Tag Archives: abandoned buildings

A trip to New Winchester Indiana and beyond

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My friend Eileen and I were on our way to Cloverdale, IN to photograph flowers at Hilltop Orchids (which will get its own post later) and we passed through New Winchester along the way.  There are some deserted homes there that just beg to be photographed and we were there to oblige.


This place is at the corner of highways 36 and 75.  I’ve been by there several times and always wanted to stop.  This was the time.  That building to the left was probably a convenience store and perhaps a gas station.  A house is to the right.


Buildings like this seem so much more attractive to photographers than homes presently occupied and taken care of.  Perhaps part of the attraction is that lives were shaped in these places at one time and what happened to the people remains a mystery.


I find that the way I shoot, the windows remain largely opaque giving only a hint of what is inside.  Technically it would not be a problem to show inside detail but this is a metaphor for me – looking through the window into the past and the past remains a mystery.


Or a mostly blank wall.


This place is out in the country.

Who slept there?  Who dreamed their dreams there?


Again a wall, and opaque windows.


Who hung their coats there?  I don’t know.

Eye sores and beauty

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Instead of going to church yesterday, I went out to shoot.

My friend Sally and I went to a nature preserve a few miles north of Bainbridge, IN to photograph this abandoned trailer she had found on an earlier trip.  Sally is the one who came up with the idea of wondering instead of wandering that I talked about in an earlier post.  On this trip she coined another expression that will live; ‘I saw something that didn’t get into the camera’, that undefinable something that is the difference between a great image and one that was just a good idea at the time.

At any rate, we spent a lot of time at this trailer looking inside and out. 

There is no conventional definition of beauty I can think of that would include anything about this trailer.  But then that is the problem with a lot of conventional definitions, they only cover a part of what they are describing.  That’s good, in a way, it helps us recognize the limitations of language and makes room for photography. 

As we were working around and in this trailer I was wondering what its stories are.  Here it is, sitting out in the woods and it has been here for some time.  I think it would miss a lot to ask what the singular story is, there are stories that apply to different parts of its existence.  When it was put where it is now, was it someone’s residence?  A get away place for someone who lived elsewhere?  The story told by the trashing it received in recent years (I hope well after it was abandoned and not before) may just be that someone had a lot of time and anger on their hands.

Here is something else that was cast off, although not by people, it is just late in its life cycle.  In its earlier months this weed, if it attracted any attention at all, might have been pulled up.  Would anyone describe it as beautiful?  Probably not but the image is inviting.  There is something about its shape and the oak leaf nestled up to it that instructed me to photograph it.  It will not know death if the seeds in the pods at the end of its stems have anything to say about it.

What is it about dilapidated, unlivable, abandoned buildings (and trailers) that is so attractive?  And why can a photographer go immediately from photographing such a place to photographing something beautiful and not think a thing of it?  Worth thinking about.