\n
That never came to pass and instead I moved my business into the North Water Street area of downtown Wilmington in early 2007. \u00a0 I drove by that old depot regularly, it became the beacon to entering work mode for me.\u00a0 The sight of the old building never failed to make me smile and dream of the “what if\u2026” aspect of it.\u00a0\u00a0 In May 2007. upon almost completion of studio fix up, I had my first session out of the studio (I’ll include photos below).\u00a0 This was a vintage themed session, something not seen often at the time (now very ubiquitous in our little photo world).\u00a0 It was vintage not because<\/strong><\/em> of my vision but because the mom of the girls was SO into the historical aspect of where my studio was located (aided by my waxing poetically ad nauseum during our client intake process) that she brought all these AMAZING vintage props and we had a blast going from location to location in my old beat up town.\u00a0 Of course our session together wasn’t complete without taking the girls to the old train depot up the street.<\/p>\n Through the almost five years that Marmalade Photography resided in Wilmington I used the train depot more often than I could count.\u00a0 I used it for the amazing session with triplets that had me laughing the whole time, the shoot with the family with four brothers, some of my favorite people were photographed there by yours truly, I used it at workshops and mentorship programs with other photographers, I took my kids there, I continued to dream as I drove by it, clients always remarked at how awesome that old building was.\u00a0 Without doubt it was an<\/strong> iconic building.\u00a0 With its’ crumbling red brick exterior, covered with peeling old (probably lead!) paint and fluorescence, shoddy old roof, boarded up windows, occasionally open door to the bottom level where vandals and curiosity seeking types would break in to check out this formerly majestic site.<\/p>\n Some brilliant soul has done a YouTube video of my former friend, she really aged in the past year and it’s clearly evident why they had to do away with her.\u00a0 Sadness fills my heart when I view it because her former glory is still evident behind her sagging exterior:<\/p>\n