Altoona After Dark street photographer Matt Gindlesperger sits in front of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament.
Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski
A Johnstown native who’s lived in Altoona for 25 years has been honored by the online photography magazine reFocus.
Matt Gindlesperger, 43, a member of the Altoona Zoning Hearing Board, was the 2025 recipient of the magazine’s People’s Vote Award for street photography for his portfolio of night shots taken in Altoona with a Samsung Galaxy S21 phone.
“I’m not a full time photographer, nor a professional by any stretch,” Gindlesperger said. “Just a guy with a cellphone and a hobby.”
In the narrative and an interview in the magazine that accompany the series that won the reFocus award, Gindlesperger and the magazine’s editors point out that he’s drawn to photograph things that are overlooked, forgotten, dismissed, discounted.
Seven times, “overlook” is used literally in the accompanying material, while many other times, it’s implied or suggested with phrases like: “the in-betweens,” “what stays after dark,” “things that feel like they’re still holding on,” “little corners people pass by without looking,” “parts of the city that only reveal themselves when no one’s really watching,” “(the quality of) showing up even when nobody’s looking,” “forgotten corners,” “things that feel small but say a lot if you stop and look,” “moments that feel a little lonely,” “tucked under there, asleep,” “where nobody’s paying attention.”
Altoona After Dark street photographer Matt Gindlesperger’s photos of late-night Altoona scenes like this one, have been featured by online
photograpy magazine reFocus.
Courtesy photo
In the middle-of-the-night dark, when he takes his pictures in the city, things are different, because the “hustle and bustle of crowds” is gone, Gindlesperger said in a recent phone interview.
“I chase what stays after dark,” he told reFocus.
The appeal of such things relates to his childhood, he said in the Mirror interview.
Gindlesperger went to St. Benedict’s Elementary School in Johnstown from kindergarten through eighth grade, and then for a year to Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown.
“I was one of the kids in school who was picked on,” he said. “(For) my hair and complexion, my upbringing — I’m not from an affluent family, and I was on scholarship to pay my tuition.”
This image of Altoona’s Mishler Theatre at night was among the photos taken by Matthew Gindlesperger that appeared in the online photography magazine reFocus.
Courtesy photo
He’s the son of a white father and a Black mother, who raised him after his parents divorced when he was young, he said.
Perhaps because of the way he was treated in school, he tended to “befriend folks that most people make fun of,” he said.
“I was drawn to the outcasts,” and “didn’t want to follow the crowd,” he said.
He transferred to Johnstown Vo-Tech for his final three years of high school, and things got better.
“That is where I came out of my shell,” he said. “I found out who I was — not so much what people had labeled me.”
This image of a sign indicating downtown Altoona at night was among the photos taken by Matthew Gindlesperger that appeared in the online photography magazine reFocus.
Courtesy photo
At Vo-Tech, there were “more darker complected folks,” to whom he hadn’t been exposed much previously, he said.
“They looked like me and acted like me,” he said, and he was more comfortable.
Despite his mother having raised him to speak his mind and not to cower before the opinions of others, Gindlesperger said he had to overcome a personal resistance to sharing his photographs.
“I was self-conscious how (they) would be viewed,” he said, adding he didn’t feel like his work would be “up to snuff,” especially given his lack of professional credentials and professional equipment.
But family and friends encouraged him, and he gave in to that persuasion, and “when I did, it kind of blew up unexpectedly,” he said.
This image of Altoona’s Texas Hot Dog Shop at night was among the photos taken by Matthew Gindlesperger that appeared in the online photography magazine reFocus.
Courtesy photo
The award hasn’t changed the way he works or the way he sees things, although it has provided validation, he said.
He plans to keep on taking pictures, regardless of future feedback. “I do it for myself,” he said.
He started taking the pictures of Altoona’s nightscape without intending it to become a project, he told reFocus.
It began as a way to handle seasonal depression and restlessness, he told the magazine.
That depression and restlessness stemmed from “the weight of my professional career” then, as an operations manager at a manufacturing facility in Bedford County, where he felt there were unreasonable expectations he had to meet, he told the Mirror.
Out on the streets, he took shots of “things I thought were cool,” he said.
He wanted viewers to see what he saw and to make them “feel something,” he said, and regards his photography as art, like poems or songs.
“It carries the same amount of weight” in terms of feelings or mood, he said.
Gindlesperger is now operations manager for Leonardo DRS in Johnstown.
He has a business degree from the University of the People, an online college.
reFocus bills itself as “a platform to discover the most distinctive visual professionals, artists, and industry leaders of our time.
It is designed to showcase the “artistic visions of our community first and to get our participants noticed,” according to the publication.
The awards bestowed by the magazine are managed by Creative Resource Collective, which was “established in 2020 with the goals of providing resources, recognition, exposure, and community for photographers around the world,” according to the publication.
The magazine’s panel of judges include representatives from ABC News, Phaedon Press, Shutterstock, Whistler Contemporary Gallery, Wired, Conde Nast Publications, Getty Images, GO Gallery, Gilman Contemporary, Ripple Effect Images, University of Nebraska Lincoln, Leica Gallery LA, Photoville, PhotoVisa, the Nikon School and National Geographic Society, according to the publication.
To view the spread that accompanies Gindlesperger’s award, do an internet search for Gindlesperger Altoona After Dark or visit streetphotography
magazine.com where Altoona After Dark is currently on the second page of the “Latest Articles” group. The direct link is https://streetphotographymagazine.com/article/altoona-after-dark/.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.
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