I still sometimes like reading other peoples interpretations or comments to pieces of art. In a strange way it helps my defining my own perspective.

Looking at the dilapidation does bring up thoughts about the history of the place. You can almost feel the ghosts, it seems. Walking those grounds just made me wonder what it used to be like it its hey day. Some time ago, Paul Butzi told me why he photographs fences and it was as simple as he wonders why the fence was there. Was it there to keep people out, or something in. I thought that was a most profound reason.

Regarding those No Trespassing signs, these buildings look in serious need of care and I would not be one to go walking through them as they could be fairly dangerous, but I’d bet that there were some seriously cool pictures to be had!

My attraction to dilapidation as a photoagraphic interest was spurned fairly recently as I have watched the quick demise of my Aunt’s former grand farmstead turned park over the past few years. The park is wonderful, but the buildings are so quickly returning to nature from total neglect it is shocking and sad to me. The house, which I believe was pre-revolutionary war era, was a grand colonial farmhouse. I played there as a child, enjoying the family gatherings we had there, fishing in the ponds, inevitably falling in the water, wandering the fields, hiding in the barns, my older brother scaring the stuff out of us, hearing my Uncle stamp his feet and pronounce that “children should be seen and not heard” when we got a little rowdy…of course he was all bark no bite. My Aunt not letting me leave without some little trinket that I would cherish to the point it would eventually break. I think if I had not had such an intimate connection to that place as a child, I might not be drawn to such places as I am now.

When I see these places I often think of the people and the lives and histories of those who lived there. The joys, the sorrows, the triumphs and tragedies that are a distant and sometimes haunting memory, or totally forgotten and only the walls remember. Perhaps it is a longing for the simpler more carefree times of my youth that draws me to try and connect to these places.

Thanks for this wonderful thoughtful post…Wonderful shot to go along with it…hmmm…now what exactly is behind that door?

It has actually become somewhat of a passion for me and if I weren’t such a chicken about exploring what is labeled off limits…I’m a big chicken about getting in trouble…lol..I would throw caution to the wind and enter those doors beyond the “No Trespassing” signs.

I find it interesting that the door has two locks, one expensive and the other cheap. Maybe they are really attempting to “lock in” change!