The Vision Beautiful.

When I met with Lauren for our shoot, we went through her closet and picked out some outfits to shoot in. I particularly liked her vibrant red coat, which I said made her look like Carmen San Diego. She said she didn’t know who that was, I said she missed out on a part of childhood.

She told me about an abandoned house she shot at the night before with our friend Andrea Huemmer. It was a strange house, three stories tall, not including the inaccessible basement, and everything left from the 1980’s, still intact, even a can on New Coke.

It was down a long driveway, with a locked gate, in a nice neighborhood. When we had to climb over the gate, Lauren got worried the neighbors would call the cops on us. She had never trespassed during the day before. The photographer in me thought, ‘how quaint’. When making our way down the long driveway full of leaves, Lauren moved in a way that could only be described as “leap-sneaking”, looking spectacularly conspicuous. I told her the trick to trespassing is to act like you belong.

As we stepped onto the porch, we saw old family polaroids scattered around. The doors were unlocked, three cars still parked in the garage, and even board games laid out in the attic. I’ve seen a lot of abandoned houses, but few that brought about so many questions. It appeared someone was trying to build their dream home for their family, and all of a sudden gave up without ever returning.