Another favorite building.  This one always makes me smile. Can you guess why? Okay, its because there are no steps.  I have actually shot this once before with my Jimmy Dean (my Rebel)  but returned while I was in the area today to shoot it with Dolly (50D) so that I was able to blow it up.

I also came across the most amazing graffiti I think I have ever seen. I love graffiti of things besides just letters.  I am thinking I want to blow these up and put them on a standout for my hallway or something…

PS. I do not take credit for the fabulous graffiti art, I only take credit for the photography. If I knew who did this, believe me, I would gladly give them credit!!! xoxo

If you are the person who created this and come across it on my website, let me know and I will be happy to give you credit.

View LARGE

I have had a long fascination with this building. When I first moved to OKC I worked down on Stiles and would see this place from I-35 and wonder what it was. Finally, I decided one day to drive over to it and I was in awe. The architecture is just absolutely unbelievable. And the fact that the exterior is still in such great condition just makes it even more gorgeous. Though it has a haunted feel to it, I still could not resist. Or maybe that was what drew me in.

After making several excuses why I should not go over there, namely that it is a rather bad area, I decided today that I needed a day out and caved. I could not get anyone who was available to go last minute, so I went alone but kept a friend on the phone with me. I got several shots in before the creepy guys drove by for a 3rd time and honked at me. No way I was going to take my chances on them getting their hands on my new camera… or me for that matter. LOL

The above image is actually 2 images joined together. Since I don’t have my own wide angle lens yet, I shot from across the street and then joined the two together.

I was able to obtain a bit of information on the building through the awesome peeps over at Abandoned OK.

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“The Walcourt building was built in 1927 by architect Joe Davis and builder Charles G. Beveridge and opened as an apartment building by its original owner, H.E. Musson. The 9,378-square-foot, two-story red brick building was designed in a Jacobethan Revival style of architecture.

In 1982, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic places. At the time, it was described as “architecturally interesting.”

Today, the building’s windows and doors remain boarded up. A sign outside warns against trespassing. Beside the building is a vacant wood-framed house at 141 NE 13th St., which is enclosed along with the Walcourt building by a shared fence.”

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Comments from others on the Abandoned OK site:

~they heard that it was an asylum at one point and of course haunted…

~another person states: The interior is not totally gutted. There is at least one apartment upstairs that is in decent shape. There were 14 units. All of the interior doors are slatted, like shutters. The apartment I saw had a fireplace, wood floors and a bathroom with a built-in floor to ceiling vanity. the building has been vacant for 32 years. The lady that owns it keeps the utilities on and keeps the yard mowed. Unfortunately, this is all that is required from the City to avoid the building being considered dilapidated. It is a real shame.

~There have been numerous people who have tried to make a deal… but alas the owner has no interest in making any deal.

I have said before how much I love just getting out and photographing nature. Well, I also have this little addiction to Urban Exploration.  What is Urban Exploration (aka UrbEx) you might ask? It is the exploration of abandoned buildings. I understand that some UrbEx-ers explore tunnels as well, but I am not really into damp, dark places.  So I will stay above ground, thank you very much.

This being said, I am going through alot of my old photos (dated 2007-2009) from when I was in school and had to edit my photos “their way” and now I am redoing them MY way.  Many of my days during school were spent searching for the perfect house, the perfect building… the perfect whatever.  I don’t even want to know how many miles I put on my car. LOL

The director of the school once referred to my portfolio as the “aftermath of a bombing”.  Yes, my photography contains many abandoned buildings, broken windows, entropy, decay, grunge and “not so pretty” stuff.  But it also tells a story. As I explore these places, I always make up stories in my head about what took place there.  Or I can at least get a mental picture of what the place was like when it was alive with people and laughter. Not everything in the world is pretty, not everything in the world is meant to make you smile.  Sometimes, things are just there to make you think.  And maybe to be a little more grateful for what you have.

