Archive for the ‘Abandoned Houses/Buildings’ Category

I haven’t posted for a while so I thought I’d throw out this gallery from a quick trip to Augusta Betsy and I took last weekend. Our June is jammed with stuff going on so we thought we had better take the chance to spend some time together while we could. We had talked about Madison, Indiana but have been there a few times so we figured we’d try someplace different. My Mom & Dad have talked about Augusta, Kentucky and how nice it was so we thought we’d give it a shot.

Augusta is a beautiful little river town about an hour south of Fort Thomas. Unfortunately, I think they have missed the mark on being a “day trip” destination. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful, I just expected more of a “Madison, Indiana” or “Yellow Springs, Ohio” feel to it. There’s a couple of nice places to eat, some gift shops, but to me the best part was just walking with Bets along 1st Street looking at the old houses and gardens. Like I said, June is going to be crazy, and May was just as bad so it was nice just to be alone enjoying the “us” time. As a matter of fact, I was enjoying our time alone so much I actually only shot a dozen photos!

I was however excited to find a Bull Durham sign on an old brick building. That was my “shot of the day”, although I think the couple of garden shots are better photos. Take a look and let me know if you agree!

Here’s the small gallery from a great day. Enjoy!

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I try to take my “Photo Trips” on Saturdays as to not miss church, but this trip was a last minute decision after church on May 16th. It had been a while since I went shooting and was itching to get out, so I decided to head north towards Preble County Ohio to find a couple of covered bridges. The Brubaker covered bridge and the Roberts covered bridge.

As usual, I found much more to shoot along the way to my final “target”. For one, I ran across the partially abandoned Crystal Tissue Company’s factory just south of Middletown, Ohio. I seriously considered jumping the fence and shooting the inside, but Betsy has scared me into re-thinking trespassing with her threats of not coming to get me out of jail. I had to settle for shooting the water tower from outside the fence. Maybe I’ll go back one day!

I also ran across a couple of very cool abandoned farm house. One of which at the time it was abandoned was occupied by a retired U.S. Air Force officer. It was rather eerie walking into one of the upper bedrooms and seeing his uniform hanging on the closet door. I also found a box with his discharge papers and his military records in it. Sad to think of it, but all my uniforms and paperwork are in my attic. I’m hopeful that no one finds it when shooting photographs of an abandoned house in Fort Thomas in the future!

I also ran across a previously “undiscovered” Mail Pouch barn, although it’s more of a garage, and new, but all the same a Mail Pouch sign. And the last shot of the day was a rather sarcastic political statement of a local pizza parlor’s owner.

Here’s the entire gallery from my Preble County trip. Enjoy!

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On a recent trip to Louisville, Kentucky I spent a couple of hours walking along Main and Market streets looking for old signs. I’m not sure what draws me to old signs painted on brick walls but I sure do enjoy studying them. Like old abandoned buildings they make my mind wonder. Who painted them? Is the business still around? For that matter is the sign company still around? I do know enough about the sign industry to safely say, sign painters who created these old signs, like the signs themselves are a rarity.

This was one of my first trips with my new 22 megapixel Canon 5D Mark II so one of my goals was to shoot some panoramics to see how my trusty Macintosh tower was going to deal with stitching such large images. A few of these images are panoramics compiled from 12-16 vertical images. At full resolution one of them comes in at 820 megabyte! Those of you that are technically challenged… that’s huge! I could wallpaper a 70 foot hallway with 12 foot ceilings with this image. Not sure what I’m going to do with all those pixels, but man is it great to have them!

Here’s the entire gallery. Enjoy! (By the way, there’s some new signs as well)

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I’ve always had a passion for old beer advertising and brewing items. I guess it’s from my mom being an antique dealer for so many years and taking us along on our own family versions of “American Pickers”. I remember getting up very early one Saturday every month packing up and going to the Burlington, Kentucky antique show. It was way back then that I started my addition to old beer signs. Although my collection of brewery goodies is long gone, my fascination with Cincinnati’s brewing history still remains.

With it’s wave of German immigrants in the 1880s Cincinnati quickly became the brewing capital of world. The Hudepohl Brewing Company was established in 1885 by one such immigrant, Ludwig Hudepohl II. By the time prohibition hit, Hudepohl was one of the top 5 breweries in the city. Here’s a timeline of Cincinnati brewing history.

This Hudepohl facility was built in 1946 and operated until 1987 when the production was relocated to the Schoenling Brewing Company’s plant on Central Parkway in Cincinnati. In 2007 demolition of the building began but has since been halted for what reason I’m not sure.

I actually started this past Saturday morning with a trip to an abandoned military facility in Indiana in mind but decided I didn’t really feel up to  driving 2 hours with the possibility of not gaining access so decided instead to run over the the Hudepohl plant. I’m glad I did! This turned out to be one of my best abandoned explorations to date. I even met a couple of new friends that were there shooting, and it’s always nice to have someone with you in an old structure like this.

Here’s the entire gallery. Enjoy!

