A Hazy Shade of Shagadelic
This past Sunday afternoon provided me with more excitement than you can shake a stick at.
I was about 9 hours into a photo trip and was just getting ready to revisit an area of old deserted houses, when things became more that a little interesting.
There are a number of abandoned structures in this immediate area and they all seemed to have "No Trespassing" signs mounted on wooden plaques that go into explicit details explaining how there is absolutely zero reason to enter these locations, and everyone who does so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This one was an exception.
Now at this point, my voice of reason tells me that a sign should be at this place too, but it had fallen into the tall grass, the wind blew it away, coyotes were using it as a ping pong paddle or aliens abducted it to do a knothole probe and never returned it. The point is: logic would dictate there should be a sign marking this property as well.
So as I'm sure any of you would do—*cough, cough*— I tuned out my voice of reason like a bad AM radio station. I go ahead and enter the property to give it a look-see and shoot some photos; stirring up two deer and a miffed barn owl in the process. I circled the buildings through the tall ground cover and took shots from various angles until I was satisfied.
At this point, I'd been on property for 15 to 20 minutes and I decided to go look inside to see if anything was worth photographing. The main front door was ajar and sporting a fairly fresh lock hasp that had been forced free of the door frame; a shiny and secured lock dangling uselessly from it.
The lower entry door was open roughly a foot and I headed in this direction. Just as a precursory, I poked my head through the gap of the door, and had just enough time to notice a brick mantle knocked over, a short flight of steps rising to the kitchen in the upper part of the house and everything decked out in dirty pea-green shag carpeting— yeah baby!
Almost immediately, I heard a strange sound, coming from inside near the steps leading up to the kitchen, that lasted maybe 2 seconds. It sounded like an old windup alarm clock with cotton stuffed inside its bells, clacking it's muted alarm weakly, as its spring was slowly winding down to a stop. My eyes darted to the wall by the steps and saw a funky little metal box sitting in a cubby hole in the wall with a coaxial cable trailing out of it, and on the side facing me, what appeared to be a flickering LED that immediately extinguished when the sound clipped off to silence.
My first thought was a homemade alarm setup. My second thought was the sound was just a nearby cabinet door creaking in the breeze, and the flickering light had been my imagination. My third thought was that this was some type of homemade hillbilly alarm system. I glanced around the door frame for a motion sensor, but quickly decided to head back to the truck and get on down the road.
Walking out to the gate, I could see the electric meter was pulled from the pole out front, but the house wiring was still intact and jumbled in such a fashion it was hard to determine at a glance, if it could be powering a jerry-rigged alarm inside.
Disappointed with the situation, I hopped into the truck, backed out and headed up over the rise in the road about a half mile further along and stopped to take some "perfectly legal" photos of the landscape.
It wasn't more than three minutes after I left the house that a red ATV materialized out of the heat haze about another half mile down the road from me, spewing an angry cloud of dust as it came. It closed to within a quarter mile and suddenly stopped in the road, staring me down like a bull contemplating whether to charge. We stayed like that, facing one another at a distance, for a good minute, before I finally put the truck in gear and headed right for them. The ATV reluctantly advanced in my direction. www.flickr.com/gp/73760601@N02/u58119
As the vehicle closed the distance, I saw it was a butch woman driving— probably about 65, but had the prematurely aged face of a heavy smoker and someone who has spent most of her life out in the elements. There was a fire in her eyes and she narrowed those burning oculars until they were little more than gleaming, wrinkled slits. She furrowed her brow at me as we passed one another, and in return, I smiled casually at her and waved, as if to say, "Sorry to spoil your fun, but you won't be catching me on your property today."
She begrudgingly waved back, but might as well have been shaking a disappointed fist at me.
Now I know some of you guys have been to photograph this particular house and I was wondering if you had gone inside without any issues. I have to say, this is a first for me. I always anticipate someone confronting me, but nothing resembling an alarm system. Maybe it was my imagination and sheer coincidence working together.
I wish I could say this was the end of my excitement for Sunday, but a few hours later I was in a whole different pickle. More later...