One of the rules of UrbEx is “always leave the place as you found it”… meaning you cannot take anything physical with you. I have always followed this rule about the physical part. But I cannot help but take an emotional part along with me. For this reason, I have decided to create the “Homestead Series”.  Sometimes there are homes that are too wrecked to enter or the outside tells a story all its own.  I do hope you enjoy these. This is just the beginning of the series.  I am sure it will continue as long as I am able to get out and take the pictures.

xoxo

PS. If you are interested in more UrbEx, you might want to check out these guys over at abadonedok.com.  They have been to LOTS of awesome places in OK.

I awoke this morning to several emails through my portfolio account and wondered what was going on… So I browsed on over there to read them and discovered that they were congratulating me on being a finalist in the Photo Focus Emerging Photographer of the Year Award.  I am in total shock. I entered the contest on a whim thinking there was no possible way I could be selected.  And then I see this?  WOW!  I am so excited to be featured with such fabulous photographers.

Edit: 10:12pm I did not realize what Scott had posted on the blog about me until I went back in to show the blog to my husband. Here are Scotts unbelievable and kind words.  I am almost in tears!!!

There are a few drawbacks to having a kid who does internet school vs. public school. I don’t get the “alone time” that I used to get. But it does allow us to get creative.
The nice thing about having a kid who is home schooled is that when I want to go out and shoot with her, we can do so. Todays’ lesson consisted of:

History (Route 66)
Photography (searching for places to shoot future clients)
Driving (heaven help me on this part!!!)

Yes, somehow we got all 3 of those rolled into one. We left the house around 8:30 and drove down towards Route 66. Somehow I always manage to miss I-35 going all the way through and end up on I-44 then have to track over. Thank goodness we had Gladys Pointus Somewhere (GPS) with us. I got back on track and then let Emily take the wheel once we hit Route 66. We enjoyed a bit of history down the route, shot some pictures (I have trained her well… she only shoots in manual now), and of course her favorite part, DRIVING lessons. Hmm… my jaw still hurts from clenching while she was driving 65 mph. Yikes!

Don’t worry. She still had to come home and do all of her regular lessons as well. I am a mean teacher/principal. LOL

All in all we had a good time. I found a couple of great locales. Look for the above shot in a future client session. I showed the client the house I found and she is sooo excited. I cannot wait. I played with HDR for it too. What do you think? Sort of Halloweenish???

Awhile back I received a phone call from a client asking me if I could photographer her and her horses for a Christmas card.  I was quite honest with her and told her that I had not had alot of experience around horses and had not ridden a horse in several years.  She was quite kind and still excited to have me as she liked my “style”.  So, here I go trotting off to (no pun intended… well, maybe a little) Mustang and the beautiful pastures where these four legged critters are boarded.  I arrived to find 5 large horses and 2 miniatures.  OMG!  I was in awe.  Each one of them had their own little personality and wanted to do their own thing.  How in the world was I ever going to get them all to look at the camera?  Ah, yes… treats.  YUM YUM!  My assistant shook the container and acted like a mad man while all of the horses perked up their ears and looked over at her.  WOO HOO!  Success.

NOT!!! It was not quite that easy, to be honest.  The poor girl that was handling the horses for the owner while I did the nieces pictures got slammed in the nose by one of the horses. OUCH! I thought for sure her nose was  broken but she insisted we continue and she continued to take care of the horses.  Then we finally get them all wrangled (look at me talkin’ like an Okie) and tried shot after shot. This was take 10 of the session just trying to get all of the horses to look all at once. This image was the work of my assistants magic at getting the horses to look and my magic of making it look like

1)they were all in the same picture

2)at the same time

3)looking at the camera and pointing there ears up

all at the same time.  Talk about a test.  Phew!  But I survived it.  And now I know that I am capable of anything.  Well… just about anything.  hehe

Here are the more relaxed shots, taken of Tonda’s niece.  She was an absolute doll.  These were also her “10th birthday” shots and the brown horse she is posing with is 4th in the country right now for some award.  But that is “Coco” and she was her birthday present.  I told Tonda that I wanted her to be MY AUNT.    What a day!

