In Old Stomping Grounds

It's been quite a while since I've been able to put anything down here.  It doesn't cease to amaze me how much damage the holidays can do to the schedule every year at this time.  No matter my good intentions to stick to the usual game plan, things always go awry when the tree needs to go up and the cookies need to be baked.  It all started in November when we went back to Akron for our annual home leave trip and then it was one thing after another.  But, now that the new year has arrived we can finally get back on track!

Anyway, speaking of Akron, I finally finished editing the photos I took while we were there.  Most of my shots were of time spent with family and friends, but I did manage to get out for some scenic shooting for one day.  For once I was going to shoot someplace I was intimately familiar with, a place that didn't require a moment of research.  However, it was the one trip in which I didn't have any real free time to shoot, despite the fact we were going to be there for a longer time than any other trip we took this year.  With one day to shoot I decided to take advantage of my knowledge of the area.  Late November is not an attractive time of year in Northeast Ohio.  Is kinda, well, brown.  Everything is brown.  The sky is usually overcast.  One or two shots of a brown and grey landscape with a Lightroom preset slapped on can be cool, but I didn't want a whole set of that nor, to be perfectly honest, did I want to spend the day standing in a depressing brown field or next to the brown Cuyahoga River.  Anyway, my schedule was only open during the day, not in the morning or evening when the light would be at its best.

Camera X-T1, Focal length: 13.2mm,
Exposure 1/125, F/7.1, ISO 400

This was a thriving small farm about 15 years ago, now it
is a ruin.  The building had been broken into recently.  Though I didn't
enter, the gaping doorway left a tantalizing  and creepy
view inside the house.

So, I decided to focus on something a little different.  I grew up on the borders of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  The CVNP is a beautiful 20,339 acre park between Cleveland and Akron.  It's the only National Park in Ohio and a major asset for the area.  But, it has a unique history.  Unlike many more well-known National Parks in the US, a large portion of the land for the CVNP was once private property, farms, and villages.  When the park came in, these properties were purchased by the government.  If the original owners left upon purchase, the buildings were usually leveled and the property allowed to return to nature.  Farms were swallowed by new growth forests.  If you happen to hike the less popular trails, you may come upon a foundation in the woods or evidence of a driveway that goes nowhere.  But, many people were allowed to stay in their houses as renters from the Park Service.  For many older residents on fixed incomes, this was a major financial boon.  Others weren't pleased in the least to lose their property rights.  It's still a controversial subject with the old guard in places like Northampton Township and Peninsula.  Once the former owners/tenants passed away or decided to move out, the house was taken over by the park.  Most of them are left as non-maintained, abandoned structures.  The Cuyahoga Valley is full of empty buildings left in various states of disrepair.  Recently, some of them have been completely refurbished to (ironically) be rented out to tenants who want to operate small farms (chickens, goats, etc).  But, most houses are so far gone they can't be redone and are left to nature.  The abandoned structures around the Valley were what I wanted to photograph last November.

It turned out that the day I scheduled to drive around there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so the light was particularly harsh.  But, on the plus side it wasn't pouring rain so we weren't going to be tromping around in the mud.  We got around to several structures in the Valley.  It was the first chance I had to test my new setup with the X-E2 and X-T1 (which I was able to pick up on sale from B&H while we were in town).  It was so much easier running two bodies, than having to switch out lenses constantly.  I shot the whole day using the X-T1 with the 10-24mm and the X-E2 with the 18-55mm.  I decided to shoot the entire day in black and white to emphasize the moodiness of the subjects and make the light a little more interesting.

