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Photograph What's In Front of You with Dennis Church · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Diver's podcast. My name is guymy
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Speaker 1: Ferson and I interview incredible people who share the story
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Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
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Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
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Speaker 1: and our sponsors five four, three, two and one. Our folks,
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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Speaker 1: my guest today. Dennis Church. Dennis, welcome, Thank you, thank you.
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Speaker 2: Good to see your guy.
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Speaker 1: Appreciate that so. Dennis has been a photographer for fifty
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Speaker 1: years and use the quiet act of photograph photography, excuse me,
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Speaker 1: photographing the world around him to navigate child to trauma,
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Speaker 1: addiction and shame. His forthcoming book, Dirt Fresh his part
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Speaker 1: and visual memoir and part emotional X ray, a project
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Speaker 1: rooted in finding light, humor and color in the mundane.
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Speaker 1: Having survived much, Dennis has made pictures through it all,
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Speaker 1: using photography as a kind of He speaks on art
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Speaker 1: is healing, vision of survival in the long arc of
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Speaker 1: becoming a whole art. Dennis, just a bit about you
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Speaker 1: before we get going. Share with the listeners where you're
1:11
Speaker 1: from originally and where you are currently.
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Speaker 3: Well right now, I live in Delray Beach, Florida. But
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Speaker 3: my background is I grew up on a small farm
1:19
Speaker 3: in Iowa, and as you can probably realize, it's kind
1:24
Speaker 3: of an isolated existence, and you know, always there's no
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Speaker 3: lack of work on farms. And I was always telling
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Speaker 3: my parents or asking them, let's go somewhere, because I
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Speaker 3: kind of felt the isolation, and that was kind of
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Speaker 3: my phrase, Let's go somewhere.
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Speaker 2: And I went to Iowa State University College.
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Speaker 3: Then I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. I lived there for
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Speaker 3: quite a while and went to the University of Wisconsin
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Speaker 3: for graduate work. And during that time, my brother in
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Speaker 3: law at the time was in the army. He sent
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Speaker 3: me a PX catalog where you can buy all types
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Speaker 3: of things, and they had these cameras, and at the time,
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Speaker 3: I don't know, for whatever reason, I was attracted to
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Speaker 3: them and I bought one and my life was never
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Speaker 3: the same after that. It's led to a lot of
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Speaker 3: self discovery, a great adventure, and there's a lot of
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Speaker 3: little sub chapters to that story, and maybe we can
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Speaker 3: touch on a few of those.
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Speaker 1: Well that's what we're here for. How did I mean,
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Speaker 1: how did this start? You know, obviously we're talking about
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Speaker 1: your work with its relation to trauma. How did the start, Tennis, Well.
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Speaker 3: The connection to the trauma took a while. I started
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Speaker 3: photographing after I received this camera, and there was something strong,
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Speaker 3: something drawing me to this medium. And I didn't understand
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Speaker 3: it at the time, but I thought, well, this is
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Speaker 3: I've never felt anything like this before. And I was
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Speaker 3: in graduate school at the time, studying to be a
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Speaker 3: counseling therapist, and I was about six credits shy of
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Speaker 3: my master's degree. And there was something so strong with
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Speaker 3: this camera business, this photography, this image making, that I
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Speaker 3: couldn't refuse it. I surrendered to it and just left
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Speaker 3: graduate school and pursued this and.
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Speaker 1: Hard. Hang on, I got to interrupt you hearing excuse me,
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Speaker 1: But what was it? What was the attraction? What was
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Speaker 1: the poll specifically?
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Speaker 3: I didn't know for quite a while. Today I understand it.
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Speaker 3: But I grew up in an atmosphere of emotional and validation,
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Speaker 3: as I call it, and by making visual images, I
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Speaker 3: could express things visually that I was unable to express
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Speaker 3: verbally because I was somewhat I was psychologically mute. I
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Speaker 3: would be in social situations and I couldn't use my
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Speaker 3: vocal cords. I couldn't speak, not that I had no voice,
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Speaker 3: but I at the social situations anxiety or whatever would
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Speaker 3: keep me muted, and this power that was coming from
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Speaker 3: making visual images was pulling me along, and it was
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Speaker 3: It's like I had no choice and it was exhilarating,
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Speaker 3: and so I just went with it.
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Speaker 2: I hope that answers your question.
