I began writing my own journals/ diaries as a kid in the early 1970's. There are at least eight books, most of them full of my thoughts, blabs, and so on. As I have moved from place to place along my life the books became collected in a plastic container with a lot of photos I'd taken from trips to BC, visiting my Aunt Emma and wandering around Vancouver, staying at hostels and hotels. Travelling on the Greyhound bus, which doesn't have that cross Canada route any longer. Family and cat photos too. the odd hand written page about this and that. Ephemera collected from my adventures.

I had seen the box, less than a year ago, stuck in the garage where my brother had put it. I didn't move it into the house, mostly because I live in one room and didn't have space for it. Of course, not every decision made due to laziness, indecision, etc. is not always the best choice. Earlier this year my brother began clearing out everything from the garage. He found the garage was infested with mice and rats from the past tenants leaving a lot of garbage in it, outside of the garbage put out in the regular pick up. I noticed the lid of my container was cracked, it wasn't before. But, again I put off doing much about it because I didn't want to figure out what to do with it. I looked at getting a new container for it, but didn't get one. So it sat outside in rain and I thought it was safe with another box on top of it to block water and it was under the roof of the garage, outside.

Today, my Mom opened it and found the water has gotten in. Mostly everything is damaged, some of it is ruined and it really stinks! I can see fungus/ mold on it. I can still smell it, even though I've washed my hands several times, changed clothes and left all of it out in the laundry room.

The plan is to sort through the photos and pick out what to keep. Most are ruined, all the ink/colour washed away from the paper. Some of them still have an image left in the centre. So, a few I have saved so far. Some (not many) are untouched by water. Ironically, most of them are from my wedding and I don't really care about them as much. There are a lot of them which were dripping wet still and hugely stink. I will try to sort them today. But, I have little hope for them.

I think I will bring my scanner out, hook it up to my laptop and scan all the old journals. Better than retyping them, I would have my original hand written pages, just made digital and less mildew and moldy. Then, sadly, I will throw away all those pages and books I've kept for so long.

The next thing is what to do with all those scanned pages. I guess I can post them here, as images with dates. That will make this a really long/ old blog. I think the earlies pages are from before the 1970's. One nice thing about scanning them is being able to see my penmanship over the years too. Retyping them can't do that. Plus, retyping them would mean guessing what some of them are. Instead of leaving it as original to figure out more than just once. Handwriting isn't as reliable as type, but its far more personal and artsy.

Anyway, that's what I will be doing over the next few weeks. I think it will be sad to dispose of the old journals themselves. All those originals. Some of them I still remember who gave me the blank journal or where I bought them from. I guess I can add that to the notes as I scan and post them.

Two of the interview questions from the Cemetery Travel site. Read the interviews and find more questions on the site.

What’s your favorite thing to do in a cemetery?

What would your epitaph be?

If I were younger and still more romantic, my favourite thing to do in a cemetery would be a picnic. You would need to come prepared, not just the usual picnic things. You might check in with the people who maintain the land and be sure a picnic is welcome there.

Next, once you are there, find a good spot. Cemetery land tends to be knobby and bumpy. You might think its all manicured, perfect cared for lawns, its not always the case. Usually they are knobby due to insects, weeds, and no doubt other things I don't know about. You won't want too much shade or sun and a sunny day will at least save you from mosquitos.

I would not plan it as a Gothic looking thing. I don't see it as a gloomy event.

Now, at this age, I like visiting cemeteries just for photography. Finding the oldest stones, even those I can't read due to weathering or plant growth. Sometimes I can read them better from the photograph I take. I also look for ornate carved or sculpted stones. I especially like those with stone flowers. Its nice to see what people have planted around the stones too, or if they have left pennies, pebbles or other little mementos on the gravestone.

I'm not ready to write my epitaph. I'd like to visit, as a ghost or whatever is available, and read what others have written.

I noticed this quote on an abandoned Blogger site today.

"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on Earth which can make them come back again." - Henri Cartier-Bresson

It applies to almost everything photographed. From a smiling child to the sun itself. Nothing stays exactly the same forever and the photographer won't be standing in the same spot, with that same angle, at that same time either. Something will be different, maybe just the weather. Maybe how the photographer feels or gets different perspective. Life is about change, but a photograph can capture what was there, while it was there.

This is what rephotography can showcase. The changes over time and other changes to our culture.

I looked at the photos of barns in this post. To me, most of them are inactive, not actually abandoned. They are still maintained, enough to not be falling down, don't look salvaged for barn boards, etc. So, they didn't really seem abandoned or derelict. Probably someone else would consider any barn not actively used to be abandoned. I guess it is all perspective. Are you someone using a barn or someone photographing it, looking at it for history, art, or industry/ agriculture or architecture?

I have not (so far) found a link to the photographer, John H. Busch or his fellow explorer, Mary Lynn Busch. There are good points in the post about exploring, history and photographing old places in Ontario. I've copied and pasted parts of the post, not in order so I can keep topics, like photographing the barns together.

Tips for Photographing Abandoned Barns

It’s interesting how you can photograph the same subject several times in one day and capture a different result each time, depending on the location of the sun, cloud cover, and location of the point of view. I learned through experience that my best colour photos are taken on cloudy days, but it is hard to exclude sunny-day shadows for good contrast.

I have shot and compiled a selection of these abandoned barns. For various reasons, it’s sometimes difficult to get the proper perspective while photographing these structures. Some are set far back from the road; there is often the presence of trees and foliage; and sometimes the time of day isn’t ideal. I believe some of my best photos of these barns were taken during the winter months, due to the absence of foliage, but ironically some of the best colours were during the summer months. Most of the barns are plain and unpainted, but a few are painted “barn red” while the odd one is white or green.

The Beginning of the End

The barns with missing boards or ones that have had part of their metal roofs blown off are the ones I refer to as doomed. Once this process begins, the barn will collapse relatively quickly. A year or two of rain on the dry hardwood beams, coupled with an entry for the wind to blow through, often speeds up the process. Gravity always seems to win in the end.

Another factor that contributes to the disappearance of these old barns is economics, including property taxes. Once the landowner realizes that the barn, which is often completely empty, is costing extra money in tax assessment, an excavator is brought in and the barn is dismantled quickly, often leaving the original farmhouse as the only building on the property.

To this day, terms such as “top plate, girt, corner post, brace, bent, mortise and tenon” still come to mind whenever I see different barns.

Source: Readers Digest: Abandoned Barns of Southwestern Ontario | Our Canada

I haven't heard of all of these, so I expect some will be news to other photographers too. This matters especially when you are selling your photographs. If you are writing out something about the rights people have with your photos, these would be good terms to know.

Photos have copyrights assigned to them and you need to make sure you’re following the laws. Here are some things to consider:

• Editorial Use: the right to use in blogs, websites, magazines, newspapers, etc.
• Commercial Use: Can be used to market products/services.
• Retail Use: Can be used to create and sell physical products.
• Exclusive: Only one person can buy the license to use the photo. No-one else can use the photo.
• Non-Exclusive: Numerous other people can buy the license to use the image.
• Public Domain: There are no restrictions on the use of the photo.
• Creative Commons: Can put conditional usage of the work, until it is not required by law.
• Royalty Free: Anyone can purchase a license for the photo and use it for an unlimited amount of time and duration.
• Rights Managed: There are distribution limitations when you purchase a license. This is often the number of times the image is used/viewed by users.
• Rights Of Publicity: The subject of which the photo is used for is restricted.

Source: How To Sell Photos On Shopify - ShopThemeDetector