Ruinous Decay

Inorganic Decay is very interesting to me. I love the evidence of a bustling past, the idea of complete abandonment and the extreme toll that seems to occur when a place is simply... left. Which is what makes the discovery of this location an absolute gold mine in my book!

Located about 1.5 miles from my front door it's an abandoned school of some sort, since it's probably trespassing I won't mention any more about the location so don't ask, but lets just say we found a way into this completely boarded up building and discovered that what appeared to be a small brick structure is absolutely giant! Two floors of long hallways and dozens and dozens of rooms in various levels of muck and grime. Some are pitch dark and some are lit by broken sky lights. Some rooms smell like 'yard sale' and some smell like 'hillbilly farmer's market'. Some rooms are beautiful with vintage wallpaper and some are absolutely creepy, like the one with a whole bunch of baby dresses strewn about with the words, "Satan was here" scrawled across the wall in thick yellow paint.

What better place to bring a couple of models, a talented wardrobe designer and a half dozen gorgeous hand-made dresses! A big giant thank you goes out to everyone for having the absolute worst cell phone rings in the history of creepy cell phone rings. As you are wandering long, pitch black hallways with two weak flashlights there is no better sound to hear than a slow melodic whistling eight rooms over when your party of six is all a short arms length away... that split second it takes to realize it's a phone in someone's bag is not a pleasant split second to say the least.

I'd say the creepiest experience occurred shortly after the shoot in the purple dress and pearls, we had found our next room (the white insane asylum type room) and I went back to collect all the lights to re-set them up. (PHOTO TIP! I used a Lumedyne 1,000WS strobe with battery pack for this entire shoot) I walked back, by myself, and collected the light stand, battery, camera, and then I noticed an almost new bright yellow backpack sitting next to my camera. I was positive that it wasn't there when I set up everything so I figured it belonged to one of the girls so I picked that up too and made my way back down the long hallway. When I arrived back to the group I set everything down and held out the bag expecting its' owner to thankfully take it from me, instead I got a bunch of odd looks. The bag belonged to no one. In a house of ruinous decay somehow the one pristine object found it's way next to my camera...

Models: Kenzie and Cassie, Wardrobe by: McKell Maddox