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Speaker 1: Can you talk about particular things? Excuse me, we're subjects
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Speaker 1: that you were attracted to. Could you even identify them?
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Speaker 2: No? Not really, you mean as a photographic subject?
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, Well I.
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Speaker 3: Was attracted to doing photographs of nature. I know that
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Speaker 3: was one thing, but I had a lot of training
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Speaker 3: in sociology, so I was very interesting in cultural phenomenon,
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Speaker 3: the way a street looks, the way people dress on
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Speaker 3: the street, the way automobiles looked by themselves, but also
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Speaker 3: on the street, and how people looked in their automobiles,
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Speaker 3: just general cultural things, and those two things combined both nature,
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Speaker 3: how man created nature, how it treated nature. Say, in
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Speaker 3: an urban situation, I was always fascinated by the little
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Speaker 3: islands of nature that would be between lanes of traffic,
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Speaker 3: and I thought, oh, well, they put these very interesting
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Speaker 3: little shrubs and trees and flowers, and I thought that
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Speaker 3: was fascinating, but that in terms of the cultural aspects combined,
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Speaker 3: I just I fat off of that.
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Speaker 1: M I want to be respectful here, but I want
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Speaker 1: to introduce us into the conversation. The emotional and validation
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Speaker 1: that you mentioned, yes you were, was that like the
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Speaker 1: suit you were swimming in as a young kid.
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Speaker 2: Pretty much.
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Speaker 3: I went to a very strict Catholic school, both grade
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Speaker 3: school and high school for twelve years, and.
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Speaker 2: They're really.
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Speaker 3: Yeah again, yeah, I accept that you want to be respectful,
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Speaker 3: and so do I. The people that ran this school,
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Speaker 3: they had a well intentioned.
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Speaker 2: Purpose, but it was rather rigid.
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Speaker 3: And I wanted to be expressive, but that was not accepted.
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Speaker 3: It was pretty much to toe the lines. So I
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Speaker 3: learned to comply to be silent, and like I said,
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Speaker 3: even my vocal cords wouldn't work. Sometimes I couldn't speak,
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Speaker 3: And like I said earlier, this visual expression was a
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Speaker 3: substitute replacement for my inability to express myself verbally in
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Speaker 3: social situations. I would be in a family situation. I
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Speaker 3: had four pretty wild uncles on my mother's side, and
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Speaker 3: I would be quiet very silent, and my uncles would say, Denny,
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Speaker 3: why aren't you speaking, Why aren't you saying anything? And
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Speaker 3: then when I'd say something, they would make fun of me,
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Speaker 3: and so I thought, Okay, I'm not talking again.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to be quiet.
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Speaker 3: And you know, then in my childhood there were some
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Speaker 3: incidents of different kinds of abuse that happened. And it
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Speaker 3: wasn't till much later when I was I got divorced
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Speaker 3: and everything kind of fell apart from me. And at
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Speaker 3: that time I started examining my past and I started
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Speaker 3: combining that introspection with professional help with my image making,
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Speaker 3: and that was a fascinating process.
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Speaker 1: How old were you when you got the worst?
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Speaker 3: That was in nineteen seventy seven? So I was twenty
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Speaker 3: eight Okay?
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Speaker 1: So young?
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Speaker 2: Yes? Yes, married very young.
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Speaker 1: Okay. So let's talk about how the awareness of what
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Speaker 1: had happened to you and what happened to you, how
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Speaker 1: that was impacting you. How does that unfold for you?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean how did I become aware of it?
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Speaker 2: Is that?
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Speaker 1: Yeah? And how did you manage it? In the In
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Speaker 1: the bio I read, would you talk about addiction and shame?
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Speaker 2: Yes?
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Speaker 1: A lot of these things nfold for you.
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Speaker 3: Well, I was always rather anxious and then depressed in
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Speaker 3: various situations. I would go through different periods of depression,
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Speaker 3: and I was always anxious in social situations.
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Speaker 2: Like I said, I couldn't.
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Speaker 3: Speak, and of course alcohol was a good antidote to that.
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Speaker 3: It worked for a great number of years, but it
9:28
Speaker 3: eventually caught up with me. You know, this process of
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Speaker 3: uncovering the trauma took a long time, and maybe I'm
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Speaker 3: still kind of taking those onion layers off that been
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Speaker 3: discovering more about its impact upon me. I'm very clear
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Speaker 3: about what the incidents of abuse were, but not one
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Speaker 3: hundred percent and maybe I never will.
