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Unseen Pickerington

Cyclist and photographer Glenn Sheller captures the unseen side of Pickerington

Glenn Sheller has always been an early riser, but it wasn’t until a sweltering hot summer nine years ago that he began waking before dawn to complete his daily bike rides.

At 3:30 every morning, Sheller dons his reflective vest, puts a camera in his pocket and hops on his bike. He rides alone in the quiet predawn peace of the city, stopping to take photos every so often to capture the strange beauty of a side of Pickerington that’s seldom seen.

“It’s very peaceful, it’s very beautiful,” he says. “Places and buildings that are completely ordinary during the day have a kind of magic at night, in the way the light plays on them.”

In the dark before the sun rises, it’s almost impossible to take clear photos of these unique sights, but Sheller found a way.

With a Sony point-and-shoot camera, he sets up on the side of the road and uses a long exposure feature to let the faint light of the moon and street lights illuminate the photo.

With this method and an abundance of patience, Sheller captures some breathtaking sights.

“You can be out on a foggy morning and the lights are just amazing the way they interact with the fog,” he says. “The colors you see are just amazing. It’s a different world. Very familiar places that you wouldn’t look at twice in the daylight, you see at night and there can be some extraordinary images there.”

Sheller’s journey into cycling and photography started a few years after

moving to Pickerington. He began biking recreationally back in 2004, riding after work and on weekends. His passion for the pastime grew and he rode in his first Pelotonia in 2009.

Despite his history of bicycling, he doesn’t consider himself a professional cyclist.

“I’m not like one of those racing bikes kind of people wearing spandex,” he says, laughing. “I’m more of a bicycle tourist. I just like to get outside and see the countryside.”

As a former editor for the Columbus Dispatch, Sheller knew there was a story to be told about the unseen side of Pickerington. Though he maintains that he’s not a trained photographer nor a photojournalist, there’s something to be said for his photos.

“When I started doing these rides in the morning, not only was the ride itself more pleasant but I started seeing these incredible sights and I thought, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to photograph this?’” Sheller says. “So, at the time, I had this little pocket camera that had a manual setting that let me do longer exposures,

Check out more of Sheller’s photos at www.cityscenecolumbus. com/communities/pickerington, and on the following local Facebook groups where Sheller posts regularly: • Pickerington Pride • Canal Winchester

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which you need to do when it’s dark, and I started to experiment with that and was surprised and amazed at some of the photos I was getting.”

Though Sheller rides alone past graveyards and dark, empty buildings, he’s not afraid of ghostly encounters.

“I haven’t had any supernatural experiences. They’ve all been natural experiences, and they’ve been super, but they haven’t been supernatural,” he says.

On his morning rides, Sheller rarely sees other cyclists, only the occasional car passing by every so often, but most mornings he’s not alone.

“I see a tremendous number of deer, skunks, raccoons and possums,” he says. “It’s an eerie thing when you’re out riding at 4 in the morning when there’s nobody around and it’s dark, and you hear a pack of coyotes off in the distance howling. I’ve

seen foxes, but I have not seen coyotes, I’ve just heard them.”

Most of his animal encounters are not so eerie, though. He saved a skunk whose head was caught in a Dairy Queen cup, who graciously waddled away without spraying Sheller after he was freed. He also stumbled upon a herd of deer bursting in front of him on a memorable ride.

“They just came out of this cornfield. I didn’t see them coming and suddenly they’re right there in front of me, and if I hadn’t stopped, I would have run right into them,” Sheller says. “It was like seven

or eight deer, and they’re pretty substan- tial animals so I don’t want to run into them or get run over by them.”

The interactions with wildlife are one of Sheller’s favorite parts of his predawn adventures, along with the sense of having the world to himself.

“A lot of people say, ‘Well, isn’t it spooky?’” he says, “and, in a way, I guess it is spooky, but once you get out and do it for a while, it’s very familiar and very com- fortable. It’s a nice feeling. … Everybody else is asleep and you’re just wandering around seeing these unusual sights all by yourself.”

As Sheller rides alone every morn- ing, he wishes wistfully for a cycling companion.

“I would be happy to have someone ride along with me, but it’s a very strange thing: most people don’t want to get up at 3 in the morning and go on a bike ride,” Sheller says. “It’s been a solitary enterprise so far.”

Amid the solitude, Sheller’s talent has uncovered some of Pickerington’s hidden beauty unknown to residents who sleep through sunrise.

Sarah Robinson is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at feedback@ cityscenemediagroup.com.