Flaws

I was instantly drawn to it. I urgently patted my friend on the arm, begging him to pull over, "just for ONE minute!" His black pick up truck rumbled to a halt and I hopped out into the weeds growing along the side of Rockledge Drive, clutching my camera.
I stood before it and stared. The exterior coat was peeled, and the planks were rough underneath my fingers. The windows were broken into perfect burst-shaped gaping holes, which faded into an interior of impenetrable blackness. All of Carlisle's weather had been absorbed into the white paint, and the raw wood underneath was grey and dry, giving the abandoned house the appearance of a black and white photograph.
In fact, when I took the picture of what would become a series of photographs depicting the beauty of abandonments, it came out black and white, even though I shot it in color. The photograph is of a window staring down at its admirer. One of its old fashioned country-style horizon shutters is flung open to the side, as if the house is opening one eye to examine you. I thought it was one of the most magnificently beautiful things I had ever laid eyes on.

There's something to be said for the beauty of an abandoned house and all its secrets and eccentricities. People are the same way; we appreciate them not in spite of their flaws, but because of them. Every cracked wall adds character to a house, just like a birthmark can make a person stand out. The way a door creaks or a window rattles is unique, just like the way a person laughs. My love for these houses could perhaps be compared to the way someone might love an old car that has run faithfully for many years.
I've heard many abandonments referred to as "eyesores". Maybe if people could look past the crumbling exterior and see what a building has to offer aesthetically, they could truly appreciate them. However, many people are hesitant to enter dilapidated abandonments because of their fear of several things: the supernatural, trespassing, and hazards inside the building.
As urban explorers, we make the choice to eliminate our fear by thinking of these things differently from the average person. The supernatural won't bother us if we don't bother them, and the best way to go about it is respecting a property by taking nothing but photographs and leaving as little evidence of your presence behind as possible. I am reassured of this fact because I have never had anything bad happen to me without there being a warning first.
Being caught trespassing can be dealt with in several ways, depending on who catches you. If it's the property owner, you have a much better chance of getting away with an excuse. However, if it's a cop or a security guard, they have usually heard the same excuses before and won't let you off so quickly. I have been caught 3 times, twice by myself and once with a friend. The first time I was caught, I was exploring a house out in the woods that was falling apart, and the property owner was walking by and saw my car parked outside. She found me inside the house and asked to see my pictures. I showed her, and she said she thought they were beautiful. She invited me to her house further up the driveway. She was (and still is) one of the cutest little old wrinkled ladies I have ever met. She gave me cookies and a soda and asked me about my photography and past explorations. She told me about how her daughter used to live in the house until she died of cancer years ago, how she didn't want to tear the house down or remodel it, and how she didn't really have a good reason why. She told me how she believed that houses were sacred shells of someone's past. I told her I agreed, and we realized that we both appreciated the beauty of that which has been left behind and the importance of preserving someone's legacy. The second time I was caught was less eventful; I was taking pictures of a house from the outside, getting up close to the brick wall to take a picture of an old electric meter. A harsh voice behind me suddenly said "What are you taking pictures of?" and made me jump. I turned around to face her, realizing I had no idea how long she had been standing there. I told her I was a photography student and that I loved old buildings. She frowned and told me that she thought I should leave. I politely said I understood and got back in my car and drove away. The third time I was caught was on the grounds of an abandoned prison, where a friend and I were stopped by a security officer. We explained that we were photography students and simply didn't see the "No Trespassing" signs. He was very congenial and let us take a few more pictures of the outside before sending us on our way. The best way to avoid being caught is to scope out the property for security signs or people and keep quiet when making an entrance. The best way to avoid getting in trouble if you still end up getting caught is to have a valid excuse other than curiosity ready; mine is that I'm a photography student doing a project (which is half true). It's also a good idea to keep a student-like appearance in order to not look like a troublemaker.
Hazards inside a building can include rusty metal objects, broken glass, asbestos contamination, flooding, unsafe floorboards, plain darkness, homeless people, and wild animals. We prepare ourselves against most of these things. My arsenal of safety gear includes a gas mask, a first aid kit, a flashlight, appropriate clothing, and a swiss army knife. I have only come across a homeless person once; he didn't notice me thanks to what seemed to be his delusional state of mind. The only wild animal I have ever come across is a dead raccoon.
In spite of all of these preventative measures, many people remain unconvinced that entering an abandoned site is a good idea for any reason whatsoever. They are unwilling to put themselves in a position to be hurt in any way. I’ve had friends who have gone bungee jumping, rock climbing and skydiving refuse to set foot in abandoned buildings. This is part of the reason I am so fascinated with abandonments; people refuse to set foot in something other people just like them used to inhabit. They live in a house now—why won’t they go inside one that nobody lives in? Doesn’t the fact that it’s empty make it even better to explore? They not only happen to forget about it, but they want to forget; they want to ignore these "eyesores" and move on with their lives. I cannot imagine how many important historical discoveries have been left rotting away on dusty shelves of abandoned houses because of peoples' unwillingness to step across a threshold. I see this in many relationships, too; many people are unwilling to get to know someone else because of their rough exterior or their first impression.
Why is it that when something man has created changes enough to be so different that they look nothing like the original, society feels like it has to be either fixed or destroyed? In the United States, buildings are constantly being torn down and replaced. In Italy, for example, you can walk up the street and visit an Etruscan tomb nestled between a restaurant and an art shop. Everything is old in Europe; everything is new in the States. We always want to start over; forget renovation, forget trying to salvage a beautiful building; we need a Walmart parking lot more than we need beauty. I love abandonments because nobody else does. Nobody else is willing to see what these structures have to offer for their minds and their hearts; they are only willing to see what it has to offer for their pockets.
My love of urban exploration has many facets, but the most significant I think, is what it has taught me about finding allure in odd places. I have learned to look past the ugliness of people as well as buildings to discover what beauties lay beneath, and I believe it is an important lesson that can be learned by everyone. I have learned how to make those assets come alive through my photographs, just as I have learned how to bring out the better part of someone's personality through conversation. Unfortunately, most of society refuses to make themselves vulnerable long enough to let in some of the more eccentric beauties that life has to offer.
Personally, I prefer to leave my heart and my mind open as much as possible; I'm afraid I might miss some of life's beautiful flaws.