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Speaker 2: Be about the effects of it.
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Speaker 3: So through different therapists off and on, and reading and
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Speaker 3: talking to other people, say in my twelve step program,
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Speaker 3: I learned a lot of things and I thought, oh
10:09
Speaker 3: I should look into that. So it was a very
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Speaker 3: gradual process and I feel very, very fortunate that I
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Speaker 3: have survived. There were some very dark days overcoming those things,
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Speaker 3: and through that process of discovery reached the point where
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Speaker 3: today I'm just very grateful for the path that I
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Speaker 3: was able to be on.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting. First of all, thank you for sharing that
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Speaker 1: you know, it just makes me think about how our
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Speaker 1: lives unfold, and oftentimes many of us are not really
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Speaker 1: aware of It's like the fish in the water, right,
10:52
Speaker 1: You're not kind of aware of what you're in. And
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Speaker 1: certainly when it comes to is you trauma offen, that
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Speaker 1: is the case you you many people are very reactive.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 1: As a result, were you able to or are you
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Speaker 1: able to pinpoint a moment or moments where you sought
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Speaker 1: out therapy? I need something's going on, I need to
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Speaker 1: talk to someone.
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Speaker 3: Yes, Well, it was like I said in that when
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Speaker 3: the divorce happened, I just I couldn't function. I had
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Speaker 3: a job working for state government in Wisconsin, and I
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Speaker 3: couldn't go to work. I could hardly leave the house.
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Speaker 3: And I thought, what is going on? I need help?
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Speaker 3: And fortunately I realized and was able to say I
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Speaker 3: need help.
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Speaker 2: Some people don't do that. Unfortunately.
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Speaker 1: Was it what was it? Divorce? Shocking in the sense?
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Speaker 1: I mean, did it come out of the blue? Who
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Speaker 1: was your response? Oh my god, I got divorced. You
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Speaker 1: know that in and of itself could be traumaticus.
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Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, of course there was that.
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Speaker 1: Pries your reaction to the divorce.
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Speaker 3: I was It wasn't out of the blue. It wasn't
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Speaker 3: a surprise. There were difficulties in the relationships.
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Speaker 2: So.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I reacted that, you know, having growing up in
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Speaker 3: this strict Catholic background, you know, divorce was not something
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Speaker 3: that was very common back in the seventies. It was
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Speaker 3: starting to be. But for me and my family background,
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Speaker 3: there was no one that I knew who was divorced,
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Speaker 3: of friends of my parents or in that community.
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Speaker 2: So I thought, well, oh, there's really obviously something wrong
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Speaker 2: with me if I'm getting divorced.
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Speaker 3: But there was deeper stuff and I didn't understand all
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Speaker 3: that at the time, but there was much deeper stuff
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Speaker 3: that got triggered, and I was just an open wound.
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Speaker 1: When you started looking at this deeper stuff, how did
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Speaker 1: you respond?
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Speaker 3: You know, I went to the therapist and they put
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Speaker 3: me on some medication.
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Speaker 2: At the time, begrudgingly, or sort of not begrudging, that's
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Speaker 2: not the correct word I was. I was critical of
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Speaker 2: myself for having to do it. I was judging myself
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Speaker 2: because I was going to do a therapist, but I
13:36
Speaker 2: was also.
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Speaker 3: Judging myself because I had gotten divorced, So I was
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Speaker 3: clouded in judgment self, self, condemnation, but I kept going
13:48
Speaker 3: because it was helping you, and I probably went for
13:52
Speaker 3: I don't remember exactly. It was a while ago. It's
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Speaker 3: probably a couple of years with this person and was
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Speaker 3: very helpful. And during that process I had told him that, oh,
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Speaker 3: I really liked this photography thing. It's it's very new
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Speaker 3: and it's something totally different the atmosphere I grew up in.
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Speaker 3: I don't ever remember the word art being used.
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Speaker 2: And so here was photography.
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Speaker 1: Its funny, but it's not.
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Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, it probably was, I just don't recall it.
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Speaker 3: And if it was, it wasn't used very often. So
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Speaker 3: here I was somebody wanting to pursue an art form
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Speaker 3: that was totally foreign to my own background. And the
14:38
Speaker 3: therapist I was working with a very very experienced person,
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Speaker 3: and he encouraged me to pursue that, and he says
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Speaker 3: it seems to be.
