Posted by Shar (Regina, SK, Canada) on 21 June 2007 in Architecture and Portfolio.
So, did you go in? I love the abandoned building shots --abandoned anything for that matter. A while back I asked you about safety there and expressed my concern here in Texas about being shot for trespassing. Not long after that I came across this website http://www.lostamerica.com/ There are a lot of interesting night shots of "the abandoned" here, and if you scroll down to the image titled "Hearse 2006" you'll find a comment about being shot on sight, for trespassing, where the photo was taken --in California. So, I guess it's not just Texas where you have to worry about this.
Of course, I don't want to get arrested either --or worse-- have my camera confiscated. In Texas, anything that's fenced is private property, no trespassing, posted or not (and doesn't have to be fenced if it's posted). Unfortunately, everything I've seen lately that looks abandoned has been on the other side of a fence.
25 Jun 2007 10:30am
@Twelvebit: Thanks for commenting and being concerned about my safety. I must emphasize that we do try to locate owners and ask permission but often there is no one to ask. If there is fences, they have long since fallen down and the grass has overgrown them. If a property is posted "No trespassing" I do NOT enter. I have never taken any thing and truly try to leave the property in the state I found it in IE. doors closed etc. Another thing that is probably different here is the distances between inhabited homes. In many of these areas we drive for miles and do not encounter another sole, much less the owners of the abandoned farm yards. Maybe we've just been lucky but we have had no bad experiences photographing abandoned farms. Mostly, just silly grins and comments such as "Sure, if you want to", when we ask permission! Thank you also for sharing the website, I will check it out.
I didn't mean to come off as being so anal. What I'm actually expressing is something more like envy. I wish I lived where I had your freedom of exploration. Texas is particularly short of "public" property (for example, I often drive for more than 150 miles on business trips without seeing a single foot of unfenced land between towns), and law enforcement in the US is too frequently over-zealous. All the time I come across photo sites of US photographers that discuss all kinds of hassles from law enforcement (and ironically, the police usually don't know the law and are enforcing laws that don't exist).
27 Jun 2007 5:06pm
@Twelvebit: I didn't think you were being anal...good to be reminded of the freedoms we have here that do not exist in many other places! I am sad for you that you miss out on the opportunities we take for granted. I guess the grass is not always greener on the other side! Good to be reminded from time to time! Thanks for your comments.
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