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Camping season has begun! Betsy and I went to Big Bone State Park this past weekend and took a short trip to Rabbit Hash on Saturday. If you know anything about Rabbit Hash you know it really isn’t much more than an old general store on the Ohio River, yet it attracts thousands of visitors every year. On any given Saturday during the summer months you may see a couple hundred people in the sleepy little town.

Since I have already taken the “typical” Rabbit Hash shot (the exterior of the general store) I wanted to shoot some of the details of the town that are uniquely Rabbit Hash. Take a look at this gallery and hopefully it will inspire you to take your own trip to Rabbit Hash. But if you do, be prepared to “slow down”. Because in Rabbit Hash, you can’t help but slow down and relax!

Here’s the whole gallery. Enjoy!

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After a long weekend doing things I “had” to do, cutting grass, getting the camper ready for the summer, and cleaning the garage, I decided Sunday after dinner it was time to do something I “wanted” to do, shoot some photos!

A friend of mine who shall remain nameless as he would be upset that he suggested I break the law by trespassing, and he’s a “man of the cloth” to boot, told me about an abandoned factory on the Loveland Bike Trail. After some Google work I found out the factory is the remains of the Peters Cartridge Company. Here’s some information on the company: Peters Cartridge Company.

So I drive up to Loveland and get out only to find two guys standing there shooting some cellphone photos. They seemed into it so I asked if they wanted to “explore” with me. They were up for it, although the one guy seemed a bit paranoid about the many warning signs! After being “greeted” by a very nice guard dog, no kidding, we found a way in. We explored the first two floors seemingly keeping an eye on each other for safety’s sake when somewhere between the second and third floors I realized they were gone! I think the one guy talked the other into leaving! So I was on my own, although I did have my trusty (not), iPhone should something bad happen.

Waiting till after dinner turned out to be a not so good decision as the light was very harsh, although some of the shots are better with the harsh light. In general I would have preferred more even lighting so there may be a return trip in my future.

This turned out to be the “mother of all explorations” for me. I’ve seen more interesting abandoned places in the way of colors and textures, but this wins the “really huge abandoned building” award. At times I felt like I was in a submarine, yet I was quite a few floors above the ground. If you look at the tower you’ll see a set of windows right below the “P”. That’s how far I made it before I decided I was pushing my luck!

I hope you enjoy these shots as much as I enjoyed shooting them, and stay tuned for a return visit with better lighting conditions, and next time I’ll go to the basement!

Here’s the entire gallery. Enjoy!

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Yes, another abandoned house! It’s been a while since I’ve posted a new gallery and I haven’t shot much lately so I thought I’d dig into the archives. I shot this house in May of 2007, when it became exposed from it’s long hideout on a hillside in Newport, Kentucky. As far back as I can remember this house was abandoned. I remember wondering why it was abandoned when it always appeared to be in good shape. It was at the bottom of Grand Avenue across from Blockbuster video, and when I shot these photos it had been exposed due to construction of the new Krogers in Newport. The hill that this house sat on has since been totally leveled, making way for the Kroger and a soon to be Target. The same development that took this house that had been empty for years also took dozens of occupied houses at the same time, one of which some relatives of mine lived in. I shot their house right before it was destroyed. Maybe I’ll dig those out soon and share.

Here’s the entire gallery. Enjoy!

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I’ve been wanting to explore something larger than old abandoned houses I find out on country rides for a while. After some research I discovered the abandoned Hayswood Hospital in Maysville, Kentucky. I’ve read many articles on the hospital and decided I had to shoot it. After reading many stories of it being haunted, extremely dangerous, and off limits I was a bit hesitant but this past Saturday decided to go for it. Problem was that my 16 year old son wanted to go with me! Now I not only had to worry about me getting arrested, but calling Betsy and telling her Michael and I were both in jail wasn’t something I was interested in doing!

After a few phone calls to some nearby businesses and the Maysville police I decided we would do it. By the way, every phone call had of mentions of ghosts, various physical dangers and of course the warnings of being caught by the police!

It was a nasty rainy day. Sounds like the start to a bad horror novel I know, but it was! When we got there we saw a police car right in front of the place. I was upset that we drove an hour and wouldn’t even be able to get in, but after we drove around a bit we decided to park around the corner and just walk right in.

Since I’m a photographer and not a writer I’ll skip my interpretation of what we experienced and send you right to the photos, leaving the rest to your own imagination of being there with us. As far as the photography, I learned some lessons about shooting in this type of location. My tripod would have been a plus but I left it in the car and figured I was already in and didn’t want to chance getting caught going out to get it. Boots would have been nice as well as it was rather wet and mucky in there. And I’m embarrassed to say we didn’t even take a flashlight! And of course as a 16 year old, Michael didn’t have a warm enough coat on, but as is his character he didn’t complain.

One more note on the photographs. You’ll see that quite a few of them appear twice. I have included the original photos as well as my attempt at a ghostly filtered effect version. Due to the lack of light and contrast I have attempted to “enhance” the images to bring out the erie atmosphere of the place. I’d like some feedback on the “filtered” images if you’re willing to comment.

Here’s the entire gallery. Enjoy!

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