Thomas W.P. Slatin

Not playing by the rules for me, goes far beyond fun and games.  It’s a lifestyle I live in which I tend to ignore warnings on products, read the instructions without actually following them, and generally take risks when I can be assured that there is no actual threat of danger.  An experienced therapist might classify this behavior of mine as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, but I see it as simply examining the risk verses benefit and taking a chance.

We as Americans over-emphasize safety so much that it’s getting pathetic.  I call it The Pussification of America.  Try and think of a day when you went about your daily life without seeing a dubious warning label or sign that stated what, in reality, is just common sense.

The same rules apply to my photography.  I don’t play by the rules a lot of the time, which is why my some of my photos are of places that nobody sees.  In order to get “impossible to obtain” pictures, I’ve had to sneak into places where I probably shouldn’t, ask favors of folks to let me access areas that are off limits to the general public (such as one time when I photographed a CSX locomotive, inside and out), and on occasion, trespass (Tanker Cars).  I’ve even gone into places where I probably shouldn’t have ventured into mainly due to safety concerns (Ghost Train), but if I hadn’t ventured, nothing would have ever been gained, and the pictures and experience of doing so were well worth it.

Ask any great photographer and they will tell you that sometimes they are forced to take enormous risks in order to get the pictures they want, and likely need in order to stay ahead in the business aspect of photography.  A lot of photographers are willing to risk getting slightly injured or arrested in trade for that one perfect photo.

Take this above photo, for example.  I took this photo of a busy alley behind a bunch of local businesses.  In the photo you will clearly see an illegally parked van, a tipped-over ladder, and an unattended box of dangerous goods.  What could possibly go wrong here?  Well, who’s to say for sure; I just stopped and got out of my car to take a picture.  The right thing to do would have been to walk over, pick up the ladder, and move the box to a safe location, but in doing so, I would not have had this awesome picture to help tell the story.

As soon as I snapped the photo, a man sped past me in a pickup truck.  He was in a huge hurry; so much so that he almost hit me as he drove by.  He was too busy cursing at me for standing in the alley taking photos that he failed to see the obstacles set directly in his path.  He then slammed on his brakes, got out of his truck, moved the box and ladder, then began cursing at me for not warning him.

This is an example where I took a risk, things didn’t go quite as I planned, and somebody ended up getting pretty angry over nothing.  Oh, and I did get a really great picture out of it, and a funny anecdote to go along with it.  But the best part of this story is that nobody got hurt.  I’m sure I came up later during a conversation over dinner, and I feel honored that I was able to provide one of those stories that starts with the words, “The craziest thing happened to me today…”

This is a sad photo.  Everything in the abandoned home was completely destroyed, except for this children’s shoe, which was left at the front door.

I responded to this fire as an EMT / Firefighter.  It was the second biggest of my career, spanning over 10 years in the service.  The fire wiped out an old barn, and half of this old farmhouse.  The front 15 feet of the house was saved, but in the end, it was a complete and total loss.

I’m surprised that the shoe survived the intense heat which cooked the road in front of this old house, almost melting the tar and painted lines.

Not too long ago, I wrote about preserving what we have through photography, but never did I think that it would actually come to pass that something I photographed might not exist in the not-too-distant future. 

All that changed today, when around three in the afternoon, I responded in the ambulance to see this old abandoned house fully engolfed in flames!  It turns out that after all these years of being abandoned, for whatever reason, it caught fire and burned to the ground (almost, not completely).

Lots of folks were taking pictures of the house as it was on fire, but nobody I talked to had any pictures of it while it was still standing.  Nobody, that is, except for me.  Turns out that I have two black & white photos, and because I’m really nice, I’m releasing the full-resolution version to the world.  It might be of use to the media, the historical association, or the general public.

The other photo, which was taken of the front of the house is also available by request only.  I will more than likely return to this place to take a few more photos before it’s gone completely.  It’s a shame, though, I liked the house and I thought it had a lot of history behind it.

 
Abandoned Farmhouse Photograph by Thomas W.P. Slatin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.  Download It!
You can use this full-resolution photo for any purpose, including for commercial applications, so long as you give me credit.  If you do use it, please email me or post a comment.  Thanks!

One of my favorite facts about me in my profile is the one where I state that I like to collect notes and pieces of paper I find on public sidewalks.  It says a lot about me, both as a person, and as a writer.  Perhaps it makes me appear to be a bit of a voyeur or something, though this is hardly the case, I can assure you.

Writing is a form of creativity that comes from within.  All good writers will tell you that they have at least one source of inspiration.  Mine just happens to come visually, or through my life experiences (also sometimes known as tactile); I do a lot of listening and very little talking because I’m an observer.  Picking up pieces of discarded notes, paper, photographs, etc., gives me an anonymous glimpse into someone else’s life experience.  We as humans can only see the world from our own perspective, and when you see the world from the perspective of someone else, this can be an amazing source of inspiration.  I’ve often said that I’d like to see the world from another angle; this is what I’m trying to do.

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It’s really hard to believe, but in the weirdest and most random of places, you can find old relics from the past such as these, that are still somewhat intact.  I found these trains along US-209 in Kingston, New York, and I decided to get a closer view.  (View The Flickr Photo Set)

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Can you recall the last time you saw gas for $1.28 a gallon?  I remember back in 2004 when gas was $1.99 a gallon.  Apparently, this gas station hasn’t been open for several years now.  Only time will tell when it reopens as another business, or slowly decays and falls to the ground after years of neglect.

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A long time ago, I wrote that I embraced technology but missed some of the old things from the past. Recently it occurred to me that what I miss the most is reading hand-written letters from my friends and family.  In today’s age of instant communications, it’s fair to say that traditional letter writing has become a bit of an ever-fading form of art.

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Today I saw something gigantic out in a field. I couldn’t be sure what it was. And of course, no one was around to tell me. I decided to take a picture of it using my telephoto zoom lens, and all of a sudden there it was in my view finder, but I still couldn’t tell. It’s strange that when you zoom in close on something that big, you can’t see anything at all.

What is this thing? Please reply with your theories as comments (below).