The cares of the world crumble away when you turn the pages of a good book…
Crumble Away
Tag: Abandoned Building
From the Inside Out
GP Destruction
Last year the Port of Bellingham offered tours of the old Georgia-Pacific property, the last opportunity prior to its demolition. See Port of Bellingham – GP Photography Tour post. See also my Facebook photo gallery.
Demolition is now in full swing. Since I had the day off, I thought I’d walk by from a legal and safe distance, and snap a few photos. Now I want to destroy something. This looks like fun!
NSH Revisited
After nearly a year away from Northern State Hospital, I decided to make a trip yesterday. Has it been a year? Wow, time flies. David and I used to go there all the time with our cameras (or, rather his cameras) while I was learning to use a DSLR. The dilapidated buildings make great material!
Since we first started visiting, the site has become really popular – not that either of us can necessarily take credit for that. But, there’s a lot more graffiti than there used to be, and more visitors – more photographers running around with their cameras. Yesterday, there was a group of about 20 boys running around shooting each other with rubber bullets.
I miss how peaceful it used to be.
Anyway, I focused on a more quiet area yesterday and got a couple of shots from an old apple tree I found last year.
Here are some links to old Northern State Hospital Posts:
On Edge
I discovered this post sitting in my “drafts”. I started working on it back in September and clearly never hit the publish button. Better late than never! This went along with that whole apple series I did.
Camera: Canon 40d
Location: Back of a old abandoned building; Sedro Woolley, Washington
I Spy
This is how I came to find the apples in the Bob for Apples post the other day.
The door to this building barricaded by roofing debris, I could only peer through the window (from this side, impossible to enter). After examining the wreckage, I happened to spy these apples laying on the ground. Suddenly, I heard a “plop” and saw a small splash in the old sink. This prompted me to find another point of entry. There had to be some cool shot just waiting to be discovered…
I circled the building and found the culprit…which also happened to be blocking a few windows. Still, impossible to safely enter.
But then I noticed one window, whose slimy sill destroyed my jeans for the day as I slid through. I found a second sink and even more apples.
Walking through the rain, breaking into old abandoned buildings, and finding treasure (albeit ordinary and worthless to anyone but me), made me feel like a kid again for a little while. Isn’t it amazing how different life can look through a view finder?
Bob for Apples Anyone?
I’ll go to great lengths to get a photo, including sliding through a slimy window to gain access to a room whose door was blocked by a (minor) roof collapse. Where patches of roof were missing, an old apple tree was dropping its fruit through and onto the dirt floor below.
An old sink had been collecting water from the steady rains this past week, and some of the fallen apples bobbed in the murky water. My ears were tuned into the supple creaks of the building as I snapped away. Once I got what I needed, I slid back through the window and said a quick prayer against any eight legged hitchhiker who might have dropped in my hair on the way out.
Camera: Canon 40d
Location: Musty, dank basement in an abandoned building; Sedro Woolley, Washington
Previously Unpublished
My published photography is often reflective of a certain mood at the time. When I return from a photo walk and start reviewing my digital treasures, I usually get attached to a certain few. However, when I revisit the same set of photos several weeks later a different image usually sparks my interest. I wonder why I never saw the beauty in it before. Or, perhaps I finally realize what it was I saw when I first framed the shot. Here are a few of those forgotten, previously unpublished discoveries.
This was from the first day I used David’s Canon!
Camera: Canon 40d
Location: Northern State Hospital
This shot was taken behind a barn on my second trip the “frisbee golf course” area of Northern State Hospital
Camera: Canon 40d
Same camera, same location. I wonder what used to be locked away in #509?
Where do you think this was? Northern State? Wrong! This was taken with my Nikon Coolpix 100 out in Port Townsend, Washington at the old lighthouse.
Jolene's Life in Focus 