Paranormal Activity?
This was probably the freakiest photo shoot location I’ve been to and am pretty sure I had my first paranormal encounter here. Here’s the story:
This winter, I set out with my friend Ben in Pennsylvania for an abandoned coal facility that I had shot at before. Problem was, I hadn’t been there for over two years. It was a lot freakier this time than the last. To make matters worse, it was cold and pouring down rain. We decided to venture in anyway and immediately I felt some sort of odd feeling that is hard to explain. The whole time I was shooting I felt like I was being watched. People make that statement all the time and it’s easy to roll your eyes at it, but I truly felt that. It seemed as if someone was lurking around the corner at all times.
This feeling of uneasiness lasted the entire time we shot. In the middle of shooting a set of brackets, I started to hear strange metal clanking sounds. (Now is a good time to point out that there was absolutely no wind blowing) Thinking that it was just something swaying or moving from the rain, I kept shooting. The clanking was almost rhythmic, something that a dangling pipe wouldn’t do. It would speed up and slow down, all at regular intervals. Ben and I decided that was a sign that it was time to go. I packed up my gear (at this point the noise stopped) and gathered up my tripod and umbrella. As we stepped outside, the real freak out occurred.
Outside the huge front door, there is an old truck (looked like a 1960’s model) half sunken in the dirt and junk that litters the area. The exposed radiator fan on the truck was spinning full speed, silently. A little taken aback, I walked toward it. As I took a few steps, the fan drastically slowed down and suddenly stopped. Now, being that this truck has been sitting in that spot for all this time, there is no way that rusty fan could turn so easily, right? And what’s the explanation for it’s strange deceleration?
I just wish that I hadn’t put my gear away, who knows what I could have captured if I shot that old truck. It was quite simply the strangest, most unexplainable thing I’ve experienced. Just as the uneasy feeling had swept over me as we entered the property, it disappeared as we left. As we walked back to the car excitement and wonder set in. But the entire time we walked, I couldn’t help but look behind my back…
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photos ©2012 Zach Frailey
Outside the Box
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This is a different take on the subject of yesterday’s Weathering Storms. As I find new locations and add to my Abandoned NC project, I have an increasingly difficult time deciding between processing and posting the completed image in color (as originally intended) or in black and white. Each image that I’ve completed resides on my hard drive in both color and black and white, by the way. I have decided to share this old boathouse, from a little different an angle, in black and white today. It’s a step in a different direction as I don’t share much black and white photography, but I feel that sometimes the lack of color can speak wonders of a scene. I’m interested to hear the feedback on this one.
The shot: Nikon D90, 18-105mm VR lens @ 40mm. Single exposure- f/16, 1/200 sec., ISO200. Edited in Photoshop CS4 with some Nik Color Efex tweaks, finished in Nik Silver Efex Pro for black & white conversion.
555 | Rural Eastern North Carolina
I’m beginning a new series titled, ‘Abandoned NC,’ that will focus primarily on rural abandonment in Eastern North Carolina. There are many, many of these big old farm houses that have been left to be reclaimed by Mother Nature in this part of the country. Driving around, I have always noticed them and somehow felt drawn in to them. I can’t help but wonder what they looked like back in their prime. How many kids played in those yards? How many long days of farming went on in the now overgrown fields around them? How many young couples lived there and grew old together? There is so much untold history in these places that it is next to impossible to uncover it all.
This home had the address ‘555’ clearly viewable above the front door. I noticed it immediately and knew that’s how I’d always remember this home. Despite the obvious age of the house, it looked fairly structurally sound; just a slight lean. Through the smashed out windows I could make out at least two fireplaces inside. Seems to have been a pretty nice house in its time! Now, the farmland meets the backdoor and there is very little evidence that it was ever inhabited.
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