Territoriality Isn't the Issue Here

So I mentioned in last night's (or should I say this morning's) post that I would be happy to give out as much information "as I am comfortable giving out". The reason I say this is not because I'm a territorial bitch, but because I don't want to see these places destroyed by too much traffic. There are plenty of explorers who do get territorial though; I've had people send me messages asking me to take down, rename, alter, or make locations on the UER database available only to full members because they see it as "theirs" somehow. I respect those who do this in order to keep abandoned locations protected, but territoriality completely contradicts the whole idea of urbex-- we're trespassing anyway, we can't be territorial about something that isn't legally ours in the first place.

That being said, the reason I (and others) are protective about these locations is because I honestly care about them and would hate to see them ruined by graffiti or looting. I've seen too many abandonments completely destroyed by the amount of traffic that goes through them from too much exposure. Here's a scenario: I find a beautiful abandoned house. I take some great pictures, put them up in the UER database and fill out all the facts for the house's webpage. I make the location viewable to anyone who wants to look, not just full members. Some random kid finds out about this house because of Google and decides it's the perfect place to go paintballing or tagging, and invites all his friends. I come back to take some photos a few weeks later and the walls are covered in pink splotches and bad graffiti.

Now, I'm not saying graffiti isn't art. But bad graffiti is bad graffiti; GOOD graffiti can definitely be called art, no matter how legal or illegal it is. Urbexers and graffiti artists share the same conflict; art vs. legality.

