Abandoned Church Little Grand Canyon

Two things I learned this weekend...There is a difference between SR 85 and I85.  SR 85 will get you to Atlanta in from Columbus 4 hours while I85 will get you there is 2.  SR 85 however is a lot more scenic and if you long winding dirt roads that seemingly go nowhere dont scare you then there is a lot to discover.  I also learned that some of the best places to photograph are quite literally in the middle of nowhere.  This church is one of those places.  On a whim, I saw an old church by the roadside near the little Grand Canyon in Columbus GA and decided to just photograph the outside of it and the graveyard, as I walked around the building to my surprise, the door was open and that was a bonus beyond what I could have ever hoped for.  As a photographer this is the equivalent of winning the lottery.   Bibles and hymn books were laying about as if they had been left there for 100 years.  The church had a rustic and peaceful presence.

Snowbirds of St Petersburg

I had the high hopes of this trip turning into a great opportunity to capture life in Ybor city, etc. Sadly I eneded up with a double ear infection and sinus infection, which spells - dizziness, headaches and your head feeling like it has been skewered.... all the wrong conditions for taking photos..
I was however able to crawl out to the beach one morning to capture some shots of elderly people doing what they do best in St Petersburg, wandering, wondering and relaxing..

I felt like this guy here....

...and wanted to crawl into a shell like this guy

Day Trip: The Abandoned Milledgeville Asylum

My friend David and I decided to take a day trip to the abandoned Milledgeville asylum....

This abandoned asylum and hospital is really a ghost town...32 abandoned buildings on a quietempty campus.  The only noise you can hear is the rustling of the wind through the leaves and occaisionally the sound of the security guard car making its rounds...The silence and emptiness is eerie.   The history of this asylum is rather sad,there were  many documented cases of patients being mistreated physically or sexually , patients were unethically experimented on and many thousands of individuals died without so much as a personalized grave marker other than a number.  This was the place where society's undesireables were housed:  families would drop off mentally ill loved ones and forget about them, except in quiet whispers.  This asylum harkens back to the time when mental illness was shamed and one was put in a precarious social situation if mental illness was discovered in a family.
 "Do you know" I mentioned to David, "If we were standing here 50 years ago, you would quite  possibly be on the other side of this wall?"  My friend David is gay and homosexuality was considered a mental illness in the 1950's.  The thought of that made me incredibly sad...

Old rusted bed
frames sit outside the hospital

An abandoned bench sits outside the old abandoned hospital

Life at the asylum itself  was perilous for the staff .   Nurses and staff members died at the hands of criminally violent mentally ill individuals.   Many of the doctors on the staff had alcohol or drug abuse problems themselves....  Sadly many children were sent here for such things as bed wetting or running away where they were housed with general population including violent, psychotic individuals.  I can only imagine the horrors they endured...

The very creepy Jones Building

This site is a favorite with urban explorers, and yes, there ARE ways to get into the buildings.  We found a few openings... however, you would not want to go into them...trust me.  Most of them are infested with bugs, rats, bats, snakes are whatever else you can think of.  There are trespassing signs posted.  Many of the older buildings are in an advanced state of decay/collapse and I am surprised that they do not have fences around them at this point.  I was happy enough to be able to stick my camera through broken windows on the ground floor.     In the future we may go back and try to obtain a permit to get into some of the buildings ...

The sadness here is easy to feel to say the least.  I am quite sure if I was a location scout for The Living Dead or Vampire Diaries, this place would definitely fit the bill for an onsite location shooting...The creepy factor is an 11 on a scale of one to ten and you always feel like you are being watched by someone.

Basement of the hospital

3000 plus individuals died here anonymously, these are the only signs they ever existed.

Hospital supply room with product flier still attached to the door

Probably one of the saddest rooms, a barred holding cell about the size of a prison cell

The outdoor cage rooms for letting the patients outside

 could this  be the building where it was reported a sadistic doctor would perform horrific experiments on patients?  It just had such a sad and hopeless vibe....

Small signs of humanity still exist such as this waterfountain

patient number 499..another number, another forgotten soul

abandoned office room...notice the window on the door

Welcome to my Blog site and thanks for stopping by!

I started this blog so that you might follow me on my everyday adventures as I capture them on film

I am happiest when I am traveling to new places, finding new adventures to document  and retelling the story visually .  I  am a visual story teller.  My goal is to document everyday life as seen thru my eyes.   Sometimes my adventures are in my own backyard, sometimes down the road and sometimes in a different country altogether...I also enjoy capturing images of unique individuals that I meet along the way. I have found that every person and place  has a story to tell .

 I look forward to bringing you my stories/adventures from on the road and from every day life! Cheers!