The Stories
Rockin The Coal Train For a year and a half, every other month my band has been traveling to a club down in Hershey, PA for a 4 night stint. We leave on Wednesday morning, play 4 gigs and return on Sunday afternoon. During this 3.5 hour drive I am always looking [...]
The Road to Ruin On another aimless twisting journey through the back roads of central Pennsylvania myself and fellow photographer Lou come across some typically Pennsylvania strangeness. Our first roadside anomaly is this old house we had heard about from a friend. Located off a main road in the tiny [...]
This weeks tale and photos come from NYC photographer Chad Weisser. Chad is a landscape, Cityscape, and HDR photographer and has been featured on various blogs including a feature spot on the Sigma Lenses website. You can find Chad online at: http://chadzilla1.wix.com/weisser-photography and at his facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Weisser-Photography/350139545226 Check out his pages [...]
Since this is the first in the series, let me set the stage for everyone. This will be a continuing series of short story shoots, found literally along the road. Nothing planned, mapped, or set-up in advance. I will be accepting submissions to feature as well. This will be a weekly feature, updated every Sunday [...]
First off, let me say, this is the most difficult story I have worked on to date. Asylums are notoriously difficult to write about due to their sordid and often clouded histories. Truth is, most asylums are closed due to atrocities of some nature. And because of those horrors and in the best interest of [...]
Early in 2011 I was contacted by a central Pennsylvanian graphic artist about touring and photographing an old mill in Maryland. This was no normal mill though, this was the last completely in-tact Silk mill, left in the United States. Like a lot of abandoned sites, to tour this site, I had to agree not [...]
I have spent my entire life attending school, and that school is the school some people refer to as “hard knocks”. Now I am not claiming to be some tough guy from the wrong side of the tracks, but I am a firm believer in the fact that screwing up in life (to a point) [...]
Who in their right mind drives their car 2427 miles, from New York to Nevada to take pictures of a junkyard in 110°F heat? That would be, me. And who also believes that there is an island somewhere that misfit toys go to be played with and taken care of? Okay, that is a little [...]
As some of you know, I am also the guitarist for Wendy Owens and her band Renegade which besides photography, is what I do for a living. This past year has been rough with the band having 57+ dates on the books and me trying to schedule shoots around those dates. Sometimes, the stars align, [...]
One pack of steel wool + one 9v battery + one old stone tunnel = an awesome photo shoot! I teamed up with fellow photog Walter Arnold one dark night outside of Elmira NY to film this. I can 100% say do not try this at home! We came completely prepared with our equipment and [...]
walk·er ˈwȯ-kər [waw-ker] noun 1 : one that walks: as a : a competitor in a walking race b : a peddler going on foot c : a temporary male escort of socially prominent women attending usually public events d : a person or group (walkers) that intentionally moves into a photographers frame while [...]
Destination: Jackson Sanatorium When I was doing research online for this place, everyone was calling it a sanitarium, which is, in case you are unaware is a home/hospital for the mentally ill. I later found out that the true designation for the building affectionately known to the locals of Dansville, NY as “Our Home [...]
The Scranton Lace Company 1890 to 2002 Like the play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939 the Scranton Lace Company adventure would turn out to be both beautiful, and deadly with a twist of dark comedy thrown in for good measure. Our day starts with a tip from a fellow photographer on checking out the [...]
As you may or may not recall from my “Valley of the Dolls House” entry, Saturday, myself and my friend Lou were supposed to be shooting an old ballroom located in downtown Sayre, Pa. Turns out the guy that we contacted misunderstood which ballroom we were talking about. Who knew there was more than one [...]
On a recent photo adventure with fellow shooter Louis Quatrini we ran in to a hiccup and decided to stop into a local pub to re-configure our day. The best laid plans and all that. So, two photographers walk into a bar…. oh, have you already heard this one? I bet you haven’t. Behind [...]
A Decaying Mecca Part III On my third visit to Grossinger’s I would visit areas that I had previously skipped over. There would be the usual trip to the indoor pool of course but this time we would explore a few of the surrounding cottages and the famous Jenny G building. The reason being [...]
A Decaying Mecca Part II It had been some time since my last visit to Grossinger’s and this time I was on a mission to get some shots that I had missed during the previous adventure. This time it would be in the summer and instead of dodging golf balls to get in we [...]
Part I Right around the turn of the century Asher Selig Grossinger, after failing at several businesses, moved from his New York City home to a larger home in Ferndale, New York with the hopes of being a farmer. Ferndale used to be known as Liberty Falls and is located in Sullivan County in [...]
Recently I had an opportunity to revisit The Lonely Castle. These are the shots that I missed from my first visit. I will try to explain each shot as I go. One of the first shots that I missed and wanted to get was of a beautifully ornate fireplace on the first floor. The castle [...]
One of the reasons I choose to do abandoned site photography is because I love connecting with people and their stories about these old places. Every building or site I visit has a story to tell. That, in part and turn, allows me to write my own stories and share with all you folks. Through [...]
I have always had a fascination with the way things work. Since I was a kid, I would constantly take things apart, re-assemble them and try to make them better. Machinery and I just get along real well. Recently on an urban exploration “vacation” with 3 of my friends, a location came up that really [...]
This story starts with a circle. Not a circle drawn in the sand or on a chalk board, but more a circle of motion, in life. A realization of sorts, a realization of circles that continually intertwine like a Moebius strip. I have always had a fascination with adventure style video games. My [...]