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Speaker 2: Very health healthy for you, helpful for you, and he
14:53
Speaker 2: was very encouraging with that.
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Speaker 3: So that was it wasn't the very beginning of it
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Speaker 3: that he helped me continue it.
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Speaker 1: Let me remind everyone was speaking with Dennis Church. His
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Speaker 1: book is called Dirt Fresh, part visual memoir and part
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Speaker 1: emotional X ray project rooted in finding lights. You were
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Speaker 1: in color in the mundane. So this is interesting to
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Speaker 1: me because on the one hand, I mean, if I
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Speaker 1: can reduce it to a binary in the sense, on
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Speaker 1: the one hand, there's this childhood, but on the other hand,
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Speaker 1: there's you was very inspiring in the sense that it's
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Speaker 1: like you're pulled to do this work. Talk about your
15:43
Speaker 1: photography and as you were becoming involved with therapy as
15:51
Speaker 1: you were, I mean, was in terms of chronology, were
15:57
Speaker 1: you still drinking at this time.
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Speaker 2: In the early days.
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Speaker 3: Yes, that continued till about nineteen eighty four.
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Speaker 2: As I said, the divorce was.
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Speaker 3: In seventy seven, and it wasn't until eighty four that
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Speaker 3: I got sober.
16:15
Speaker 1: That's a long time.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it was really an odd thing I went to.
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Speaker 3: I had a girlfriend at the time who called me
16:24
Speaker 3: up during the middle of the night and she had
16:26
Speaker 3: gotten excuse me, she had gotten arrested for a DUI.
16:30
Speaker 2: And I had to go pick her up.
16:32
Speaker 3: Obviously, the police would not allow her drive, and her sentence,
16:37
Speaker 3: if you will, was to attend AA meetings.
16:40
Speaker 2: So she asked me to.
16:43
Speaker 3: Go along one time because she couldn't drive, And well
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Speaker 3: that was in nineteen seventy seven or seventy eight, So
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Speaker 3: it took me a while to start my own twelve
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Speaker 3: step program. But that was a blessing.
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Speaker 1: You were just still doing photography at this time.
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Speaker 2: Oh yes, I always continued with that.
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Speaker 1: And what was it like at this point? Were there
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Speaker 1: kind of do you have periods of work? What did
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Speaker 1: it look like? I'm curiods.
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Speaker 2: I'm sorry the periods?
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Speaker 1: I mean, I said, did you have like periods in
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Speaker 1: your work? You know, the blue period period.
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Speaker 3: Looking back at it today, I can say yes, But
17:26
Speaker 3: at the time I did not understand that. I was
17:29
Speaker 3: just intent on continuing to photograph, and if it changed,
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Speaker 3: I wasn't quite aware of it. I was just so
17:37
Speaker 3: fascinated by this pull, and it was almost like a compulsion,
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Speaker 3: and perhaps it was a replacement addiction. In the best
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Speaker 3: sense of the word.
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Speaker 2: It was a gift.
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Speaker 3: So and by that processing, I can't describe it necessarilyast
17:58
Speaker 3: maybe some neuropsychologists, but for me, it was a very
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Speaker 3: strong part of my recovery, and it kept progressing. Maybe
18:09
Speaker 3: this is what you're getting at in terms of periods.
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Speaker 3: I was able to get more and more clarity about
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Speaker 3: what I was doing and As I said, I worked
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Speaker 3: for state government. One day at lunchtime. I went out
18:23
Speaker 3: with my camera one day and I had this. I
18:28
Speaker 3: was blank. I didn't know what to photograph. That sounds odd,
18:32
Speaker 3: but I heard a voice, and obviously it was my voice.
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Speaker 2: It said, photograph what's.
18:37
Speaker 3: In front of you. Now that seems so stupidly obvious.
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Speaker 3: Of course, everything's in front of me. I'm not going
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Speaker 3: to photograph inside my brain. But it had some emotional
18:48
Speaker 3: impact upon me. What it meant was start seeing more deeply,
18:56
Speaker 3: maybe take a little more time, slow down, really look
19:01
Speaker 3: at things now that fit with what I was doing.
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Speaker 3: But I became much more conscious of what I was doing.
