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Continuing on with the series from the abandoned farmhouse in North Carolina, I found an interesting composition through a door sidelight in the front hallway, looking back toward the kitchen, pantry and other rooms at the back of the house.

One has to tread very carefully through here; the right side of the house is pretty much missing, and the best path is to balance-beam along the floor joists.

Of compositional note: The original frames were much wider, but when I cropped this to something close to a 9:16 format, it just popped.

Related Posts:

Through the Bedroom Window
Inside Lines
Purity of Intention

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Although the abandoned farmhouse sits directly on road frontage, if you look out the back windows, there are farm fields about as far as the eye can see.

I tried to imagine what life must have been like in this area so many years ago. There was likely very little traffic, no airplanes overhead, no air conditioners humming. Perhaps the owner was rumbling along the fields in an old tractor; kids out back playing under the huge trees that have long since fallen; the matriarch of the family calling to them through this back window, the breeze fluttering the curtains. Time to come in and wash up for dinner.

It’s eerily quiet there now, except for the occasional passing car. The farmhouse has melted away, but I suspect not the memories that the residents had of living and growing up here.

Related Images:

Inside Lines

Purity of Intention

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I entered the abandoned farmhouse featured in “Purity of Intention”, entering not through the front door, but through a window in the room on the right, as Jeff had shown me. Often, due to weathering, the front porch is the first thing to fail on these old houses. I tested the porch floor, and although I had on my heavy boots and clothes, I knew that it was not to be trusted.

Moving carefully from room to room, I looked for the opportunities. One of the first to appear was this view from the back of the central hallway toward the front; the play of light and shadow was compelling, bringing in both a comfortable feel as well as some genuine spookiness. The lines from the stacked boards, the ceiling, and the exposed beams all converged on the front door. The house also showed that the owners had a sense of decorating style, as the blue, green, and yellow paint were all visible from one spot.

Jeff had already removed some materials from inside. The rest, no doubt, was likely the result of vandalism.

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Across rural North Carolina, old abandoned buildings are either being taken down, or are in an advanced state of decay. Whether they’re removed to make way for one of the new “house farms” that spring up in open fields, or are simply left to melt into the landscape, these testaments to a former, quieter time are becoming much harder to find.

Let me correct that: There are still a number of them out there, but they’re often inaccessible due to being on private property, or sitting in the middle of a vast field with no roads leading up to them.

This one is an exception.

Recently, my friend Jeff Garvey (‘Recycling is for the Birds’ on Facebook) gained unfettered access to this old farmhouse. You may remember my mentioning Jeff, a good man who finds these buildings and with the owner’s permission, dismantles them carefully. He totes the wood and bling back to his workshop where he makes incredible birdhouses using the old materials. Every Saturday morning you can find him at the local farmer’s market with a full display of unique creations. Some of them are truly functional art; others will never see the outdoors because they’re simply too beautiful to give to the birds. (You’ll see one of his better ones soon.)

I spent about four hours alone in and around this beautiful old house. One has to move very carefully… at one point on an upper floor I almost dropped through to the bottom floor. Free access allowed me to spend the necessary time to view, set up, and really soak in what this place is about. From this outside view, we’ll go inside for a few images.

In talking with Jeff about my experience there, I could see the concern on his face as I told him of possible damage done by vandals and pilferers. Some people need to bust brick, I suppose, and others will take glass door knobs, hardware, and insulators so that they can get 50 cents at a flea market. They find little value in these things, and they don’t approach such a place with any sense of respect.

Jeff is different. He loves these old places, and finds a purpose in giving them new life as birdhouses and decorations, so that others can enjoy these relics anew. It’s very important to him; it’s his purpose. There is a purity of intention that I appreciate – I consider it an honor to be able to help him capture the old beauty before it’s gone forever.

Associated Posts:

They Leave The Nest So Early An old school in Arapahoe being dismantled by Jeff.

A Mother’s Kiss One of Jeff’s creations in action “in the wild.”

Grandfather’s Legacy The story of our first visit with Jeff.

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Gamble, an abandoned lobster boat found alongside Route 1 in northern Maine.

We woke up in the tent one morning and decided that it was too chilly to stick around outside, so we took a photo road trip up to Moosehorn NWR a few miles north of us. (Truck heater, yay!) Alongside the route, we found this poor, dilapidated beast in a vacant lot, an equally sad looking abandoned Gulf gas station.

We could only imagine what kind of story might be behind the vessel, its legacy on the water, and what conditions caused its demise.

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An HDR from five frames, the original version showed just how colorful and lucious the foliage was at the time, but I didn’t think that it set the mood for the image. Using a number of layer techniques and a subtle filter from OnOne, I tried to create the mood as I saw it on that cold and overcast day.

