Seven Stories…Erik Truchinski

Photographer: Erik Truchinski
Site: Autumn Wind Photography
Based in: Portland, OR

ONE

This photo was taken at Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland, OR, on a mostly cloudy day…some sun shining through as you can notice, I loved the way it played off of the door of this mausoleum. I have a fascination with cemeteries and the lives of people in them…imagining the story behind their life and death, mausoleums really draw me in, the architecture of some of them is so interesting and dark.

TWO

A pair of antlers I bought at a flea market, a pretty old pair, and beautiful. Antlers, bones…nothing more interesting and alluring than the structures that hold us up, grow from us and within us, perfect art. I have various antlers placed around my apartment, I try to buy them up whenever I find a decent price, of course finding them on a hike is much more rewarding. To own a piece of a creature’s past life, holding it and imagining it still being attached to him, roaming around the forest or an open field.

THREE

I love the roots of trees, this is a photo of a cedar trees roots after it was uprooted during a storm in Wisconsin when I lived there. The nature center I used to hike around had a lot of them this way, as the ground there was a bit swampy…tree roots remind me of veins in a human body, reminds me how we have similarities to everything.

FOUR

I have a fascination with trees as well, especially trees in late fall and winter, no leaves….in dark contrast against the sky….beautiful veins and fingers spreading across the horizon. The ambiance of such shots is very relaxing to me. You will see a lot of trees in my photography, each one is totally different to me, the kinship draws me to them.

FIVE

This was a lucky random shot I love very much. I was just down the block from my home, about to put my camera away, and this guy was hanging balloons up outside of a food court, he lost one as I was approaching and gave me a half-smirking yet pissed look, I just shrugged my shoulders and acknowledged his disappointment. I kept watching the balloon rise into the sky as I was walking and the thought, “Another lost dream”, came into my head…so I grabbed my camera and started taking a bunch of photos of it…this is the one that turned out best, describing what I was thinking as I was watching it. We’re told as children how we can be anything, we can become a star if we so desire, but as we get older a lot of those dreams and promises slowly float away out of reach…to me this picture represents that innocence we all have.

SIX

Another photo from Lone Fir Cemetery, and old headstone from the 1800’s almost completely swallowed by the ground, two hands grasping each other on it, holding on to their long forgotten story…the rain water illuminated the headstone for me, I would have never seen it otherwise. Wandering cemeteries with a camera like a fiend…nothing better.

SEVEN

My self-portrait…not much to say about this one, but it is one of my favorites…a past to be discovered.