A-Mucking Through Abandoned Spaces

Well this wasn't exactly a blog post I planned on letting loose but our weekend kind of took a fun turn and well....here we are. On Tuesday of this week John and I will have officially reached a full 8 years of marriage (or as John likes to lovingly call it: another year that she hasn't kicked me out yet). Ahhhhh.....8 years. Where has the time gone? We don't normally do too much for our anniversary (we're more of the "revel in whatcha got every day kind of folk) but this year I decided to surprise John with a very quiet, very slow, very "whatever" getaway. I decided to rent a room at a B&B in the middle of the woods, get tickets to go tour Fallingwater and then basically let the rest of the weekend activities fall where they may. John packed up his camera gear and I made the decision before we left to do all of my own photography via Instagram on my iPhone (a new toy I just got). I didn't want to approach this weekend with a technical eye. If I saw something that inspired me to take a photograph the most effort I wanted to put into it was whipping out my phone. Plus everyone gushes over Instagram and the awesomeness of the iPhone camera so I wanted to see what all the big deal was about. Gotta tell ya...I loved not carrying around a heavy camera and the actions were kinda fun. We didn't have a particular theme in mind but the area we were in was very rural and a bit of the lower-income level and we just kept running into old and abandoned spaces. And so, a theme kind of developed.

Below are a few photos I took on my iPhone. I really dug the texture and color of everything we came across.

The first area we came across was an old cemetery. Some of the tombstones were a bit newer but most were anywhere from the late 1800's to the early/mid 1900's. There was even a sign on the abandoned chapel door that asked for help in maintaining the graveyard as there was really no one left to do it.

It was very interesting to come across hand-engraved tombstones.

John was especially taken with this small cemetery. Watching him work has always been fun for me. Everything John does is quiet. He has a certain stillness to him that is just calming.

While at Fallingwater awaiting our tour to begin John and I just got lost in the woods a bit. That's always fun for us: getting lost in the woods with our cameras. I don't think that has ever once turned out bad for us. He stepped up on a stone to get a better view of something and as soon as he stepped down we saw his footprint. Made a cool shot; made even cooler by the fact that he wears those ugly toe shoes that leave a mark as if you are barefoot.

Yup. This photo has been taken a million times for sure but I can't write a post about our little getaway to Fallingwater without a photo. This tour was awesome. I only wish I had paid for the in-depth tour.

And as I was playing on my new toy John scoped out this totally abandoned, completely condemned and rotting house with a matching car. We.Were.Thrilled. The lack of life, the foliage, the debris, the textures....just the whole scene seemed so....abandoned and cool.

And then out of nowhere we came across an abandoned caboose. Pretty fitting, I thought.

Couldn't help but take a photo of this chair. Looks like it had at one time been tied to the tree. I don't even want to know what the reason was for that.

And finally...a photo of us. :) After 10 years of love and 8 years of marriage, I'm still so damn good-lookin'. John's not so bad himself. ;-)