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Speaker 3: And through that process, I just became fascinated with color
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Speaker 3: and the forms of things, humor that I would find
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Speaker 3: in mundane situations. So it opened up the world in
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Speaker 3: a different in a new way, and that's pretty much
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Speaker 3: what I followed ever since.
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Speaker 1: That's it's amazing. I mean, it sounds like you're painting
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Speaker 1: this picture that is so rich, and it almost feels
19:38
Speaker 1: biometrically opposed to where you came from.
19:43
Speaker 2: This. Yeah, it was. It is a.
19:46
Speaker 1: Place where art wasn't even mentioned or uttered.
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Speaker 2: Yes, that's why I say, it's a gift for me.
19:53
Speaker 1: How how some interesting technical questions for my own benefit?
20:00
Speaker 2: How are you?
20:00
Speaker 1: What is photography? Mm?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a good question, and it's been described
20:06
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways.
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Speaker 2: If if I.
20:10
Speaker 3: Could follow you around, or you could follow me around
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Speaker 3: and look through the back of my head and see
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Speaker 3: through my eyes, that's what it is in its simplest form.
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Speaker 3: It's me being able to show you what I see.
20:27
Speaker 1: What type or types of camera do you use? And
20:30
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on? Uh? Some might say the
20:36
Speaker 1: really high quality images that can come from you know, iPhones,
20:40
Speaker 1: et cetera.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's most cameras today are so good that
20:46
Speaker 3: it almost.
20:47
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter which one you use.
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Speaker 3: I always tell people I get asked all the time,
20:53
Speaker 3: what should I buy for a camera?
20:54
Speaker 2: I want to start taking pictures?
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Speaker 3: So I tell them you can't do it anymore because
20:59
Speaker 3: they're aren't many camera stores left. But if you can
21:02
Speaker 3: go to a camera store and handle them just by
21:05
Speaker 3: the one that fits the best in your hand, the
21:07
Speaker 3: one that feels right, and then go out and hit
21:11
Speaker 3: and push the effing button.
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Speaker 2: Let's just keep just keep pushing the button.
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Speaker 1: That's so interesting it's I mean to me, photography is
21:25
Speaker 1: very like you said, it's your but it's your image, right,
21:29
Speaker 1: it's your You are creating the frame around what's scene. Yes, right,
21:36
Speaker 1: we might go out and photograph the same thing, but
21:39
Speaker 1: it would be different for a variety of reasons. Let's
21:44
Speaker 1: talk about this new book. Sure, how do you how
21:47
Speaker 1: do you decide? All right, I'm going to do a
21:48
Speaker 1: new book of photography. What what what's the inspiraced for?
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Speaker 3: Well, I took a picture, well maybe twelve thirteen years ago.
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna just hold this up here. You can see
22:04
Speaker 3: this picture.
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Speaker 2: It has this phrase called dirt fresh in the frame.
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Speaker 1: So let's hold I want to describe that to the
22:12
Speaker 1: people who sure are listening. So what is it? Under
22:16
Speaker 1: a do describe it? Describe the photograph?
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Speaker 3: Well, this is at a flea market, and it's just
22:22
Speaker 3: a silly sign of somebody advertising that they have fresh
22:26
Speaker 3: vegetables and they call it dirt fresh. Now below it's
22:31
Speaker 3: they're also selling strawberries. This is at a place on
22:34
Speaker 3: the west coast of Florida, and I just thought that
22:40
Speaker 3: was goofy in a way, silly funny. It's a funny expression.
22:45
Speaker 3: And also there's a lot of different colors in the
22:48
Speaker 3: picture that I liked. And you know, I've had this
22:51
Speaker 3: picture for over a dozen years and never thought too
22:54
Speaker 3: much about it. But one day I'm looking through my
22:58
Speaker 3: archive and I see this picture, and all of a
23:00
Speaker 3: sudden it hit me that this phrase dirt fresh, has
23:04
Speaker 3: a lot to do with my recovery. My recovery is
23:07
Speaker 3: where I'm getting down to basics, down to the ground,
23:12
Speaker 3: the ground of being, as say the Buddhist would say.
23:16
Speaker 3: And I've used this as a metaphor now for a
23:20
Speaker 3: little while to remind myself that, yes, I'm still recovering.
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Speaker 3: And in my recovery, I see a lot of joy,
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Speaker 3: and I see a.
23:29
Speaker 2: Lot of color.
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Speaker 3: And humor, and I want to share that with people.
