I love to photograph the beautiful things in life....flowers, brides, sunsets.....all those things are universally recognized as beautiful.
But I also find something else in this world beautiful that isn't an obvious beauty. I love to photograph abandoned, decaying, derelict homes. There is something captivating to me about the hidden stories behind buildings that were once meant to be called someone's home.
I discovered this love during my final project in my Photography 101 class in college. We had to have a theme that connected at least 7 prints. Somehow I landed on abandoned houses, and had to take random drives around my college to see if I could find any abandoned houses. Luckily enough, I happened upon the house featured in this post. I decided to come back to this house 7 years later to photograph it again!
All by itself.
It actually looked pretty much the same as the last time I was there...maybe a couple extra layers of dust.
So, most urban explorers (yeah, that's a thing) will take wide angle shots of the rooms. I actually prefer to capture the details of rot and decay--that's where the beauty is.
I was also slightly afraid of walking further than the doorway, since this is what the floor looked like.
One of the biggest differences between my visit in 2009 and this visit was the type of camera I had. My class in college was about black and white film photography so I was really limited on how many photos I could take. This time I had my digital camera with a fairly large capacity card, so I had a LOT more flexibility to take photos.
Yep, the house was propped up on piled rocks.
One of the many coils of the rusting mattress out back. Never even ventured out this way the last time I was here. Missed out on some good photos.
My second favorite photo.
Favorite photo of the day. It was one of those moments when harsh lighting was actually a good thing!
If you liked these abandoned pictures, you might also like this post featuring an abandoned theme park in the Outer Banks, NC: Abandoned
If you prefer one of the classic beauties you should check out any of these: