Matt Norray’s Barn

The red barn seemed to greet me in every going-home commute from Albany from behind the Thruway fence. A house squatted nearby, in the same sun-faded red paint. I liked how a white wooden ladder hung horizontally on the barn’s gable end wall, across a square window frame painted the same white.

I stopped once on the Thruway, trying to read road signs, anything, to tell me where it was, how to find it so I could bring the camera. But I wound up wandering around, half-lost on back roads, until I found the place: I recognized the red.

I toted my heavy tripod, big view camera and bag full of 4 x 5 film holders and light meter around the house into the back yard and set up, using the tripod bubble level to get everything  square and plumb.

I heard the screen door squeak and slam and turned to see an old gent come toward me from the house: slow steps, beat-up cap, well-aged jacket, work pants and boots. He seemed relaxed, curious and not angry, a dog beside him walking as calm as he was. When he got close, I said hello, explained how I admired the barn and wanted to photograph it. He agreed, on one condition: “Don’t give me any prints. I have enough already on my ice box from another photographer or two.”

No problem, I agreed, kind of disappointed that others had discovered and photographed it before me. I got busy, quiet; so he started talking, telling me about a long life he’d enjoyed. He said his name was Matt Norray and I told him mine. He said he’d been an Adirondack mountain guide, leading well-heeled visitors who’d come from away to do business at GE in Schenectady. He’d worked there, too, he said, at what he called “the main plant.” That was before he guided Edison, Henry Ford and other captains of industry around the mountain lakes to fish, play cards, sail and drink.

When I asked him to stand by the barn, to be in a photo, he nodded. He saw where my camera was pointed, walked into my scene and reached up to hold the ladder and stood quietly looking back at me. 

He said he was 92, the only thing around older than the barn.

And he said he’d been married, a long time, but his wife had died, years and years before.

His friends had urged him to re-marry, find another wife to take care of him in old age.

“Fuck that noise,” he told them, startling me with hard words, vehement and strong.

“I got a dog instead,” he explained.

“I got a dog and I called her ‘Sweetheart,’” he told me.

She heard her name, looked over at us, and she wagged her tail, just one time.

This feels new to me: pairing a picture with words in this direct way. It also feels complicated: Should an image be able to – or required to – stand alone without explanation?

Having already explained this one some – before showing it – I might as well go further. I recall admiring the calmly expository flavor and simple, nonjudgemental humanity of profile stories Patrick Kurp contributed to the Gazette, years and years ago.

I offer this in that same spirit and first of an open-ended series.