Riverside State Hospital

[kts]

Some History:

This insane asylum, as it was once called, sits hidden amidst green rolling hills, with a grand view of the mountainous landscape and a river running nearby. The main building on the campus is a gothic-revival style Kirkbride design, where male and female patients are separated by the two wings on either side of a central administration section.

Construction began in 1868, and finished in 1871. A unique revision to the Kirkbride design was that because of a lower expectance of female patients than male, the female wing was built at almost half the size of the male wing - the original design calls for a symmetrical building.

The Kirkbride had to be modernized as running water, fire escapes and other new technologies were worked into building codes, making the basements a nightmarish maze of pipes and wires squeezing into the spaces of the old design. The state hospital eventually expanded to over 100 buildings, the largest of which is a nine story building that looms in front of the Kirkbride, and the facility was treating over 6,000 patients at it's peak. All the patients were eventually moved out of the Kirkbride sometime around the mid 1970's, and the wards have since fallen into major disrepair. Administration was still used however, until around 2001 when the property went up for sale and was eventually sold to a developer.

In June 2007, the larger male wing had caught fire, destroying much of this section of the building. The cause was determined to be lightning, as the lightning rods had been removed during renovation. The future of the building is now uncertain.

Nothing like starting off the day with some Southern Comfort


Let the colors shine on through


Cramped


Windows


The Wobbly Room


Sinks of Darkness


Damage Control


Godbeams


King of the Castle


Male ward hallway


That sinking feeling


Horse Mittens!


Home is where the Hearth is


Female ward hallway


June '76


NO SMOKING


Buttons!


Operation


Orange


Rubble


Boring sink shot


Washing out


This thread needs more wheelchair


Cave in

[blalor]

Wow. These are phenomenal!

[schmoo]

K-diggity,

Are you looking for feedback on these shots?

I have to say I've not seen floors that deteriorated before. That's quite a sinkhole location! Glad you guys made it out safely.

[photocat]

My heart is bleeding. I always feel the pain if an old building is left to die a slow death... Especially when signs of former life are still there.
Beautiful photographs, the wards especially touch me... So do the paint chipped walls.
I guess you guys risked some serious bodily damage yourself walking around there... But definitely worth the risk if I may say so.
It is also gut wrenching if you know that so many mental patients ended up as homeless, on the streets... I do not understand as an european that they let Aaron those buildings rot while so much people are homeless.
Beautiful pictures!
Would a Blurb book be on the way????

[mANVIL]

Great stuff man. That is one of my favorite places to shoot.

Glad you made it through, that place really isn't safe at all.

[kangamangus]

Wow!!

Wonderfull risky photographs!

The feeling they give me is soo erie!
Must of been a bit creepy being in there, however great shots!

Love the sinking in shot where there is dirt/dust actully falling in the sinkhole!

Have you heard/seen this site: http://www.infiltration.org/home.html
Check it out, similiar stuff

[kts]

Originally Posted by schmoo

K-diggity,

Are you looking for feedback on these shots?

I have to say I've not seen floors that deteriorated before. That's quite a sinkhole location! Glad you guys made it out safely.

I'm always looking for feedback. This was my 2nd shoot with the D300 (The first was the day before) so I was kind of shooting blind and not used to the differences in the D300 yet. I had to do a bit more work in post processing then I'm used to but I did learn a few things (I learned curves!) In the short year that I had my D50 it's been interesting getting used to how a new camera does things differently (and usually better) but I was so used to how my old camer worked.

Originally Posted by mANVIL

Great stuff man. That is one of my favorite places to shoot.

Glad you made it through, that place really isn't safe at all.

This place was a lot like Indiana, I didn't realize how awesome it was until after I got home and started processing my photos and then I got sad and wished I had spent more time there.

I still think I like Northwood a bit better but then again I am a sucker for seclusion rooms.

Both places were really shady with the flooring, I'm not used to that, I guess things have a way of decaying and becoming more unstable there then down our way. We're lucky the rubble didn't shift when we were on it at times, otherwise we might have ended up impaled on jagged wood or old rusty pipes. The SoCo definitely helped provide some liquid courage. ;)

Originally Posted by photocat

Beautiful pictures!
Would a Blurb book be on the way????

