Abandoned

[Bèsame*]

[JustBeingMe]

It's a sad reality that these places, buildings, and the like actually exist in the US. Detroit actually has so many of these empty and alone buildings and houses. I lived only 5 mins from south Detroit, and it was very sad and gloomy there. I hated it.

[Cailin]

I love this thread. Though sad, I find it absolutely breath taking, the way nature reclaims what is hers.

[~ocean]

ty for sharing Femme ~ interesting shots ~

[Glenn]

The History Channel's program, "Life After People" illustrates what would happen to our cities, buildings, structures, etc. if everyone just disappeared today. Many of the buildings still standing, believe it or not, are still structurally sound, and were built of such a quality, that current churches, buildings, structures, etc., cannot match.

[Ginger]

[QUOTE=Cailin;779759]I love this thread. Though sad, I find it absolutely breath taking, the way nature reclaims what is hers.

I agree! The economic story behind the abandoned place is a story of pain and loss for many people, but also, there is the story of reclamation, resiliency, all the ways nature fights for a place on earth.

[Hollylane]

I agree with Cailin and IslandScout. Thank you for starting this thread femmeInterrupted!

I adore seeking out abandoned buildings, especially in the countryside. There are a lot of abandoned homes and barns in Oregon, and Mother Nature takes them back with gusto. I find them hauntingly beautiful.

I took all of the photos below, while exploring in Oregon...



White River Falls Abandoned hydro power generation plant 2012



White River Falls Abandoned hydro power generation plant 2012



White River Falls Abandoned hydro power generation plant 2012


All of these images were taken within walking distance of the home I lived in, in Brownsmead Oregon...



Aldrich Point Rd in Brownsmead Oregon 2006



Abandoned home, on Aldrich Point Rd in Brownsmead Oregon 2006



Old gray barn, on Aldrich Point Rd in Brownsmead Oregon 2006

Here's one I found on accident when driving back from a hike in the Columbia Gorge...



Abandoned home, Columbia River Gorge Area 2012

[Hollylane]

I took this one in 2012, in Kid Valley Washington. This A-Frame, was buried in a river of mud after the May 18th, 1980 eruption, at Mount St. Helens.

[Ginger]

Holly, I love the images you just posted.

You don't use that HDR technique I've just been made aware of, by this thread, but you do create a lot of wistful and sometimes spooky intensity with the angles in the shots.

A lot of people on BFP live in rural areas. I bet they know of many, many glorious old abandoned barns and farmhouses and other structures.

If only we could put you on a tour, like artists back in the days before artists' colonies, when artists and writers and musicians would stay on people's estates and just do their thing for a while, then give a show or a concert or a reading, and move on!

[Kätzchen]

You can still see what is left of this huge home that was buried in the massive landslide off the basalt cliffs of the CRG. It’s near the same area that is home to hundreds of thousands of stands of Larch pine trees (Larch Mountain area).

Today, the massive landslide still moves and has nearly consumed that house; which was half visible after that cataclysmic event, but now you can barely see the roof of that house, at all, but just barely.

That was the year of the massive ice storm: all of the river’s experienced massive, never-seen-before flooding from the deep freeze of weeks long episode of lingering ice (not snow) on everything. I lived out in a tiny town in the gorge and we were trapped without electricity for weeks (the front door of my home and my car was buried /encased in ice. When it finally warmed up to thaw the ice, all the rivers here overflowed massively.

I would place this natural hazardous event right up there next to Mt St Helens volcano exploding in the 1980s. This 1996 event was nearly a decade later.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by Uniqueswtfemm

Hair dryers for the Coneheads.

Just a reminder that if these pictures aren't taken by you and you don't attribute the photographer of the pictures you're stealing their work.

Me and other urbexer friends have had our work stolen regularly. There's even been folks passing other's pictures off as their own. Copyright is serious stuff folks.




Awww Dapper

A couple of my fave urbexing shots.


table revisted by Dr.Doo, on Flickr
T.G Green Cornish Ware pottery factory


Wheelchair Access by Dr.Doo, on Flickr
My best urbexing selfie at Nocton Hospital, Lincolnshire.

[Ginger]

Dkatari brought up a word I didn't know: "urbexing."

I found this definition in http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Urbexing

"Urbexing is the act of exploring urban areas that are generally off-limits to regular civilians."


I've always been intrigued by spaces that are off-limits to many. I'm not talking about private residential space, but private spaces within public settings.

I like meeting people who share access to those spaces. Like, an old friend who was the head of pathology at a hospital in NYC. He gave me a tour through lab areas that were off limits to visitors, so I could take notes for a poem.

