Old Abandon Buildings

Recently, my husband and I started our own photography business called E&B Photography. We are scheduled to be set up at three big shows starting this Autumn. To set up at these large events, you have to have enough different photography that will suit everyone.  Although I will always love floral photography, I have widened my interested to many different things these days, old abandon buildings and structures being one.

We have been doing a lot of research online about old historical sites in our area.  It is pretty easy to find information about old covered bridges, old mills and such; but when you start searching for old buildings that becomes a different story.  You may find other photos of old buildings but the photographer will very seldom disclose the location. Why you ask?  Well, when you do a search on let's say rose photography you will get a million results, and although each rose photo will be different-it is still a rose just different colors and shot at different positions.  But when you take a photo of an old building, every picture will be different because the sky will never be the same and the lighting is never the same; therefore making that photo unique and different.

Since we have been doing a lot of searching for old abandon buildings-I have to admit  we have been pretty blessed in finding them so far.  Sometimes we will take a day and go exploring, other days we will plot some kind of route but usually we just go driving and if a road looks interesting we will turn down it and go where ever it leads us.  We call each of our road trips adventures because somehow that is what every trip has turned out to be (but that is whole different story)!

At Hurricane Shoals Park here in Georgia, there is a section of the park that is dedicated to a lot of old buildings that have been donated to them and restored.  There are cabins from 1814, a church from the late 1800's and so many more antique structures.  

Although, we enjoyed photographing these old buildings, there is a huge difference between these buildings and finding old abandon buildings down some old back road.  Grant you, these buildings are old and have been restored and without a doubt you can tell they have a long history, but I often wonder why other old buildings are not seen in the same way, or for the same beauty or interest as buildings that have been restored?

One day while my husband and I were driving around in North Georgia, we found some beautiful old abandon barns, homes and sheds that were not posted.   If we find a location that is posted we would never cross that line, but if the location is not posted we will stop and take photos but from the road and we never disturb anything. 

As I mentioned earlier, there is a lot of artistic beauty old objects.  For example this photo:  

This is a photo of an old wooden door that was hanging from an old shed we found down a dirt road.  I took several photos the of the full shed and although I like them, this scene really stood out to me.  I took the color version of the photo into another computer program and added this antique effect to it, to enhance the photo. I wanted to share the color version as well.  When I look at these kinds of pictures, I do not see an old wooden broken down door, I see the beauty in the grain of the wood and the textures that seem to reach out.  I love the way the grass is grown up in front of the door and I love the angle of the way the door is hanging.

As wood ages and the color changes, the whole contrast becomes even more beautiful to me.  I can remember seeing very old things when I was young child, and remembering how pretty I thought the things were.  Others would look at the objects and make comments about how old and ragged the items were.  

It really makes me sad to think about how many of these old structures will be torn down and forgotten one day.  I suppose that is one reason I love to photograph them because in some odd way I feel the memory of that old building will live on-through my photos.

Unfortunately, we have seen old abandon houses that looked pretty spooky, we have actually taken a few photos.  Some of our favorite photo's are of old abandon homes that have vines growing up all over them. Yes, they look spooky, but yet they also look beautiful because of the vines color against the faded out wood.

In closing, I suppose when I see these old historical landmarks I can just imagine the beauty it once had, and often wonder about the history it had been through.  It very much like being human-when you are young and fresh your beauty shines through, and when you get older often they say the beauty fades:  To me, I believe the beauty just enhances and grows to be on a completely different level.