Pollard House

Noel Kerns
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Pollard House
Pollard House

You've come this far...you REALLY need to view this one large on black to see the detail in the front of the house.

An old, abandoned farm house in central Kansas, a few miles north of a tiny town called Lyons, at a spot in the road called Pollard.

I had known about this exact house before I ever Ieft for Kansas, and honestly, it was to be the centerpiece of the trip for me. To my eye, this is such an iconic place; the design of the house, the windmill, the perfect setting on a gentle hill...all of these things just made it a perfectly photogenic subject. In fact, if I'd more time to arrange it, I had hoped to find a local model to bring out there with me...I had an idea to attempt to create a nighttime photographic reproduction of Andrew Wyeth's iconic painting "Christina's World". This house is so close in style and design to the one in that image, which is one of the greatest American paintings of all time.

Ultimately though, it's probably a good thing I didn't. Just a couple minutes after this exposure, the first of the night at this location, Derek and I were run off from this location (our second straight eviction of the night, no less) by an overly-intrepid off-duty state trooper, who saw our cars and called his on-duty partner, and they both showed up to confront us. Suprisingly, after they told us to leave, they both got in their cars and sped off, before we had even packed up. We briefly considered staying onsite, but decided that surely one of them would be back by in a few minutes to make certain we actually left.

The frustrating part for me was...this image wasn't even my primary vision for what I wanted to do here. I hadn't really even envisioned light-painting it on the inside; I just did this one almost as an intial test exposure, since we had entered and explored the house and we were standing on the 2nd floor. We decided to try this shot, and Derek stayed on the 2nd floor and strobed that area, while I ran back inside and covered the first floor.

Shortly after that, the party was over, before it really even began...

Night, full moon, red-gelled strobe and CTO-gelled X2000.

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Taken on: July 20, 2009
Tags: Everybody's photos tagged with Kansas Kansas Everybody's photos tagged with night night Everybody's photos tagged with abandoned abandoned more » Everybody's photos tagged with Lyons Lyons Everybody's photos tagged with Pollard Pollard « less
Sets appears in:   • Night Work    • Personal Faves    more » • Kansas    « less
Groups appears in:   • Night Images    • FlickrCentral    more » • RUSTY and CRUSTY    • Abandoned    • LIGHT PAINTING    • beautiful decay.    • Eerie Creepy Encounters    • Kansas    • Windmills    • Haunted Houses, Buildings & Other Creepy Places    • After Dark - Night Photography    • Old & Forgotten    • DFW Metro    • Barns, Sheds and other Rustic Rural Buildings    • Eye Candy!    • Abandoned, Neglected, Weathered, or Rusty    • Nocturnes - Night Photography    • Murder Shack    • Decayed yet Hauntingly Beautiful    • Windmills: The old fashioned kind.    • Rural Deterioration    • Nikon Digital Learning Center    • Nikon D300 Users    • Dark Kansas    • Once was home    • One Frame Mag (submissions)    « less
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