I would love to find a guide who could share access with me to:

• abandoned subway stations
• animal clinics at the Bronx zoo
• places in the redwood forests in Humboldt Park, Northern California, where the largest trees on earth are growing (their sites are off limits to the general public, for the trees' protection)
• the construction site of the new Freedom Tower, looking out from the cage of steel beams at 100 stories

Before 9/11, when security all over the City was more slack, I would sneak behind the scenes at Madison Square Garden at the Westminster Dog Show, so I could wander up and down the aisles where the show dogs were being temporarily housed and groomed.

Their owners sat in lawn chairs, and the dogs were on leashes next to them. The owners were happy to talk about their dogs, and the dogs were friendly and well behaved. I got to pet an Irish Wolf Hound; I'd never seen one before in person.

And it was so cool to watch the dogs being blow dried and groomers trimming their whiskers and eye brows and so on. It's a real art, grooming some of the dogs, like standard poodles, where such precision goes into their hair cuts.

So I guess I have the heart of an urbexer. Who knew.

Originally Posted by IslandScout

Dkatari brought up a word I didn't know: "urbexing."

I found this definition in http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Urbexing

"Urbexing is the act of exploring urban areas that are generally off-limits to regular civilians."


I've always been intrigued by spaces that are off-limits to many. I'm not talking about private residential space, but private spaces within public settings.

I like meeting people who share access to those spaces. Like, an old friend who was the head of pathology at a hospital in NYC. He gave me a tour through lab areas that were off limits to visitors, so I could take notes for a poem.

I would love to find a guide who could share access with me to:

• abandoned subway stations
• animal clinics at the Bronx zoo
• places in the redwood forests in Humboldt Park, Northern California, where the largest trees on earth are growing (their sites are off limits to the general public, for the trees' protection)
• the construction site of the new Freedom Tower, looking out from the cage of steel beams at 100 stories

Before 9/11, when security all over the City was more slack, I would sneak behind the scenes at Madison Square Garden at the Westminster Dog Show, so I could wander up and down the aisles where the show dogs were being temporarily housed and groomed.

Their owners sat in lawn chairs, and the dogs were on leashes next to them. The owners were happy to talk about their dogs, and the dogs were friendly and well behaved. I got to pet an Irish Wolf Hound; I'd never seen one before in person.

And it was so cool to watch the dogs being blow dried and groomers trimming their whiskers and eye brows and so on. It's a real art, grooming some of the dogs, like standard poodles, where such precision goes into their hair cuts.

So I guess I have the heart of an urbexer. Who knew.

I'm not at home so can't answer fully. I can explain a lot more about urbexing later. Now you've looked up urbexing now try flanneur and psychogeography.



Sadly there's been a fashion for over-processing urbex shots with the HDR technique. As can be seen in some of the above pictures. I personally don't like it and think that it spoils the natural beauty of decay.

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by Daktari

I'm not at home so can't answer fully. I can explain a lot more about urbexing later. Now you've looked up urbexing now try flanneur and psychogeography.



Sadly there's been a fashion for over-processing urbex shots with the HDR technique. As can be seen in some of the above pictures. I personally don't like it and think that it spoils the natural beauty of decay.

I feel a strong affinity (regarding my work, and way of being in the world), with both the flanneur and psychogeographic aesthetic!

Thanks for bringing those words to mind.

As for the HDR technique—I Googled it: "High Dynamic Range" photography.

As for "spoiling the natural beauty of decay," I agree in the sense that the technique seems to romanticize decay, whereas if you didn't HDR the shots of abandoned places—in which the human-made decays, and the natural thrives—there would still be plenty of opportunity to capture intensity, longing, despair, joy, and other feelings they might evoke.

I'm not a photographer and I don't want to dis the HDR thing outright, just saying in some instances I think it's the easy way out.

But still beautiful.

And as for stuff that's romanticized, I like it romanticized to the point of being almost hallucinogenic.

[Sweet Bliss]

Originally Posted by Daktari

Just a reminder that if these pictures aren't taken by you and you don't attribute the photographer of the pictures you're stealing their work.

Me and other urbexer friends have had our work stolen regularly. There's even been folks passing other's pictures off as their own. Copyright is serious stuff folks.




Awww Dapper

It's the same principle when your tangible work is stolen. Like my drawing portfolio, pottery, beads (handmade) etc. Which is why I don't want to work in a publicly accessible studio anymore.

Funny story.

I was sitting at my booth at a craft show, a young woman comes up to me..."omg, you're the lady that makes the beautiful Goddesses... I take them with me everywhere!!! let me show you..." she runs off and returns with her purse/tote with several of my stolen items... "The BIG ones are at home, I love them, my boyfriend bought them for me!!!"

I smiled and replied, "Really? How sweet of him." And lo and behold she brought him over later to show him off. Now I know where all my porcelain is also. He was a fellow student in my classes. Needless to say, he could not look me in the eye.