Discovered this morning that I was featured on the POE (Photographers of Etsy) blog

Suspicious behavior?  Well, yes, apparently I am quite the suspicious person running around with my camera.  At least a little old lady who lives down a little country road seems to think so. Today I was out running around gathering goodies for a new project I am working on.  Suddenly, behind me, appears a cop car.  What?  Out here in the middle of like timbuktu?  So he flashes his lights, not his emergency lights, which made me kind of nervous thinking he might be one of those “fake cops”.  I left my window rolled up until he showed me a badge.

I said, “Yes, Officer?” as I gathered my license and insurance.  He told me that he had received a call about a woman who was driving up and down the road, getting in and out of her car and going off to the side of the road. I said yes, that would have  been me. “May I ask what you were doing?”  I told him that I am a photographer and I was gathering weeds.  He said, “WEED?” quite suspiciously.  I said, “Weeds.” and pointed over to my passenger seat and showed him (the items in the photo above).  He said, “Ohhhhh! Okay. Well, you need to be careful out here.”

“Thank you, Officer. I will do that.”  So, I drove home after that laughing.  I never in my wildest dreams thought someone would think I was suspicious.  But you never know.  I am carrying “weed” with me, so look out.

On another note, before the suspicious behavior, I did come across this (above).  As I was driving, I noticed something crossing the road.  First one (the mother I am guessing) and then the second one. I slowed down so as not to scare them off.  They wandered into this field and stood there and looked at me for several minutes before they took off.  I wish I had a clearer picture. I only had my 50mm on me and so stood on top of the doorway area of the car and tried to shoot up over the weeds (oops… there’s that word again) blocking the view to the deers.  Otherwise I would have been standing in red mud (as opposed to red dirt of Oklahoma)  thanks to all the rain we have had.

All in all, an interesting outing to say the least.  Now I will spend this evening beginning work on my weeds before they die on me.  I would not want to have to go back out and pick more weeds and someone call a cop on me.  (evil grin) Of course I could have gotten myself into more trouble I suppose if I had tol him I was out “shooting”.  Most people who are not photographers look at you oddly if you tell them you are going to “go shoot someone”… especially if you say, “I’m going to go shoot a xx yr old baby today.”  You get the worst looks.  Ah, the joy of being a photographer.

Do you ever feel like you are living in a dreamland? I have been feeling that way lately. No, I’m not overly medicated. I am just extremely happy. I haven’t even been waiting for the bomb to drop, which is unusual for me. I have lived with this “fear of success” forever. But the events that have fallen into place in the last few months in my life have somehow made me see that I do not need to fear it, only take it day by day and enjoy life as it comes to me. As I stood in the AAA corporate office yesterday looking at my art hanging on their walls, it was like an overwhelming SMILE just took over my whole face. I was not sitting at the desk, I was not answering their phones, I was ON THEIR WALLS. And that felt VERRRRRRRY good. I have never been one to gloat or brag on myself. If someone feeds me a compliment I kind of look away because it is hard for me to accept that recognition. However, I am learning to trust that people are sincere in their compliments and feedback about my photography. Maybe, just maybe, if I take it one day at a time, I can stay in this dreamland for awhile longer. 

Below are 5 of my pieces hanging on the walls of the new AAA corporate offices in OKC.  The one blurred out is by another artist.  Sorry I cannot remember his name.

There is something soothing about dirt roads that soothe me. It allows me to run away for a bit from reality.  The swoosh of the dust flying up behind my car, the sound of the bits of gravel (and sometimes nails… oops) crunching under my tires.  But mostly what soothes me is the scenery.  There are rarely any people around to bother me, maybe a cow or bull, or even an old building full of character.  But mostly it is me, the wind whisping my hair around, my arm hanging out the window, and the music lulling me along in search of whatever it is that I am meant to find on this day.  Do I turn left or do I turn right?  It depends.  I don’t flip a coin, I just drive.  No map… they don’t have the interesting spots that I want to see anyway.  I will only turn to Gladys (my GPS) when I need to find my way back to civilization.

I must admit, there have been a few times when I was a bit nervous being out by myself. Hubby is always afraid that I am going to be out shooting and come upon some drug deal or someone doing something they should not be doing. Yes, those thoughts do cross my mind. But if I did not take my chances, I would never find out if I took the wrong turn, the right turn, or just took a lucky guess and ended up right where I am supposed to be.