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Speaker 3: So there's a lot of different metaphorical connections to the
23:41
Speaker 3: phrase dirt fresh, and I just thought it was a
23:45
Speaker 3: great hook for the title of a book that's about
23:48
Speaker 3: sharing the results of my journey, not my journey in detail,
23:54
Speaker 3: because a photograph can't do that necessarily, but the results
23:59
Speaker 3: of what I arrived at, what I see today and
24:04
Speaker 3: how I see, and to celebrate the beauty of color
24:10
Speaker 3: and humor and ordinary moments. And it's been so helpful
24:14
Speaker 3: for me when i's till today, when I go out
24:17
Speaker 3: and I look for this.
24:20
Speaker 2: These types of.
24:21
Speaker 3: Items in the culture, in the environment, in the landscape,
24:26
Speaker 3: it's exhilarating for me. And I'm hoping by sharing my
24:30
Speaker 3: pictures that other people can experience some of that joy,
24:34
Speaker 3: some of that really fun stuff. So that's I like
24:41
Speaker 3: calling the book a recovery hymn, because the pictures aren't
24:46
Speaker 3: necessarily about the places so that they can be looked
24:51
Speaker 3: at that way. They're about almost like a song, especially
24:56
Speaker 3: if you have I'm probably going to have eighty to
24:58
Speaker 3: one hundred pictures in the book, and if you look
25:02
Speaker 3: at him in as a group, they kind of make
25:07
Speaker 3: there's some kind of vibration as if almost as if.
25:09
Speaker 2: They were music. So that's why holiday I recovery.
25:13
Speaker 1: Him as kind of taking a step to the side
25:18
Speaker 1: here as a man, as a.
25:21
Speaker 4: Male is there has there been hesitation talked about shame
25:30
Speaker 4: in realizing that you're impacted by trauma and how are
25:36
Speaker 4: you dealt with that?
25:37
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, you know, I was born in this very
25:40
Speaker 3: individualistic society. My father was a farmer and wasn't a
25:46
Speaker 3: pioneer in a historical sense, but He was a pioneer
25:50
Speaker 3: in that he was a farmer along with my mother,
25:55
Speaker 3: who was very helpful on the farm. They work together
25:58
Speaker 3: and is very good individualism. So, you know, you didn't
26:03
Speaker 3: admit that you had problems. If you'd have problems, you
26:06
Speaker 3: just go ahead and you solve.
26:07
Speaker 2: Them on your own. You didn't talk about it.
26:10
Speaker 3: So, yeah, you hit the nail on the head there was.
26:12
Speaker 3: That was a tough one.
26:16
Speaker 2: You know.
26:17
Speaker 1: When I was younger, young kid, I experienced bullying, which
26:27
Speaker 1: was traumatic for me. I mean it impacted the trajectory
26:30
Speaker 1: of my life. You know, how I showed up my
26:33
Speaker 1: sense of self my sense of self esteem, how I
26:36
Speaker 1: showed up in relationships. I can certainly identify with what
26:39
Speaker 1: you said about being quiet, not using my voice, and
26:46
Speaker 1: I can't honestly say that to a certain extent. I mean,
26:50
Speaker 1: I'm cured, I can't say that. But it took me
26:56
Speaker 1: a long time to be able to talk about it.
26:59
Speaker 1: Doing this podcast only help. But I'm wondering if, aside
27:06
Speaker 1: when you talk about joy and in your work humor,
27:13
Speaker 1: was there ever a noticeable or sense of anger in it?
27:21
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I for quite a while thought I felt
27:27
Speaker 3: victimized by my upbringing by the abuse that I experienced.
27:35
Speaker 3: There were several different varieties. I just I won't mention
27:39
Speaker 3: them all. But I was in a fire when I
27:42
Speaker 3: was four or five years old. I was nearly electrocuted
27:46
Speaker 3: on the farm, and then there were some other things that.
27:52
Speaker 2: Types of abuse.
27:53
Speaker 3: So there was a layering of abuse that it took
27:56
Speaker 3: me a long time to understand. And yeah, I was angry.
28:02
Speaker 3: I was angry that those things happened to me. But
28:05
Speaker 3: you know, I look through my recovery program, I learned
28:09
Speaker 3: to accept that. You know, it wasn't this. It was
28:13
Speaker 3: it happened to me, but it wasn't about me. So
28:18
Speaker 3: you have to learn to forgive and accept. And that's
28:22
Speaker 3: a layering process too. Every once in a while here
28:26
Speaker 3: I get triggered into having that anger. It will come back.
