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Cape Cod 2024
For several years I had been trying to get a shot of Long Point Lighthouse at sunset. We tended to take the boat out too early in the day to be in the right place at the right time, though.…
Buffalo State Hospital – June 2024
Another 7 hours in the car, another fantastic day at Buffalo State Hospital with Preservation Works. This is probably my favorite set from the location, second to my September 2023 set. This time I not only had my Fuji GF100S…
Buffalo State Hospital – September 2023
Ten years after my first trips to Buffalo State Hospital a post from Preservation Works popped up in my facebook feed, advertising tours of the state hospital. Having retired from a lot of the sneaking around that characterized my earlier…
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
There are so many shows and accounts of the history of Alcatraz, it feels silly to try to provide yet another one here so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Despite having been to San Francisco…
Buffalo State Hospital – July 2013
Never one to refuse a trip to a Kirkbride, we made a second trip to Buffalo State Hospital two months after the first trip. 7 hours in the car was a small price to pay to scratch the exploring itch.…
Buffalo State Hospital – May 2013
Construction on the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane began in 1872 with the hospital opening in 1880. The architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, designed many well known buildings including Trinity Church in Boston and the Thomas Crane Memorial Library on…
About Desolate Metropolis
Photography, for me, started in Middle School. My friend signed up for photography class and brought me in to the dark room to check out the prints he was developing from his pinhole camera. I was instantly hooked. The smell of the fix, the image slowly coming out in the developer, it was magic. I started out with a homemade pinhole camera and moved up to black and white 35mm film. I took photography numerous times throughout high school but, despite going to one of the best photography colleges in the country, I didn’t photograph for the next 9 years.
In 2005, the Canon 20D came out. It seemed to me to be the first DSLR that you could get decent sized prints out of, finally solving my problem of not having a dark room. I bought one and muddled around with it throughout the year but lacked the inspiration I needed to start shooting seriously again. That all changed when I saw some photos online from people who would explore and photograph abandoned buildings. The excitement was electric and I knew immediately that I had to do this.
I had no idea the journey that this decision would set me on.