I’ve enjoyed some productive weekends recently including a trip to this abandoned motel. It’s not something I do on a regular basis, so it is quite an adventure for me as I walk gingerly over loose floor boards and peer through broken windows into overturned rooms.
I spent a lot of time just looking at objects – discarded books, piles of clothes, torn mattresses and areas where tangled vines had crept through open windows to reclaim some territory. There’s a lot of life there, even if the original purpose for this motel was abandoned long ago. We didn’t encounter any residents while we walked through with our cameras, but there was definitely one room which looked lived in.
In the middle of the motel was a courtyard filled with trees and broken furniture. The sun was shining over a roof and into this courtyard towards an overturned chair so I was hoping to catch some rays shining through the ornate back rest with my pinhole. I placed the camera on a pile of leaves and let it rip. I also loved the graffiti and texture of frost on the leaves so I moved a box over and use it to balance my pinhole camera. Shooting low really captured more than I remembered from this place.
Have you been on some new adventures with your camera during this winter season? Good luck and happy shooting! Mahalo.
Oh great stuff! I’m always nervous about doing stuff like this. I didn’t used to be (explored the crap out of the old Casino in Asbury Park, NJ a few times). Did you take these with the pinhole camera?
I just developed three rolls of random 400 and 800 ISO film. Not thrilled, but that’s cloudy life in Seattle for you.
These are with the pinhole and I’m hoping the negatives have improved enough so I can make decent prints in the darkroom this weekend. Fingers crossed!
Curious to know where…..in Fremont, or outside Seattle?
Lovely work Jana! I love abandoned houses but I seem to never have the courage to approach them….
I have finished my first roll with my lovely Zero 2000, a T-max 100, but I haven’t had a possibility to develop it yet, but I’m dying to see it….
Have a wonderful weekend coming.
Thank you Marie. I love developing TMax with rodinal the purple color is fantastic. I’m sure your images will be wonderful since your work is always so inspiring. I hope to get outdoors this weekend and capture some snowy scenes
wonderful work, Jana!
I like the first one very much, the sun flare is really a plus!
It’s strange about exploring abandoned spaces — it feels like trespassing even though no one really cares any more. I really like the second shot, with the graffiti on the mattress.
What’s funny is someone put a shiny lock on the gate surrounding this motel just a week after we visited. That’s partly our fault – we were a bit loud and very obvious.
Beautiful images!! Such hidden treasures in these abandoned spaces. Well documented