Today, we’re featuring a beautiful large format photography series from Cody Schultz. Cody captured details of the forest surrounding his family’s cabin known as Nort’s Resort. Scroll below to view the images and read more from Cody about how this property has inspired his work.
Analog cameras and films used: Chamonix 45F-2 (Find at chamonixviewcamera.com) with the Nikkor-W 210mm f/5.6 lens (find at KEH Camera or on eBay) | Ilford FP4+ (Find on Amazon)
Connect with Cody: Website
Nort’s Resort
A Photo Essay by Cody Schultz
Back in the mid-1980s, my grandparents began looking for property in Northern Pennsylvania. Having run their own business, they wanted somewhere they could go for vacations or weekend getaways without having to take a plane or a whole week – which simply was not feasible for them.
So they began looking at properties for sale which were an hour or two away, settling on a 100-acre plot of forested land with a man-made lake.
Though it took a number of years before the cabin itself was built, when it finally was – and I was born shortly thereafter – the property was where my family spent a majority of our weekends.
Rather than go to the beach or venture to another state, our vacations primarily consisted of heading to the cabin, spending our time fishing, riding dirt bikes and ATVs on the trails my father had put in, and overall enjoying the solitude the property allowed.
For much of my life, I suppose I took a lot of this for granted. To have such easy access to a place of pure solitude, which has given my family so much – it was not something I thought much of as a kid.
In December of 2019, I read Guy Tal’s More Than A Rock for the first time. To say it altered my life would be an understatement. It was because of Guy that my photography has begun walking down the road I have since been traversing; I went from focusing my lens on more grandiose views (or at least as “grand” as one could get in Pennsylvania), to dialing down upon the intimacies as found in the forest.
At the same time, I found myself becoming more interested in simply being in nature, rather than doing in nature. By this, I mean I was content having gone on a hike and enjoyed myself, even if I did not expose a single sheet of film. No longer did the photographs matter more than experience itself.
Around this same time, my appreciation for the family cabin – or Nort’s Resort, aptly named after my grandfather’s nickname – began to expand in ways previously unthought of. I began to realize that the vast majority of my “portfolio-worthy” photographs had been taken on the property.
At first, I thought this rather odd, as it was not something previously considered. Yet, I have come to realize the importance of this and the impact the property has had on my life.
Had my grandparents never purchased what would become Nort’s Resort, had my parents not put in the thousands of hours of work to maintain it and make it what it is today, perhaps my appreciation for nature would have never come to fruition. Perhaps my life would have been oh so drastically different.
As I continue along my photographic journey, Nort’s Resort will maintain as a primary inspiration for my work. I hope to begin learning more about the property and the intricate detailings as found throughout it. To learn about the trees, the mushrooms, the flowers.
There is so much more to the property which I have not even begun to touch upon, both as an individual and as an artist. Luckily, there are many more decades yet whereas I may work on this land.
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