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I don't get many opportunities to shoot for fun so when I get downtime and am not completely exhausted, I'll try to get out a bit. 1-9 are in North Carolina, 10-13 in Virginia and 14 in Arkansas (sorry for the stray).
1. Locals are familiar with this and I believe there's been a few posts on UER about it. Exploration days for this location are just about over as it's gradually transforming into an active business site.
2. I'm anal retentive and after my previous visit, noticed I screwed up the image. There was an interfering object in the middle of the floor. It bothered me enough that I returned several months later just to move it and recapture.
3. From inside a dilapidated house on the way to a job site. The walls all over are the living room are sprayed with red letters, "Prom? (Sorry if this is creepy). A little psycho-stalkerish, but okay.
4. 90% of anything abandoned I shoot are stuff I inadvertently stumbled across while traveling. Since I never have time I mark it on my GPS and return later. Me and a buddy occasionally like to travel together and so we'll visit places that I've marked for further investigation. Images 4-8 are specifically from that trip and we also checked out #9.
5.
6.
Alright, so this is where I break to share this story. My buddy and I were walking back from the location in Image #6 to my vehicle. A Ford pickup pulls off the side of the road in front of the car and I'm thinking "Oh great, it's a local asking what the fuck we're doing there."
Not the case. Instead it's a guy who looks strangely like John Oliver and he's like, "You guys are photographers?" He then says he's a photographer too, lives in the area, and there's an awesome house about 15 minutes away. He's excited, a bit on the strange side - he's sharing a bunch of photos from his iPad - my buddy and I exchange glances and I figure what's the harm. We're both unsure as veer off our predestined path, but when we see our destination we both go, "WHOA".
Beautiful house of which you'll notice there's no pictures. I'll explain. It's about 11 a.m. The two-story house has a trailer directly adjacent and a few surrounding houses. The guy we met pulls his truck up into the driveway and we follow. I almost never park exactly where I'm shooting but figure this guy's been here and vetted the site properly before.
We all get out with our camera and tripod. I'm up front shooting the porch, while my buddy and our companion veer around back. Two minutes in - and I haven't taken a shot yet - an older pickup pulls up in front of the house.
"Did you get permission from the owner to take photographs here?"
I pause, look and say, "No, we just got here. Are you the owner?"
"Yeah"
"Well would we able to take photographs here?"
Angrily he says, "Absolutely not, you gotta get the hell outta here."
Alright, show's over. So I tell him I need to tell the others. He gets out the car.
"They better not be in the house! I'll press charges against every if you are."
Oh boy.
Thankfully they hadn't made their way in the house yet. The dude was ranting at this point, and I could tell he's had his fill of photographers at this location before. My buddy was like, "Sorry man, we just thought it was a nice house."
The owner was on a roll now. "What if the porch fell on top of this guy?" And he points to me. "He would've sued me, ain't that right?"
This wasn't the time to mention my professional background and I'm covered by an extensive policy due to what I do for a living and didn't think that would go over well so I didn't say anything. My buddy and I were like, game's over - alright we're leaving.
Our companion - not so much. He starts talking back to the owner in a whiny voice, "C'mon we're just taking photos man."
The owner says, "Are you talking BACK to me? I'll call the police."
My friend and I are halfway in the car, but I'm not about to abandon this dude. I'm looking at him like STFU and let's get outta here. Even if he called the police, realistically they're nowhere close so let's not provoke him in getting his gun, okay?
INSTEAD John Oliver continues to argue, then says, "You are so rude! It's Sunday! It's Lord's day man! We're just taking pictures! Way to ruin it for us."
At this point I tell the owner and the dude, "WE are sorry and WE are leaving." I'm wondering if need to punch this douche myself because he kept GOING telling the owner how "rude" he was being. Situation had gone from not-so-bad to horrific in less than a minute.
Oliver keeps whining on the way to his truck with the owner yelling after him to get the fuck off his land. I drive off the property and down the road in order to meet up with the dude so we can part ways and not see him again. Instead, douchebag pulls out and drives OFF.
L-oh-L.
My friend and I were like...yeah...let's go back to our original plans and ignore any suggestion this dude had for exploration.
Lesson learned. I dropped my guard and did a bunch of stuff I wouldn't have normally done.
1. If I'm being led by somebody else, I vet them.
2. In rural areas, I often try to find who the owner is. This has usually provided good results and avoided shit like this.
3. If I don't have permission, I never directly park wherever I'm shooting, especially if there's neighbors.
4. I'm not a huge fan of entering a property in broad daylight. During the summer, I've done at least two hours worth of shooting before anyone's woken up.
Needless to say, it's back to my previous regimen.
7. Wrong time of day and I really fucked it up with HDR, but oh well.
8.
9. Sometimes I'll return to a location three or four times. I initially discovered this house 8 years ago while designing a house in Greenville. Five years ago I ventured in the house only to be stung by by an onslaught of wasps (shortest photo trip EVER). So I shared this spot with my buddy...but lighting was off.
Several weeks later I finished tasks, noted the sky had potential so drove an hour just to take this one shot at sunset.
10. A few days later I was in Virginia on assignment. The drive up and back was neat, I found a couple of abandoned schools and houses. One abandoned school I'm intending to return during the wintertime to full explore. In the meantime this would have to do.
11. I hadn't been to this part of VA ever, so it was neat to see things afresh.
12.
13.
14. This is the one regional outlier, so figured I'll just include it here. Several days after returning from Virginia, I was in Arkansas on business. Lots of abandoned houses that I ventured into but very little that I deemed worth photographing. This is a closed gas station in town called St. Paul. Because when I think St. Paul, I think Arkansas.
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The house in #11 looks beautiful!
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| What if the porch fell on top of this guy?" And he points to me. "He would've sued me, ain't that right?" |
This always strikes me as the most bizarre argument. I suppose it's the rationalizing brain grasping for justifications for the body's instinctive revulsion when strangers get near our stuff.
"And, and ... what if I'd had a dog? And he'd bitten you? And you'd gotten rabies? And died? And then your wife sued me? And my dog had to be put down? What then, huh? Did you ever think of THAT?"
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I really like 9 10 & 11. Good story...always trust yourself - there's a reason why we make little intuitive guidelines out of our previous explores.
www.flickr.com/photos/pressingleap | |
This post made me laugh, your others let me think about UE from a new perspective. Thanks.
Also, nice pics archiphoto! 2 and 10 especially.
they call me the hyacinth girl | |
Posted by sara'mer
This post made me laugh, your others let me think about UE from a new perspective. Thanks.
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Billgeorge, I agree with Sara, I was recently reading through your posts. Many years ago my impression of urban exploration had nothing to do with abandonment but rather infiltration. The essence of bucking odds to venture where you're not supposed to be. I'm not sure how everything became overwhelmed by abandoned buildings but that's the power of the internet. I appreciate both your open style and candor.
[last edit 7/18/2014 12:30 AM by archiphoto - edited 1 times]
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I'm in stitches lol
When i was visualising your story, I just imagined John Oliver, British accent and all going on a Daily Show esk rant on this guy. Funny shit man. Glad things didn't get too outta hand
The Artisan Pizza Blood Line
http://www.flickr....yathomedefenseman/ | |
Excellent sharing as always. 
Flickr: http://www.flickr....os/kenfagerdotcom/ | |
Neat seat! Traveling between states is always a blast.
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