The Mill (June 2014)

About two weeks ago I went on an adventure with my dear friend Zoe. We explored an abandoned mill that has been decaying, crumbling, dying for several years. (Yes, I said dying...I believe that buildings can die when they no longer feel the breath of use).

 The place was magical. The light shone brilliantly into every room, highlighting the peeling pink paper of the walls and the cracking white of the wooden floorboards. Ivy coated the outside of the windows, tinting them in a honey green. 

I needed to go back. I needed to make that magical place come to life again in a photo. I wanted to capture the haunting presence that filled every nook and cranny. 

Photos of the scouting mission:

After considerable planning, the day of the grand shoot finally came. The results were not as I imagined (there were several logistic problems during the shooting process–low light and ill-made head pieces being the two most offensive) but I still had a wonderful time.
I'm coming to understand that it's okay if the the end product of a shoot doesn't work out or resemble what I imagine...sometimes the experience worth more than the result.
Failure should be a pleasure–it is the only way to assure eventual success (or at least this is what I shall tell myself so that I can sleep at night)  

The final photos:

6/20/12 The Old Gymnasium

I went with Sarah to an old gymnasium today; a desolate room on the top floor of a former school for young Catholic girls. The room was vast, with a stage on the very far end, and a line of windows stretching against the distant adjacent wall. The stage was illuminated not by the spotlight that hung proudly in the center of the stage, but by a large window just beyond beyond it. The paint was peeling off of the walls, the side rooms were peppered with insect corpses, and a musty smell of dust. The window light shone and danced across the floor, a modern exit sign hung in a corner, discreetly trying to hide itself from a room it knew it didn't belong in. Sarah and I danced in the light and across the stage, she twirled with her skirt billowing like a hot air balloon, I left dust angel imprints on the floor. We laughed, but not a lot. We talked, but not excessively. It was a peace suitable for ten years of friendship.

 The previous three were taken in film, unedited, on a Hasselblad camera.