Holy Cross Orphanage photographer shares her exclusive experience

MARQUETTE — The past couple weeks, we have shown some rare pictures of the inside of the Holy Cross Orphanage. ABC 10’s Melanie Palmer sat down with the photographer behind these photographs.

Joan Haara of Marquette received an exciting opportunity when she was asked to take progress photographs throughout the construction of the Holy Cross Orphanage into the Grandview Marquette Apartments. Haara has been a photographer for several years now but her main focus has been nature scenes, such as waterfalls.

Being that she is a Marquette native, she was thrilled and honored to take a look inside of the iconic building.

“I was just so happy they let me do it because I know they must have a million people calling them asking them to go in the building and see it, and there’s a lot of liability risks they took to have me go in. I really appreciate their trust in me to be safe and letting me go in and do that,” said Haara.

With no electricity and boarded up windows, having enough light to take photographs was a slight challenge.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do for light when taking these pictures because of course you need light, so luckily I brought a flashlight and the gentlemen who escorted us in from the construction crew had a light on his hard hat. So we did a lot of photography just using those two tools,” said Photographer, Joan Haara.

These pictures have received a lot of attention across the central U.P., giving residents a legal peak inside the orphanage.

“Well I think a lot of people were amazed, it was so funny because some of them thought ‘I didn’t even think it was in this good of condition and other people thought, ‘o’h it’s such a shame, I can’t believe it has gotten this bad. So it has been a whole gamete of anyone who says they were surprised on either end of that spectrum,” said Haara.

Haara is also looking for any people in the area who were either orphans when the orphanage was opened or have pictures of its original condition. The photos taken from the orphanage are up for sale and Haara can contacted either through here Facebook or email, jhaara@sbcglobal.net