Camera X-T1, Focal Length: 10, HDR blend

Camera X-T1, Focal Length: 10, Exposure: 1/30, f/5.6, ISO 400

The best part of this little project was that my parents came along with me and my Dad showed me some spots I didn't know about.  He had found this cabin years ago, and it was my favorite location that day.  The cabin was pretty far off the road and we had to cross a sizable creek to get up to it,but it was worth it.  This place was fascinating.  The central beam had completely collapsed, taking the roof with it.  It had clearly been the victim of vandals.  There were bullet hold in the shutters, and the interior had been spray painted with grafitti.  We tread carefully around the fallen logs and exposed nails.  The most unique aspect was this beautiful stone fireplace and chimney.  I would love to know the story behind this cabin.  I don't know if it was an old hunting cabin or something the park put in at one time.  It was in the middle of nowhere and completely falling apart, the perfect mysterious structure to start the day with.  The light was really difficult to work with, so I created the first shot by blending multiple exposures.

Camera X-T1, Focal Length: 10, Exposure: 1/500, f/5, ISO 400

This abandoned farmhouse is an area that is still inhabited near the village of Peninsula.  It wouldn't take much to get the place livable again.  I liked it because it was just a classic American farmhouse.  Now the once white fence is coming apart, the gutters have fallen off, and weeds choke the old flower beds.  It reminded me of the American dream, now faded and falling apart.

Camera X-T1, Focal Length: 10, Exposure: 1/400, f/10, ISO 400

 This is just a single family home that is on a prime piece of property.  The poor house is totally falling apart.  I found this to be the most depressing structure we stopped at.  You could tell that a family lived here at one time.  There was a large bird house in the front, and a soccer goal in the back.  Ivy was taking over and the paint was peeling in sheets from the walls inside.  It was a shame to see such a nice place falling into the ground.

Camera X-T1, Focal Length: 10, HDR blend

 Now, this spot is a little more positive.  The house is outside the park in the City of Cuyahoga Falls.  The local Northampton Township Historical Society is looking to remodel it back to its original 19th century state.  Right now the property is well maintained and the nearby barn has been completely redone.

Camera X-E2, Focal Length 18mm,
Exposure: 1/180, f/7.1, ISO 400

One of the last properties we stopped at has a little more known history behind it.  It used to belong to my grandparents until the Park bought it.  They stayed there as tenants and my grandmother remained after my grandfather passed until shortly before she too passed away in 2005.  It had a couple more tenants who halfheartedly tried redoing it before it was finally abandoned.  I can't tell you how bizarre it was to see the place as it is now.  I hadn't been in there in over 10 years.  Ivy was growing through the building into the breezeway, the paint was coming down in the kitchen and living room, vines were taking over the whole western side of the house.  It was creepy and surreal.  The visit was probably even stranger for my parents who also had lived there for a short time after getting married.  We spent a lot of time there, walking around the property, laughing about memories, and chatting with the neighbors.  The place was a mess.  It was a shame.  But, the story wasn't unique to the area.  It was probably a similar tale to the ones that belonged to the other properties we visited.  Once they were homes and loved places, now they're fallen ruins and forgotten.

Camera X-T1, Focal Length 10mm, HDR blend

Camera X-E2, Focal Length 18mm, Exposure: 1/180, f/5, ISO 320

Camera X-E2, Focal Length: 28.9mm, Exposure: 1/40, f/11, ISO 320

After that, it was time to head out to run other errands, but at the end of the day the clouds finally started to roll in and there was the potential for a beautiful sunset.  Thankfully, everyone was willing to let me make one more stop, even though it was starting to get blustery and cold.  After a whole day of shooting in black and white, I decided to switch back to color.  The spot was near the Cuyahoga Falls farm house from earlier.  This time I wanted to capture the barn.  The last time I saw the barn it was like all the other buildings we had seen that day, faded and falling apart.  However, the city had recently redone the barn, and my father helped paint the sign on the south wall.  Not all the buildings are in ruins.  This building had been given some life again.  There we were back in a classic Americana scene, except this one was more hopeful.

Camera: X-T1, Focal length: 10mm, HDR blend

The rest of these photos are available for viewing on Flickr (including a few of abandoned buildings in downtown Akron) and some are now up for purchase on the capturedglimpses.com