Week 11 - Part 1

This roll of film was started yesterday at my grandad's house, but it very much fits in with the feel of this week's roll so I'm going to keep it with this post.

We were going through odds and ends at my grandad's house and my mom came across a few things of interest.

A photo from a wedding that my Gran was in

Not that you can see it here but this is a newspaper clipping where they announced their marriage. If you search, you can see Elroy Sites and Mary Mathewson.

A flower my Gran put in an envelope almost 65 years ago.

Anyway, today, I hung out with Steven for the first time! He's a photographer who goes to the high school from which I graduated. He's one of the few people I know who jumped at the chance to take photos in an abandoned hospital, and the day went very well. We've agreed that he's going to become my partner in crime (literally) and keep shooting with me in abandoned places. He's got a great eye and he took some really great photos today, so check out his flickr stream here.

We ventured into Forest Haven and Steven immediately fell right into the proper mood. Most people become very overwhelmed and don't perform well, but I have to say I was very impressed with Steven's composure, especially considering it was the first time he had ever been anywhere abandoned.

He stood there, just saying over and over, "It's real. It's definitely real," when it definitely wasn't haha.

This little room was extremely dark, this exposure was something like 1/6th of a second, handheld. Not too shabby.

"What are the CAGES for?" Steven made a really good joke here but I won't repeat it :)

At this point, we actually noticed a couple of buildings down a bit of a drop behind the rest of the buildings with which I was already familiar. We went inside two buildings that I've never seen before.

Forest Haven was a rehabilitation facility for mentally handicapped African Americans. This long room was full of textile machines, and Steven and I concluded that this was likely where they taught the patients work skills to help them assimilate back into society by getting jobs.

My favorite photo of the day and possibly one of my favorite film photos I've ever taken.

Outside the second new building was a trailer (they're all over the property) that clearly had people living it in, at least at one time.

Inside what was labeled a "power plant," but it appeared to be a garage to teach them how to work on cars.

Steven even posed for a few photos even though he hates having his photo taken. I happen to like them :)

But most of the photos I took of him were when he wasn't paying attention to me.

Hi from Steven and Steven :)

This week's film:

• 1 roll of expired Kodak Color Plus 200
• Shot on a Canon EOS 630 with a Canon 50mm f/1.4
• Hand developed in Jobo C-41, scanned with Epson Perfection V500