Mystery Factory

Just a few shots from another of my favorite places to shoot.  Next update, I'll post a bunch of the shots I've taken of models over the years here.

I don't know what the original purpose of the building is, but there are a lot of nifty little places to shoot and interesting things to check out there. I love that style of window and it's everywhere in that building.

This location is a different angle of the same room that contains the giant, red wheel.  It's part of the Armour Meat Packing plant (which I talk about here).  I love the color scheme that the room has and the state of disarray of the environment makes for an interesting story in my mind.  What mad science is going on in the far corners of the building?

I really like the high contrast with all of the intricate lines and shapes and even colors in the image. It's personally one of my favorite photos of the place.

In the Halls of Heaven...

I took this photo in January of 2010.  The front door to the building was wide open and I was in an exploring kind of mood so I checked it out.  I have other photo previews at the bottom from the same building, but from various shoots.
  I digress.  This is the state of the building in 2010, before any real restoration work or preservation has begun on this building.  there was a blue tarp over the front of the entrance, but it had just been put up.  There weren't even any no trespassing signs when I went there.

  I did a little bit of digging online and learned this amazing building I had been in is none other than the James Clemens House, named after an uncle of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain.  There's no evidence that Twain lived here for any significant length of time, but certainly he spent time here in his youth.

  I went into this building not expecting anything in particular.  I walked through the front door and headed straight for the giant four foot wide staircase that took up half of the hallway.  The wood was in good condition, the plaster on the walls faring relatively well.  I walked up the stairs, turned right into the first doorway I happened across and stopped in my tracks.  The above photograph is the room that I stepped into and held my breath.

Outside the Hall

  To say that the space was holy is not untrue, at least from what I experienced there.  There was a lingering quiet about the place, even as I heard birds chirping from outside the room somewhere.  But a peace washed over me as I walked into this sanctuary and I was humbled by the vastness of the room as well as the toll that the elements had taken on it.

  I've returned to this building since then but the doors were all sealed and once, when I pused on a door to see if it would open, an alarm went off.  One day I noticed the front porch overhang had been removed and that was bad enough.  But then this morning I was able to return to this beautiful building that I had come to cherish so much, and decided to visit my room and see how she was faring in the 3 years since I had seen her.  This is the sight I found.

  The building had been cut away, braced as you can see so it wouldn't fall completely over.  There was no "inside" any longer, just a beautiful alabaster and marble archway that would soon be dissolving in the rain.


  To be really depressed, go look at what this room was like in 2003 at the following: http://www.builtstlouis.net/clemens3.html

P.S. - Trying to post more photos with blog isn't working out as well as I'd hoped.  Bear with the technical difficulties for me, please!

#urbex #photography #abandoned #MarkTwain

In the Hall of the Mountain King

Every time I look at this photograph I think of the musical composition "In the Hall of the Mountain King".  While I don't think the music matches the mood of my photograph, the name of it certainly does which is why that is its title.

I first saw this building a few years ago, when I began my #urbex sojourns and wondered what it was like inside.  I kept finding other places to explore and being distracted from going to this particular building so it eventually fell off of my radar.  Eventually, after three years or so, I saw it again on my drive around the city and swung past to check it out.  The outside of the building is overgrown with vegetation and has lost a fair bit of its glass from the windows but all in all it is still a very sturdy building.

I went in a week later and was awed by the sheer amount of junk that had been left in the building.  I have found no end of bizarre things in this space; broken widescreen televisions (a dozen of them or so), a recliner, thirty or forty highway patrolman uniforms from Illinois, cases of abandoned soda, piles of papers of course, plastics used in forms and even a fully intact cat skeleton  (that was taken by a model of mine and turned into a mobile...don't ask).

This was one of the first photographs I took that day entering into the building.  The thing is, this is the middle of the building, not even the front.  That's a good eighty feet behind me.