Well, this weekend I was treated to my first abandonment exploration, and I found it to be much more enjoyable then I had expected, so... Macsbug creates as journal.
It was about midnight, and I was staying at a cabin with some friends of mine. I had never been up there before, so I was just kind of putzing around, and doing whatever other people were doing. So somebody asks if anybody wants to go check out that abandoned house, because it would probably be pretty spooky around now, and of course, I was interested.
After 10ish minutes of walking through the woods, and around/into various trees, holes, and other people, our group of 8 or so people arrive at a field, with a small, rough looking house. We wander in the open front door, and start looking around. Knowing some of the people in this group, and the fact that they had been here before, I expected the place to be pretty smashed up, if their was anything of interest in the house anyways.
I was shocked as I walked around the house (which is basically a room, two smaller ones, and a basement) to see that it looked like it hadn't been touched in at least 10 years, and looked like it could be a movie set to me. A newspaper sitting on the stove was dated 1997. I was fascinated by the different stacked books, the burnt candles in wine bottles, the furniture, just the whole feel of the place. There was a plastic flashlight sitting on a desk, which really freaked me out for some reason, probably because I could picture an angry vagrant, or other person, leaping out of the shadows, swinging with it. The basement had a great metal boiler, and many different bottles lying around. One of the people with decided to smash a bottle, which I saw no point in doing, and surprisingly to me, nobody else joined in, I was smiling on the inside.
When we came back upstairs, I noticed an envelope on lying on the floor. Me and a friend picked it up, and pulled out photographs lying inside, large (>4x5 <8x10) old black and white photographs. It was amazing looking at them by the light of a flashlight, wondering who these people were, why the photos were left here, who the person they were addressed to was. We had enough of the house, it was pretty creepy, and I'm sure if it had been just me, or me and another person, I probably wouldn't have had the guts to wander around there at midnight, or maybe even at all.
I would have loved to photograph it, but I had left my camera back at the cabin, and was sure nobody would want to go right back again, and doubted anybody would want to stop back in the morning (which would be much better for lighting purposes), but I took from it a different look at abandonments, and realize now more, how they aren't just empty lifeless buildings, room after room, but even in this small shack, I found myself fascinated by all that I saw, and I will think twice before dismissing abandonments, no matter how trivial, in the future.
Ninja Turtles 4Evr!
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