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Leaving Moosehead Lake in Maine, we found this relic on the side of the road, causing a quick turnaround to take some shots. Luckily, the owners of the property were nearby, and they allowed me to have a look around (but not inside, thankfully.)

I was a bit surprised when I went around the back of the house and found a donkey on a line. Yes, a real donkey. Although I tried to avoid him, he kept coming after me, either looking for a handout or a free portrait.

I didn’t have any food on hand.

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Sometimes, you just get lucky.

We were driving through a rural area and passed by an interesting place, so we wanted to turn around to check it out. Just before our turn out, we saw a man and woman approaching an old, abandoned house through a yard full of weeds and grasses. As we passed the house again, we noticed the woman standing on the porch.

The place we wanted to see was closed, so we turned back to our original route. As we approached the abandoned house once again, we saw the couple waving us down. Perhaps there was some sort of trouble.

The couple had seen us passing by for the third time and thought that we were ‘locals’ who were checking them out. As they told us later, “Everyone around here is related, so we thought it would be a good idea to let you know that this house belongs to our family.” Good information to have on both counts, I thought.

We heard their interesting story about how the man and his sister had been adopted by different families, and had only found each other recently after a 17 year search. The old house had belonged to the sister’s father, who passed away some time ago, leaving the house unoccupied.

Being the curious sort – and, of course, armed with a camera and tripod – I asked if I could poke around a bit. What had once been a beautiful old farm house was now collapsing in on itself. Along the front and sides, all of the doors and windows were blocked with plywood. Rats! (Um, not real rats. I just couldn’t see inside.) Around back, though, there was an old mud room door with no glass in the windows, just some loose cardboard that had seen better days.

“Would you mind if I just stuck my camera through this window?”, I asked. I find it never hurts to ask. “No problem.”

It was so dimly lit inside that I didn’t even know what was in there, and given the musty, moldy smell coming through, I wasn’t about to go inside. Apparently, it had been quite some time since the detergents and mops were used there.

The “skylight” is courtesy of last year’s Hurricane Irene, which had peeled back a significant portion of the tin roof. It’s a look.

It’s just a simple Rurex (Rural Exploration) composition – one not particularly noteworthy, at that – but it gave us the chance to stop along our route, do a little exploration, meet some interesting people, and then check for ticks.

Pete and Kelly, if you see this on the blog, please drop me a line at my email address. Thanks for letting us peek into the old place. It was a pleasure to meet you.

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After meeting up at Jeff’s place, where Grandfather’s Legacy was taken, we cruised out to a couple of good ‘Rurex’ locations for more pictures. These are locations where Jeff – with permission – carefully dismantles old buildings for repurposing into birdhouses and furniture. It’s a way of giving a second life to these old and neglected beauties.

Sadly, in many cases the houses and barns have been hit by vandals, who seem to have no respect for their history. While not unusual or surprising, it is a bit startling to see the damage they can do to a place.

We carefully picked our way through the center hall of this 1920’s American Foursquare to the back of the house, and I was struck by the juxtapositional nature of the ruins against the spring green fields and vining wisteria. Left alone, they would eventually become one.

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To the same location where Molasses and I Fought the Lawn… were shot, I returned the other day with prints in hand to give to the elder Mr. Riggs, who owns the granary and feed store on the property. It was my way of getting him to allow unfettered access to the remainder of the property… and it worked. Well, he wouldn’t let me inside any of the buildings, but there was much to be seen as I worked my way through the woods and fields.

There’s nothing modern about this place. All the barns, silos, and tin buildings are worn and weathered, with some close to collapse.

I worked my way around one large building and found this vignette on the back and propped my tripod between the building and a large pecan tree that had fallen thanks to Hurricane Irene. I marveled at the slow collapse of the wooden siding, boards holding on by just a few nails here and there, and the weathered look of old tar paper and wood being revealed bit-by-bit over time.

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This is a 9-frame HDR processed using both Photomatix Pro and HDR Express/32 Float. Also of note is that post-processing in Photoshop was done with the brandy-new Color Efex Pro 4 from Nik Software, now in beta. We’ve just been released to speak of the new program, and lemme tell you… it’s a great update!

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Today, we present a wonderfully creepy shot taken at the same location as The Approach and Open Door Policy.

Since I’ve not yet gained permission to go inside the old farmhouse (and perhaps I wouldn’t want to), for this shot I stretched my tripod out to maximum height, jamming the lens over a window casing and taking my best guess for focus and brackets, all while dodging broken glass and rusty nails. Lucky guess. This is toward the back of the house, where a sunroom/porch fell into the main part of the house. I was delighted when I saw the brackets, as the window was so high off the ground that I couldn’t even see in.

I think we could call this a Redneck Solarium.

Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 lens, 38mm at f/6.3, using 9 of 15 shots taken from Promote Control, including a second tonemap of the bottom three to bring the luminosity of the ‘skylight’ to reasonable levels.

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