So I'm back on home soil and have a simply huge amount of stuff to go through, as you'd imagine. The trip I just undertook was easily the most fruitful as far as explores go and I saw some awesome things. So before the jetlag kicks my arse too much here is the first slice, a gorgeous church in a really very shady, dangerous city. More on that later...
After finding a way in that was almost too easy we set about shooting it for a little while, basking in the beautiful pastel shades inside, the intact stained glass and it's general lack of damage from morons which was surprising to me considering where it is.
Like most churches of this size in blighted and downtrodden ex-industrial American cities, it struggled to hold on to a dwindling congregation before being forced to close and now has an uncertain future in a city that has little money to spend on building projects and precious few private investors wanting to stump up the cash either.
The altar, although it looks to be made of beautifully crafted marble, was in fact made of cheap plywood painted to look like marble. I guess there's less chance of it being stolen if it's worthless!
There wasn't much of note in the back rooms other than a hefty safe built into one of the walls.
Now on to the whole reason I called this city shady...Our original target in this city was a large school, however on getting in through the only way in and out we were confronted by some very recent fire damage. No matter, we picked our way through and headed to where the auditorium was. The three of us stood in the corridor and were suddenly acutely aware of a series of loud banging noises as well as shuffling sounds coming from upstairs. This really didn't sit well with me and one other in our group at all as the banging only happened when we moved about, as if someone was trying to get us to leave. I have learned never to ignore a gut feeling and every fibre of my being wanted out of that school at that moment, so we managed to stumble across the access point after some pretty frantic wandering. We climbed out safe and no more than ten seconds after we found ourselves back on the street a police SUV turned into the school's parking lot - we didn't hang around to see what happened afterwards.
Always listen to your gut!
After finding a way in that was almost too easy we set about shooting it for a little while, basking in the beautiful pastel shades inside, the intact stained glass and it's general lack of damage from morons which was surprising to me considering where it is.
Like most churches of this size in blighted and downtrodden ex-industrial American cities, it struggled to hold on to a dwindling congregation before being forced to close and now has an uncertain future in a city that has little money to spend on building projects and precious few private investors wanting to stump up the cash either.
The altar, although it looks to be made of beautifully crafted marble, was in fact made of cheap plywood painted to look like marble. I guess there's less chance of it being stolen if it's worthless!
There wasn't much of note in the back rooms other than a hefty safe built into one of the walls.
Now on to the whole reason I called this city shady...Our original target in this city was a large school, however on getting in through the only way in and out we were confronted by some very recent fire damage. No matter, we picked our way through and headed to where the auditorium was. The three of us stood in the corridor and were suddenly acutely aware of a series of loud banging noises as well as shuffling sounds coming from upstairs. This really didn't sit well with me and one other in our group at all as the banging only happened when we moved about, as if someone was trying to get us to leave. I have learned never to ignore a gut feeling and every fibre of my being wanted out of that school at that moment, so we managed to stumble across the access point after some pretty frantic wandering. We climbed out safe and no more than ten seconds after we found ourselves back on the street a police SUV turned into the school's parking lot - we didn't hang around to see what happened afterwards.
Always listen to your gut!