The Animal Farm House

Pat doesn’t live here but his animals do. He was working at the back when I found the old house. He invited me to take all the photos I liked, but he doesn’t want people bothering the animals when he isn’t there. The old house is home to goats, turkeys, chickens and ducks.

The Camera as a Divining Rod

I found this description on a site, Worksongs (now 404) by Andrew Emond.

I had just been talking to my nephew yesterday about that feeling of talking photographs without looking at every detail not relevant to the photograph. While I’m photographing, my mind goes into a different place. I’m seeing everything as light, shadow, angles, clear versus blurred, and so on. I don’t catch the words on a gravestone but I see that they will (or won’t) turn out clearly enough to read in the photograph. I walk around to find the angle that catches the mood, without taking the time to decide what the mood actually is. At least not in words.

It is a different connection to your surroundings when you look at everything a little distanced and yet more connected in other ways. I liked the analogy of the camera as a divining rod. So I have reposted Andrew’s description, as a quote. He has another site: Andrew Emond.

Worksongs Photography

Name : Andrew Emond
Location : Toronto / Montreal

Intent : Worksongs is basically the end result of me trying to gain a better, more direct connection with my immediate surroundings. I look at the camera as a sort of divining rod. It helps lead me to things I wouldn’t normally consider examining or give much thought to, like industrial processes or the way communities are evolving. I’m particularly interested in how elements of the old world are fitting in with the modern world, or in some cases aren’t fitting in at all — essentially where our society has come from and the directions we might be headed.

Art & Home Reposted the Old House from Bradford

One of my photos was included in an article about abandoned houses, on a site called Art & Home.

They added it from Pinterest, known for being a great source of photographs (I’m joking). So there is no attribute or link to me.

It bugs me that I don’t seem to have my original image file for this photo (and most of the others from this house) any more. Every image I have is shrunken, smaller than my original. I shrunk them for posting online and maybe the big originals were lost somewhere along the way. I keep hoping I will turn them up.

As far as the Pinterest thing, what can you do? There’s a lot of theft online, intentional and unintentional. Easier to just post the image than backtrack it to the source. Even if you find a source, how can you know it is the right source. Things are pretty messed up. This is why I am working on watermarking images before I post any more of them. Where ever they wander, at least there will be something to show where they came from. In theory.

Want to find this house? You won’t. It was demolished years ago. Bradford, Ontario.

Bruce Brigham Abandoned Ontario Books

I remember the original website, which you can still see (the front page and not much else) with the Wayback Machine. I could not find an update about Bruce Brigham and both of his web domains abandonedontario.ca and abandonedontario.com are parked/ 404 now. Not a good sign. I exchanged an email with him, once, long ago.

I did find one of his photos posted to Pinterest. There is also a surviving link for a few pages and photographs on Tumblr. No new posts. I found another lost link which had posts about his books, pinball machines and working with Mac computers. But that domain was sold and is being using by another business now. I also found a pinball video, about collecting and maintaining the old pinball games.

There are also two books, which are very hard (which probably means expensive too) to find. Both are listed on Amazon but not available. I found a photo of the second book via ebay.

Kevin McElheran’s Abandoned Church Photo

I tried to find the photographer, Kevin McElheran online. No luck, just more abandoned or broken links. I did find a description which was posted with another copy of the same photo, on two other sites. So, some background information about how the photo was taken. But, I still don’t know what happened to Kevin McElheran from Calgary, Alberta.

“This abandoned 100 year old church is what’s left from what was the rail town of Sorrento, British Columbia. I was driving through this area late one night when I noticed a train in the distance approaching which outlined this structure in it’s glow.”

I think the church is Notch Hill Church, not Saint Mary’s as the description says with the photo above. Notch Hill Church is in Sorrento, BC and it is located right at the train tracks. One sites says it is Tappen, BC.

One way or another, this seems to the the church photographed. It was being restored but the site stopped posting in 2014. In 2016 I read a report about building materials being stolen from the site. The project is on hold due to lack of funds to replace them. The photo below was taken before the renovations began.

DanOCan – STST2017: Notch Hill Church

Chatham, Ontario Old Photos of Buildings in the Town

Originally found in an Etsy shop but I lost the link.