Thanks!

I had been thinking I was going to try to get some of my stuff shown at a local gallery/studio/bar/something but after seeing schmoo's book I may try to do something similiar. I'd like to get a few more photos I REALLY love first but it's something I've thought about. A local bar shows art and photos from local people and about a year ago they had a bunch of stuff from a local explorer which was pretty cool. I'm hoping I (or myself and a few other explorers I know) can get something like this together.

Originally Posted by kangamangus

Have you heard/seen this site: http://www.infiltration.org/home.html
Check it out, similiar stuff

I'm an active member there. :)

[photocat]

Let me know when the blurb book is available!!! I want it...

[schmoo]

Originally Posted by kts

I'm always looking for feedback. This was my 2nd shoot with the D300 (The first was the day before) so I was kind of shooting blind and not used to the differences in the D300 yet. I had to do a bit more work in post processing then I'm used to but I did learn a few things (I learned curves!) In the short year that I had my D50 it's been interesting getting used to how a new camera does things differently (and usually better) but I was so used to how my old camer worked.

Speaking of the bar that was showing his photos, this morning on my commute to work I watched the wrecking ball go nuts on our favorite ex-power plant!

I don't give feedback unless the OP invites it, hence my asking. As I said before it's almost unfair to criticize because the shots you're putting up now are so vastly different from the shots I was seeing even just a few months ago. WTG! As you master your camera it'll just get better. I hope you can upgrade your digital darkroom to make the processing easier and less burdonsome for you. Processing is half the fun.

My $.02:

I've gotten into that argument with manvil about Quality vs Quantity. I have nothing against a whole slew of shots that take me through a journey into a place but I find that being more selective with the photos you choose to work on not only lessens the "Good lord I have 3000 photos to process once I get home / Where will I find the time?" feeling but also kicks your set up a notch. For historical architecture this does battle against the documentary tendencies that we sometimes have. After all, if that shot of the boiler room didn't turn out well and I trash it, no one will ever know what the boiler room looked like, right? But It's up to you. I see 4 shots of the same/similar windows in this set, for example, and I'm not sure seeing them that many times is really accentuating their beauty or showing me something more unique about them beyond the first photo.

I'd also be more sure of your perspective and your angles/leveling before you hit the shutter. A lot of these seem kind of haphazard to me, which is fine if that's what you're going after. I do kind of feel like I'm bound in a straitjacket and unable to move off the floor, which may have been your intent but I'm not sure. After all, it was an asylum!

[Tee Why]

Nice series. I especially like the oens with light coming through the stain glass windows.

[kts]

schmoo, thanks for the feedback. :)

I also am hoping to upgrade my digital darkroom soon. I just got The Gimp 2.4 which adds lens distortion correction and perspective correction so I need to play with that to see what that can help me fix.

I'm saving up for a new laptop to replace the current one I use and do most of my processing on since it's slowly dying and processing photos is SLOW, especially with the larger images from the D300. Once I get a new laptop I might even start shooting in RAW... (GASP!) I'm currently debating between a Macbook and another Windows-based laptop. I have been playing with my girlfriend's Macbook and liking it so I think I'm going to save a bit more and make the switch. Until I figure out what platform I'm going with I'm kinda sluggish to get Photoshop since I'm not sure which version I need to get. I'd also like to get Lightroom to see what that can do for me too.

I think I have a skewed view of things since my photos always seem to look crooked to people even after I level them. Some of it might be from the barrel distortion of the camera but a lot of it is probably just that I guess my head isn't level when I level my camera for the shot. I had a bubble level for my hot shoe but I broke it in Baltimore a few weeks back so I'm waiting for the new one I ordered to get here from Hong Kong. I did notice it helped out with my shots. Most of these I swear I used the level in my tripod to try and level it but they still came out a bit off.

I usually do shoot my photos a lot lower than other people, usually the legs are still folded up or maybe the 1st section is extended, I rarely seem to have my tripod all the way extended, I guess that's just how I take photos.

And you're right I do have too many of the same shots. It was hard getting into a lot of parts of this building so I guess I was trying to make best with what I could see and shoot. I did really enjoy this place and like how a lot of these came out so it was tough to slim down what I posted.