28:30
Speaker 3: It's much milder today, but I think, oh, why do
28:33
Speaker 3: I have to go through this? Well that's kind of
28:35
Speaker 3: a self pity thing. But it's multi layered, and so
28:43
Speaker 3: you know, I was victimized, but I am not a victim.
28:48
Speaker 1: Dennis. As we kind of wind down here, you're inspiring
28:52
Speaker 1: me to take my iPhone and go out and take
28:55
Speaker 1: some photos.
28:57
Speaker 2: Do it?
29:00
Speaker 1: What are there particular, if you've talked a little bit
29:03
Speaker 1: about it. But if someone said to you, are Dennis,
29:07
Speaker 1: We're going to go on this trip to photograph X,
29:10
Speaker 1: Y and Z. What would your ideal subject matter or
29:14
Speaker 1: place to go be.
29:17
Speaker 2: Oh?
29:17
Speaker 3: I like very dense urban environments today. It's a funny
29:23
Speaker 3: thing because my father hated cities.
29:26
Speaker 2: He hated them.
29:27
Speaker 3: You know, we go to a town of twenty five
29:31
Speaker 3: hundred that was a big city to him, and he
29:32
Speaker 3: didn't like him. So I guess maybe because of his
29:39
Speaker 3: not liking them, that probably triggered my curiosity about them.
29:45
Speaker 3: So I like to go to a very dense, what
29:49
Speaker 3: you might consider a chaotic, urban environment and make pictures
29:54
Speaker 3: there because there's so much material that it's a thrill
29:58
Speaker 3: to organize all of that material into a picture that works.
30:05
Speaker 1: Now, are you using I mean, forgive my nay of
30:09
Speaker 1: tay on these questions here, but are you using a
30:11
Speaker 1: variety of lenses in a situation like that, like to
30:15
Speaker 1: get to get shoot someone from across the street, so
30:18
Speaker 1: you don't want to get too close to them, but
30:19
Speaker 1: you want to get them. How does it work for you?
30:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I use what's called as a zoom lens
30:25
Speaker 3: that goes from sort of a wide angle view to
30:28
Speaker 3: a longer a medium telephoto view. So I have the
30:31
Speaker 3: option right there on one lens.
30:33
Speaker 1: So got it? Got it? Awesome? Exciting? Well, look, appreciate
30:39
Speaker 1: you being here again. The book is called Dirt Fresh.
30:41
Speaker 1: How do people learn more about you? How do people
30:45
Speaker 1: check out your work and buy the book?
30:47
Speaker 3: Well, the book is not published yet, but it's imminent.
30:51
Speaker 3: I can't give you an exact date, but it's for
30:54
Speaker 3: Fall Line Press, which is in Atlanta. But you can
30:58
Speaker 3: go to my website Dennis Church dot com. It just
31:02
Speaker 3: came to me one night that it should be dnnist.
31:04
Speaker 2: Church dot com.
31:06
Speaker 3: Okay, so or my email is Dennis at Dennistchurch dot com.
31:11
Speaker 3: And I have a little guide that I've prepared that
31:15
Speaker 3: talks about this finding the beauty of color and humor
31:19
Speaker 3: and ordinary moments. And if you want the free guide,
31:22
Speaker 3: just send me an email and I'll send it to you.
31:25
Speaker 3: It's it's very simple, but it's a good guide, and
31:28
Speaker 3: it's a sort of a primer for not just doing photography,
31:35
Speaker 3: but for learning to see things that we've been talking about,
31:39
Speaker 3: things that will be in my book, but seeing these
31:42
Speaker 3: moments of color and humor and everyday moments. So it's
31:47
Speaker 3: a good start for people.
31:49
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Awesome talking to you. Appreciate you being here
31:53
Speaker 1: and sharing your story and you are an inspiration, Sir.
31:56
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Have your site linked up at the
32:03
Speaker 1: uh my my show. It's here again. Your your website
32:06
Speaker 1: is Dennis Church dot com. That'll be linked up here
32:09
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma paapist dot com. Dennis.
32:13
Speaker 1: Appreciate you, man, Thank you so much.
32:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great being here, great questions.
32:16
Speaker 1: Thank you all right, take care you buy nowh