Be careful what you shoot.... do things ever vanish after you capture them?

[robklurfield]

After passing this barn frequently for the past 20 years, the second day that I had my M8 I decided I'd better capture an image for posterity. Lo' and behold when I next passed the site two weeks later, the US Dept of Interior had removed the barn. Haven't shot the empty space yet. Can't take credit for the disappearance either. Liked the barn; sad to see it to go. This is in the Great Swamp National Wildlife Reserve in northern New Jersey.

Anyone else had something big and tangible like an old wooden barn vanish after you shot it?

First time this happened to me was in 1983. Shot some pix of a place on Canal Street or Houston in NYC called Dave's Lunchonette. They made great knishes and egg creams. Took some b&w pix w/ my M4. A month later Dave's was gone, replaced by a fast food place. Got look for the negatives.

 

[robklurfield]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37531245@N08/3451796116/

 

[Bassism]

I've not shot something that disappeared, but I do wish I had.

There was an orange lodge in a village where I grew up. It was pretty much on the front lawn of the house of a good friend of mine. It had long since been abandoned by my time, but it still stood there and was very much a part of my image of the village.

Recently they took it down. I seem to remember that it was moved to somewhere else, but I can't think of where it would be now. In any case, I wish that I had taken some photos of it at some point. Whenever I drive into the village the empty space where it used to be is a little disconcerting.

 

[Bob Michaels]

2007 - James Jenkins, locally know as "Weasel" in Shelby Mississippi.

In 2008 Weasel passed out in the middle of HW 61 and was run over by a truck. When I stopped by to express my condolences to his friends, I found that the abandoned Big C's restaurant had been demolished. The only good news was that Big C himself was scheduled to be released from Parchman Farms (MS prison). Apparently he used to sell more than food at the restaurant.

As a documentary photographer I only photograph Southern culture that I believe is disappearing.

 

[benmacphoto]

Almost every thing I shoot disappears, or is no longer the same. I photograph construction site, so many times I shoot a building that is undergoing construction and a week later it is an empty lot.

 

[JFH]

Old barns and buildings in northern Maine, happens all too frequently. They burn, collapse or are just torn down. No economic reason to keep them up. a lot of history is disappearing. It's depressing. I've got several before and after sets.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It's not just the buildings that need documenting. Cultures change too, as people become assimilated into the dominant culture. Immigrant groups tend to become one with the surrounding community within a couple of generations. The younger people get involved in forming distinct cultures, from hippies in the 60's to goth and hip-hop today.

Race relations have changed. Blacks, whites, and whatever now live in the same neighborhoods, go to school together, and play together. Mixed race couples are no longer the oddity they were twenty years go when I started dating a Jamaican woman. People would stare when we'd walk into a restaurant together. Now it's a common sight. I recently sold a bunch of 1970's vintage photographs of Miccosukee and Seminole Indians to a Boston publisher. They wanted pictures depicting the Indians during that relatively short period of time when they'd moved out of their camps in the Everglades into houses on the reservations, but before they nearly completely abandoned their traditional ways with their newfound casino wealth.

I guess I'm just more of a people photographer than a building photographer, but the changes are still there.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Many things.

Replaced by a Walmart and a shopping center

Torn down the day after I took the photo. A bulldozer was in front of the house over the weekend. I photographed on Sunday, house gone Monday.

Torn down to make way for a development of McMansions.

Cut down nearly 15 years after I first began photographing it. I cried the day I saw that the Hiding Place tree was gone.

 

[robert blu]

this house in my home town was destroyed in order to make place for a big building just a few days after I took the shot
robert

 

[martin s]

This building was gone a few weeks after, I sure don't mind.

//EDIT: @Chris Scrawford All your images have something nice to them, even if I don't care about the subject all that much (I do most times, in this case, too) the quality is just real great. I can't even properly describe it.

martin

 

[semrich]

I've had things I've seen that I wanted to shoot and were gone when I got back. So I haven't got any photos to post.

 

[btgc]

I've had days without camera, when I see opportunity for exposure - and after returning there after an hour, day or week, it all has changed.

That's the volatile nature of world.

 

[feenej]

I do brownfields re-development projects for work. We actually are required to take before and after photos. It's sad to walk into an old abandoned and blighted factory where people lived their lives and earned a living for many years. I found an old cabinet in an old ad department of a factory one time a year or two ago. There were hundreds of beautiful old 8x10 b&w photos of smart looking guys in suits with clean and wonderful looking products.

 

[blackwave]

I have a recurring problem which is related, but much less fortunate for me! I see something and in my mind I make a mental note to come back and shoot it when I have time and by the time I do it's gone!

It happened just recently for me. There was this giant metal statue of Jesus adorning the entrance to a subdivision down the street from me. This thing had to be 25 feet tall and made quite the impact. Next to it was a sign saying "DUPLEXES FOR RENT" with a phone number. It reminded me a lot of Elliot Erwitt's photo (http://www.magnumphotos.com/CorexDoc/MAG/Media/TR3/F/P/Z/E/NYC17120.jpg)

Anyway, he disappeared a couple weeks before Easter. I was eager to see if he would reappear on Easter Sunday, but alas, he did not. That would have made me chuckle though 🙂

 

[ebolton]

I shot a fishing boat, which sunk mysteriously killing two a few weeks later. A company that makes underwater ROVs assisted the Coast Guard in the investigation of the accident, and somehow found my picture here on RFF (it was here and on Flickr). Turns out it was the last known shot of the boat. I ended up allowing the Coast Guard to use the picture, as well as the ROV company to use it for their marketing. I was a little spooked about shooting fishing boats after that, and have only just started again about 3 years later.

 

[35mmdelux]

old maxim: He would hesitates loses.

 

[robklurfield]

Of course, if your timing is good, sometimes you can catch them in the act. This was in Normandy Beach, NJ where I was awoken one morning by some awful racket. Looked out the window just in time to see a neighbor's 60 year old vanish.

 

[robklurfield]

FYI, that last shot was cheating, as it was taken on a Digilux 2. However, I think I can defend myself on this since the M8 didn't exist in 2006.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37531245@N08/3454018824/

If one of you smart folks will show me how to make big images uploadable to RFF, I'd be much obliged. How do you all get these big pix to fit within the site's meager file/pixel size constraints. My ten thumbs, two nearsighted eyes and one addled brain can't seem to sync together long enough to load a decent size pic. All help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[martin s]

This one is a little too obvious, eh?

Well, it was gone a few minutes later.

martin

 

[robklurfield]

The motel still exists, but the sign vanished a few months after I shot this. It was in Lakehurst, NJ, site of the famous Hindenberg zepplin explosion. Nice to know that the original "hotelier" was proud enough that his town hosted such an event that he thought to memorialize it with his sign. Little did he know that the sign itself was mortal, too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37531245@N08/3453229997/