Last week Dan’s Silverleaf boasted a sold-out show featuring six-piece instrumental group, Balmorhea. (Say it with me, BAL-MORE-AY.) To get to Denton, the band didn’t wander too far from their home-base in Austin, Texas, but they look forward to a month long European tour beginning next month in celebration of their fifth full length album (Stranger, 2012). Summer of Glaciers, a dark, post-rock electronic project originally from San Francisco kicked off the evening. The show was a collaborative effort between Gutterth Live and Spune.
Read MorePHOTOGRAPHER SPOTLIGHT: LAUREN APEL
Lauren Apel is one of the many young talents coming out of Denton. She has an eye for quality and an impressive drive. We caught up with Lauren to find out what life for a young photographer in Denton looks like. Read the interview and then follow Lauren for what I am sure will be a promising photography career.
Pictured above is Lauren Apel and her husband Mark.
Tell us about yourself. What does life in Denton look like?
My name is Lauren Apel. I’m married to writer-musician-co-photographer-Mark Apel and we live in here in the great and wonderful Denton, Texas. We love it here. Denton has such a special culture. It feels like a small town, but it isn’t really all that small. And everyone you meet is an artist of some sort. There are so many musicians and designers and culinary artists—there’s always something going on. And when there isn’t, you can drive thirty minutes and be in Dallas or Forth Worth. We live in northern Denton. We both work in Denton—for UNT. I am a student at UNT as well. Mark leads worship at a new church in Corinth (Lake Sharon Community Church) and on the weekends we shoot weddings and portrait sessions.
What brought you to photography?
This is going to sound cliché, but I’ve always loved pictures. I always loved getting disposable cameras and taking them to summer camp or on trips or wherever. I remember being a thirteen year old and dressing my friends up and styling them and then posing them and taking their picture. And they were awful pictures. But I just loved it. I shot all the time. Five years ago a friend’s parents asked me to shoot their family portraits. It was my first paid job and I knew then that I loved it. It was the most wonderful thing.
Describe your style and what inspires you.
It is difficult to describe “my style.” I know what I like and what I don’t like. I like clean photographs if that makes any sense. I like them to look matte—like if you touched them. I also want them to look cohesive. If you scroll from the top page of my blog to the bottom, I want all of the images to have the same feel. I want the images to be consistent. In some ways, that is more important than anything else. Photography is like any other form of artistry—if you want to get better you practice and study. If you want to be a better writer, you write and you read. If you want to be a better photographer, you study the photographer’s work that you admire and identify what makes their images awesome. And you shoot everything.
How do you define a successful photograph?
A successful photograph is a hard thing to define. A successful photograph makes you feel something. Maybe it is as simple as feeling, “wow, that’s beautiful” or maybe it makes you tear up. A successful photograph makes you stop for a second to look at it. It makes you scroll slow.
What are the benefits and challenges of being a photographer in Denton?
One of the biggest benefits of being a photographer in Denton is the supportive community of photographers that already exists in Denton. There are a LOT of photographers in the DFW, as I am sure you can imagine. Every interaction I have had with any of them has been positive. I think that is important. When I’m unable to take on a job, I love having five names that I can send to that client and being able to know that the names I sent are awesome people.
If you could be invisible one day with your camera, where would you go?
This might sound really lame, but it would be really cool to shoot behind the scenes of the Oscars—the rehearsals and sound checks before the event, and all the chaos that happens backstage. Stars getting their makeup touched up. The tech crew. All the little stuff. The presenters. I bet it’d be a lot of fun.
What is your favorite thing about Denton?
I would say the community. We have so many wonderful friends here. Friends that design custom mid-century furniture, friends that create beautifully hand crafted stationary, friends that make music, refurbish, paint, write, bake, and grow. There are a lot of big servant hearts in Denton that want to work for the good of the city. There are a lot of churches in Denton that want to work for the betterment of the city. It’s really neat to see. We live in a great community.
WE DENTON DO IT EATS LUCKY STAR PIE
A few weeks ago was another one of those fake holidays that doesn’t really mean anything. Sure, maybe you like to wait in line at IHOP for free food on National Pancake Day, or maybe you enjoy getting excited about National Donut Day only to forget about it when the time comes around. Normally, we let them pass without much fanfare. National Pie Day, however, was different. We were immediately excited as soon as we became aware of this day. Pie is our lifeblood at We Denton Do It. “Where’s the best place to get pie in Denton?” we asked. A couple people said Loco Cafe. Some suggested we go grab us some pie at Ravelin, but there was definitely not a definitive Denton pie place. That may soon change.
Read MoreDENTON LIT - WALKER SMART - "HERE"
The following prose piece is a selection from the upcoming zine entitled Local Lore, to be released next month during the 35 Denton music festival. The zine is the fourth in a series printed by the art collective Spiderweb Salon and will showcase a wide variety of art, prose, poetry, and essays inspired by and within Denton, Texas, USA. Copies of the freshly printed and hand-bound zine will be available at 35 Denton Presents: Spiderweb Salon on March 10th at Dan’s Silverleaf. 2-6 p.m. The show will feature art, readings, music and performance pieces, as well.
“Here”
by Walker Smart
There used to be a hospital here, the one I was born in. The grounds were donated to the city to make a park. They made the City Park apartments instead. Here used to be a pizza place where I played the Dungeons and Dragons arcade game while my dad wrote in his notebook. They tore it down and built something else, but it was here. Here used to be a school, the school where I met my two oldest friends. There’s the creek we used to explore, to us it was a separate world. Here used to be the video store where we rented the movies that desensitized us. We still see the ghost face of Piggly Wiggly through the trees driving down Greenwood. This was the theater we had our first jobs at, where we first stayed out too late. They spent a million dollars renovating it after it closed. When I saw it after I felt a part of me was gone. But you go up into the projection booth and it’s like walking back in time, they didn’t change a thing. That part of a place that makes it home can’t be changed.
Here’s the house I met your mom in. Later it became the house we lived when you were born. Then it became the house I first felt heartbreak in. Soon it will be the house another baby girl lives after she is born. The part of a place that makes it home can become complicated.
You are the place that makes hell feel like home again. You are the place that can make something old feel new again.
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Walker Smart is the on stage alter ego of Walker Smart. He's twice as weird and loves the sound of his own voice even more than the real Walker Smart. The real Walker Smart has lived in Denton, TX his whole life. You’ve probably seen him around.
You can find more Walker here... You can get more Spiderweb Salon there and you can catch them at 35 Denton in March!
INTERVIEW - CHAMBERS
RELAUNCH
So we never left, but we're "back." We took a shower, bought some new clothes, made new friends and we're presentable again. Thank goodness!
We Denton Do It launched back in September of 2010 as a video blog for local musicians. We went on to expand from there to cover various topics. We've argued with you guys about tacos, secrets of Denton and lots of local musicians, but we got kind of lackluster at the end there. That time has ended and a new day has dawned at WDDI. You can count on us to provide expanded coverage of the same stuff you already know and love from us. We're bringing back the videos, but also expanding our regular coverage. You'll be seeing lots from us in the coming weeks so make sure you check back often.
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