A Hazy Shade of Shagadelic
This past Sunday afternoon provided me with more excitement than you can shake a stick at.
I was about 9 hours into a photo trip and was just getting ready to revisit an area of old deserted houses, when things became more that a little interesting.
There are a number of abandoned structures in this immediate area and they all seemed to have "No Trespassing" signs mounted on wooden plaques that go into explicit details explaining how there is absolutely zero reason to enter these locations, and everyone who does so will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This one was an exception.
Now at this point, my voice of reason tells me that a sign should be at this place too, but it had fallen into the tall grass, the wind blew it away, coyotes were using it as a ping pong paddle or aliens abducted it to do a knothole probe and never returned it. The point is: logic would dictate there should be a sign marking this property as well.
So as I'm sure any of you would do—*cough, cough*— I tuned out my voice of reason like a bad AM radio station. I go ahead and enter the property to give it a look-see and shoot some photos; stirring up two deer and a miffed barn owl in the process. I circled the buildings through the tall ground cover and took shots from various angles until I was satisfied.
At this point, I'd been on property for 15 to 20 minutes and I decided to go look inside to see if anything was worth photographing. The main front door was ajar and sporting a fairly fresh lock hasp that had been forced free of the door frame; a shiny and secured lock dangling uselessly from it.
The lower entry door was open roughly a foot and I headed in this direction. Just as a precursory, I poked my head through the gap of the door, and had just enough time to notice a brick mantle knocked over, a short flight of steps rising to the kitchen in the upper part of the house and everything decked out in dirty pea-green shag carpeting— yeah baby!
Almost immediately, I heard a strange sound, coming from inside near the steps leading up to the kitchen, that lasted maybe 2 seconds. It sounded like an old windup alarm clock with cotton stuffed inside its bells, clacking it's muted alarm weakly, as its spring was slowly winding down to a stop. My eyes darted to the wall by the steps and saw a funky little metal box sitting in a cubby hole in the wall with a coaxial cable trailing out of it, and on the side facing me, what appeared to be a flickering LED that immediately extinguished when the sound clipped off to silence.
My first thought was a homemade alarm setup. My second thought was the sound was just a nearby cabinet door creaking in the breeze, and the flickering light had been my imagination. My third thought was that this was some type of homemade hillbilly alarm system. I glanced around the door frame for a motion sensor, but quickly decided to head back to the truck and get on down the road.
Walking out to the gate, I could see the electric meter was pulled from the pole out front, but the house wiring was still intact and jumbled in such a fashion it was hard to determine at a glance, if it could be powering a jerry-rigged alarm inside.
Disappointed with the situation, I hopped into the truck, backed out and headed up over the rise in the road about a half mile further along and stopped to take some "perfectly legal" photos of the landscape.
It wasn't more than three minutes after I left the house that a red ATV materialized out of the heat haze about another half mile down the road from me, spewing an angry cloud of dust as it came. It closed to within a quarter mile and suddenly stopped in the road, staring me down like a bull contemplating whether to charge. We stayed like that, facing one another at a distance, for a good minute, before I finally put the truck in gear and headed right for them. The ATV reluctantly advanced in my direction. www.flickr.com/gp/73760601@N02/u58119
As the vehicle closed the distance, I saw it was a butch woman driving— probably about 65, but had the prematurely aged face of a heavy smoker and someone who has spent most of her life out in the elements. There was a fire in her eyes and she narrowed those burning oculars until they were little more than gleaming, wrinkled slits. She furrowed her brow at me as we passed one another, and in return, I smiled casually at her and waved, as if to say, "Sorry to spoil your fun, but you won't be catching me on your property today."
She begrudgingly waved back, but might as well have been shaking a disappointed fist at me.
Now I know some of you guys have been to photograph this particular house and I was wondering if you had gone inside without any issues. I have to say, this is a first for me. I always anticipate someone confronting me, but nothing resembling an alarm system. Maybe it was my imagination and sheer coincidence working together.
I wish I could say this was the end of my excitement for Sunday, but a few hours later I was in a whole different pickle. More later...