Some examples of what I think is beautiful graffiti art:









And some examples of horrible, disfiguring graffiti:

(Photos courtesy of Google images)

So don't be offended if you ask and I don't want to give you every piece of information possible. I'll be happy to tell you what type of building it was and where I took the picture inside that building, and maybe even what state or city it's in, but I certainly won't tell you what road it's located on, how to get there or how to get in.

Cheers :-)

More photos

I haven't put up any pictures for a while-- here are a few more! Also, if anyone ever wants to know where these pictures were taken or more information, I'd be glad to give you as much information as I'm comfortable giving out ;-)

Risk

I've always been a risk taker and an adventurer. I used to sneak out of the house at night to go to parties and hang out with friends; but what made me different from every other teenager doing the exact same thing was that I didn't do it for the parties. I did it because I loved the thrill of sneaking out. I told my friends many times that I'd rather hang out with them after curfew than beforehand. When they asked me why, I told them it was because I loved the absolute freedom that came with my parents thinking I was at home, safe and asleep. That was a lie. Many times if there wasn't anything to do one night and sneaking out wouldn't seem worth it, I'd do it anyway and wander over to the park where I'd lay on my back in the grass and look at the stars.
It got so bad that my parents had to start booby trapping the house at night. They tried everything to try and keep me safe: buckets of water, scotch tape on the door, and noisy pots and pans stacked outside my bedroom door at night. I showed up at parties drenched a few times, but I didn't really care. I refilled the buckets and put them exactly where my mother had placed them. I reset everything when I came home, or many times just found another way out. If she barricaded the door, I went out the window. If she blocked my window, I went out the bathroom window. I saw each of these traps as a new challenge and even enjoyed figuring out how to get around them.
Once, my mother tied our doorknobs together. My bedroom was directly across the hall from my parents' room. My mother closed my door, left hers open, and tied the doorknobs together with twine. If I opened my door that night, it would pull their door shut, and since their door creaked loudly every time it moved an inch, there was no doubt that even a slight tug on that string would wake my parents up.
I used my Swiss army knife as a screwdriver, took the doorknob apart, laid it on the ground and walked out of the house a free woman. When I came home several hours later, I put it all back together and my parents never knew the difference.
I was proud of these things even though I terrified my parents. I didn't understand how frightening it was for my parents to wake up, check on me and discover I had stuffed my bed full of pillows. I only understood how frightening it was for me to get a very angry call at 4:00 AM telling me to come home immediately. That was always a shock, and I even set my ringtone for my parents to Beethoven's 5th symphony so I and everyone else around me would know I was doomed the moment we heard my phone ring. My mother tried to explain to me countless times how dangerous it was for a blonde 16 year old to wander the streets late at night dressed all in pink. I didn't listen, and now consider myself lucky I wasn't mugged, raped or killed.

