Have you been given eyes that penetrate the surface, that see with the heart?
These pictures–an old, dilapidated, long-forgotten barn, and the door to a business no longer in service, haunt yet delight me. There’s intrinsic beauty in each but I can’t quite put my finger on why that is.
Do you agree or just think I’m crazy? I won’t think less of you if you disagree, but I’m thankful to see beauty in the ordinary, in the every day, in the forgotten…even in the broken.
Both are in keeping with this week’s Thematic Photograph theme, "Faded". Please visit Carmi at Written Inc. for more themed pictures.
The barn’s lovely Robin. Reminds me of an extract from “Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance” :
… strange how old and obsolete buildings … always seem to look so much better than the new stuff. Weeds and grass and wild-flowers grow where the concrete has cracked and broken. Neat squared upright lines acquire a random sag. The uniform masses of the unbroken color of fresh paint modify to a mottled weathered softness. Nature has a non-Euclidian geometry of her own that seems to soften the deliberate objectivity of these buildings with a kind of random spontaneity that architects would do well to study.
I always want to take pictures of old abandoned homes, barns, things like that. My husband thinks I’m nuts.
I’m glad to find someone else who’s the same brand of nuts. Pistachios, apparently, judging from the prior post!
I really like these pictures. The barn is the same concept for me as watching the homes as I drive down the highway. I love to look at the houses and wonder about the lives that are lived there – are they happy? what food do they eat? what is day-to-day life like there? is it different than mine?
The barn is beautiful because it makes me ask the same questions – who owned it? what animals lived there? did little girls or boys have to go out each day and milk the cow or feed the horses before school? what feelings did this barn invoke in its owners? I just try to imagine this barn in its heyday, what was it like?
As for the plant in the doorway – I love it when plants find the ability to grow in the most unlikely places!! It gives me hope and encouragement. Sometimes I find myself in places like that and I hope I find the ability to grow anyway.
Jill
I used to love to paint old barns like this. I went through a very long “cool old barn” phase. My paintings were never very good, but I enjoyed it. 🙂
Totally agree…i think more beauty is found in age than in newness.
I’m totally with you on the barn thing. Those little old houses that you see in the middle of nowhere that are about to collapse just fascinate me. I want to know who lived there and when. What was it like living in that little house? Where did they go from there? My questions are endless.
I’m totally with you! One of the reasons I’ve long been fascinated with stuff that’s seemingly faded is because its beauty is so much more dimensional than the sleek perfection that clogs up the middle of society’s bell curve.
You have to look harder, to think, to ponder how it has evolved over time, how it has interacted with its caretakers through the generations. The beauty isn’t solely in the visible, then. It’s in the pieces that we can’t see, that our minds have to recreate as we imagine what it must have been like to stand right here long before we even existed.
Seen from that context, the factory fresh stuff never even had a chance.
The beauty is in the history, the memories implied by such well-worn facades.
Looks like an adventure waiting to happen! I also just love old buildings and have to wonder what those walls have seen and heard! I am off to Sydney in a couple of weeks to take the kids to see some historical buildings, I will have to make sure I take lots of photies!
I agree bigtime. I look for things like this. There is a collaboration of color, texture, lines, history, and character all mixed in with how it is captured by you, the photographer. I love this. 🙂
P.S. I think you’d like today’s theme on my photo project if you get a chance.
I agree 100%! Those photos are amazing. the stories that barn could tell… I also find myself wondering about the things I pass daily on my travels… who are the people and what are their stories?
That song was AMAZING! I want my eyes to be like that too! Thanks for the link to it… I think I’ll go listen again!
Love the old and broken. They hold so many stories. The beauty is unmatched, it is a special beauty only us special people see. 🙂