The Beauty of Abandonment…with a side of ‘woo woo’.

I was driving home from a session the other night, in the quiet of glorious blue hour and I came across this abandoned home. 

I couldn’t help but slam on the brakes, turn around and capture it on camera.  Instantly curious, I found myself wondering: Who lived here?  Why was it abandoned?  What secrets are hidden behind its walls?

It made me realise that I have many images of “ruin photography” in my collection because it seems I am attracted to the beauty of imperfection and impermanence.  Indeed, abandoned places are like gold mines to photographers.  The textures, the lighting and atmosphere of these spaces whisper stories perhaps never to be fully told.  The peeling paint, the dusty furniture and rotting frames creates the feeling of secrets uncovered and a challenge to capture the very essence of a place frozen in time.

Exploring abandoned places is a bit like treasure hunting and the excitement of discovering the unknown can create fantasies in the vacuum of one’s mind. 

When we were kids, my sister and I would ride our bikes down the dirt roads around our farm.  There was one particular road that wound its way to the old Whitten house; a derelict old weatherboard home, long abandoned, rotting away at the end of a Cyprus tree lined driveway. The driveway was dark and spooky and the limbs would crack as they swayed in the wind; their enormous branches looming over the track with age, framing the old house in shadows as it silently fell apart.  Our imaginations would run wild as we convinced ourselves that the house must be haunted and we would scare ourselves silly, daring each other to ride through the trees and up to the house.  I don’t think I was ever brave enough to get past the dilapidated letter box!

Of course the house wasn’t haunted.  We were just two young girls, enjoying the thrill of being scared, safe in the knowledge that we could just turn our wheels and ride home.  But the ghosts of the old Whitten house make for a fun story.

And so, we segue to ghosts and my promise of a bit of ‘woo woo’.  As established from my childhood story, ghosts are a highly entertaining subject.  Whether you believe in them or not, our need to feel that there is something more to life than exists in the physical world is fundamental to human nature.

Pre married life, I spent several years teaching in a school in England and lived onsite as a resident boarding house tutor.  I was in a double storied building; the matron’s flat was on the second floor and mine was on the ground floor, the long corridors had bedrooms either side and the Housemaster’s home was connected on the end.  It was a wonderful boarding house; full of busy energy and laughing girls.  There was nothing scary about it all.  Except for one particular corridor. 

For a start, it was always freezing cold.  It didn’t matter if it was a Summer day and the sun was shining brightly, this passageway was cold and it felt heavy, like the air was different.  When I was on night duty, I would say goodnight to all the girls and switch all the lights off as I worked my way through the house but whenever it came to turning the lights off in this passage, I would run through the darkness, eager to get out and not dare to look at the reflection in the glass as it swung closed for fear that I would see a reflection behind me.  I have no idea why I did this.  It was just instinctual and irrational.

Interestingly, in order to get to the Housemaster’s study, you had to walk down this passage.  Now this is where it gets really spooky…

I can remember this day as clear as a bell.  It was mid-Winter.  All the girls had gone home for the holidays and Matron had gone to spend the weekend with her family, so I was home alone in the boarding house.  I had walked into town that day, rugged up in my winter coat and boots and I remember how icy the air was on my breathe as I walked back up the hill to my home.  The Housemaster’s study window faced directly ahead of me and I recall looking up and seeing a reflection in the glass.  I couldn’t make out any features but it waved at me, and of course, thinking it was my Housemaster, I waved back.  Thinking nothing of it, I went into the house, along the passage and knocked on the study door, eager to talk and share a warming cuppa, but when I entered the room, there was nobody there.  Indeed, there was no one home at all…