I eventually had to kick my habit of sneaking out. Most of my escapades took place during my sophomore year of high school, when we lived in Princeton, New Jersey for a year. The stairs in that house were newer and quieter, which made getting out the back door easy. When we moved back to our old creaky house in Carlisle, I quickly discovered that sneaking out was not a possibility. Our stairs were ancient and gave me away every single time.
A psychiatrist once wrote in my evaluation that I had an addiction to risk. My mother took this as an opportunity to tell me to stop sneaking out of the house at night and to get a dangerous job instead.
“You should just go to Baghdad and be a reporter,” she said. “That way you can really risk your life, and it won’t be for some dumb party, either.”
I realized my mother was right. My escapades were nothing more than an attempt at satisfying my craving for endangerment. After doing some research, I began immersing myself in something a little different; I began to learn the art of urban exploration. I would sneak out at night, and instead of going to parties, I would seek out abandoned buildings, beautiful old dilapidated structures, condemned heaps of gray wood resembling what used to be houses, and asbestos infested ghost towns. I came prepared. You'd be shocked to know how much equipment the average explorer owns; harnesses and ropes for climbing, cameras, flashlights, night vision goggles, gas masks, first aid kits, walkie talkies, compasses, multi tools, and extra batteries. These are just the basics that every explorer should own but not necessarily bring along on every single trip.
As I learned more about urban exploration, I became obsessed with the beauty of abandonments; they were keys to our past, shells of what society has left behind after its gaze turned toward a bitter future of austere steel skyscrapers and ugly tan warehouses squashed onto what used to be farmland. As I learned more about this so called "art", I learned the difference between a curious mind and a bored mind looking for something to occupy it with. I still get very heated when I try and explain to other people what I do and they say something along the lines of: "So do you do graffiti, too?" Vandals are a separate tribe, and urban explorers hate them with a passion, mostly because people get the two confused. More often than not, we're the ones labeled as vandals, trespassers and law-breakers. Why? Because our hobby is a silent, stealthy one; vandals leave behind spray paint splattered on brick walls, while urban explorers try to avoid even leaving footprints. Urban explorers have a code of rules; this sets us apart from people who graffiti or raid abandoned houses for valuables. We respect the places we explore and their previous inhabitants and seek only to preserve what everyone else wants to forget. The most we take is photographs, and all that we ever leave behind are footprints.
I began a photographic exploration of these buildings and discovered what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a photojournalist. Photography is merely one way of expressing a thought; an article accompanying a photograph doubles the impact of the information upon the viewer. I decided my best bet at having a career that I enjoyed was to become a photojournalist working overseas for a really liberal magazine, like The Nation. I wanted to travel to South Africa, Haiti, Darfur, Iraq, any place that had major problems going on, I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to be the one to spread any news that wasn't already available. I wanted to document the people whose lives are at the heart of issues that others were afraid to even address, let alone engage themselves in.
But right now I'm happy exploring burned down mansions, caved-in apartments and houses straight out of every horror movie you've ever seen. I love the thrill of entering these houses and exploring them thoroughly, and I think it's a passion that will stick with me until I die. My photos of these buildings serve as a testament to my determination to capture what the rest of the world seems determined to forget.

A little about myself

So this is my first blog ever. Well not really; does Xanga at 14 years old count?
It was basically ramblings about the drama of daily life, but I guess I can't really claim that this is going to be much different, although I do like to convince myself that my life is slightly more important now than it was 4 or 5 years ago.

So here's ME in the present: I am currently a freshman at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. I am from Carlisle, went to the high school that's ohhh, about 3 blocks away from my dorm,
and my house is about 8 blocks away. Both of my parents are music professors at
Dickinson. My mom teaches voice and my dad is a musicologist (that's history of music) and directs a choir called Collegium Musicum. My main talents are photography and writing, and I intend to put those into a career in photojournalism (if things work out as planned, anyway). My whole life I wanted to get away from Carlisle, and I ended up going to college here. Great. I'm currently thinking about transferring, but it's a very half-baked plan. I applied to a specialty interest house on campus here at Dickinson for next fall called the Arts Haus, and whether or not I get accepted is really going to affect my decision whether or not to transfer.

The unfortunate thing about blogs is that you can't really post EVERYTHING about yourself, so to those of you that know me, yes, I'm leaving out some major details. I got in trouble this year at school; let's just say I have my own way of doing things. I'm not going to say I'm proud of it, because it gets me into trouble A LOT, but that's me, take it or leave it. I'm ADD as all hell, take Concerta for it (have been for 6 years, and no, I wasn't forced to take it or anything, it did wonders for my success in school), and am still constantly late for things. I live in a VERY small dorm room with a roommate who is my complete opposite, but we (thankfully) get along just fine and function pretty well as roommates (with compromises in place).

Oh and another major part of my life is urban exploration. I explore abandoned buildings for fun, take pictures, learn the histories of certain buildings, and just love abandonments in general. I am a full member on UER (for those of you that don't know what that is....too bad), and have been exploring for about 2 years. I posted a few of my photos as an introduction to my photography-- let me know what you think!