2014
Klotz Throwing Company/
Lonaconing Silk Mill
THE KLOTZ THROWING COMPANY, NESTLED in the mountains of western Maryland, was a silk mill that once employed about 300 workers full-time before shuttering in 1957. Miraculously, the factory remains eerily untouched: Worker cubbies still hold shoes, combs, tins of Noxema, and empty jars of apple butter from lunch breaks gone by.
It was one of my first shoots, and the challenge was teaching myself how to take photos in the dark. It was frustrating at first, but I got the hang of it and managed to get some good shots. It was an interesting site. I love that they still had artifacts from when the plant was in operation - my favorite being the calendar on the wall with the month of closing (August 1957) forever frozen in time.
Lorton Prison
The Lorton Reformatory, also known as the Lorton Correctional Complex, is a former prison complex in Lorton, Virginia, established in 1910 for the District of Columbia, United States.
The complex began as a prison farm called the Occoquan Workhouse for nonviolent offenders serving short sentences. The District established an adjacent reformatory in 1914, and then a 10-acre (4.0 ha) walled penitentiary constructed by inmates from 1931 through 1938, as a division of the reformatory with heightened security. The complex came under the administration of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections when it was formed in 1946.
After further expansions, a peak size of 3,500-acre (1,400 ha), and 92 years of service, the facility was ordered closed in the late 1990s. The final prisoners were transferred out in November 2001.
This was my first shoot in Virginia. I was nervous when I got there and saw the large group. I wasn’t going to take a tripod, but my S.O. suggested that I take it - it wasn’t a travel tripod so it was heavy, but I am glad that I took the advice because there was a lot of darkness and you couldn’t get a decent shot unless the camera was on a tripod due to the necessity of using a slow shutter speed. I ended up asking someone what aperature they were using and from that I figured things out.
Macro
Images taken as part of a Macro workshop taken during an annual photography conference.
Pemco
An abandoned plant in Baltimore that I snuck into on a Sunday morning to get photographs. I was pretty proud of myself for getting in and getting some good shots without getting caught. Sunday morning was the perfect time to go. There was even a police station nearby!
Pennhurst Asylum
Pennhurst State School and Hospital, originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic was a state-run institution for mentally and physically disabled individuals of Southeastern Pennsylvania located in Spring City. After 79 years of controversy, it closed on December 9, 1987 amid allegations of abuse and neglect and an exposé on the television show 20/20.
We checked out the location the day before when we got in town to make sure we knew where it was. When we pulled up and saw the large buildings, there was a sense of foreboding. Really creepy. I was excited. The next day, the large group was divided into two smaller groups. The tour guide said she was going into the basement of one of the buildings and asked if anyone wanted to accompany her. I thought that if she was going in the basement, there must be something to see there. So I went with her. I was the only one. We walked through the dark, dank basement (I should have worn my respirator mask, the asbestos made my lungs hurt) until we got to a room. She shone her flashlight and showed a creepy wall mural and a chair and chalkboard. As it turned out, she was a light painting expert and taught me how to do it so I got a good photo (see below). I also found a doll down in the basement and got a photo (see below).
Truck Graveyard
A farmer in Columbia collected broken-down trucks over time, and had lined them up in unused areas of his property for going on 50 years now (or thereabouts). There are all sorts of vehicles, ranging from old tractors to fire trucks to big rig tractor-trailers.
