Abandoned – Ken's Photography and Travel Blog

More Relics in Rural America – Part 5

This is a continuation of photography of old, abandoned homes or other structures that I’ve found, while traveling in middle America.

It is unusual for me to come across such finds as this late in the day with the sun low in the sky or with such great clouds in the sky from a clearing rain storm. I had to walk through tall grass to get near enough to shoot this old homestead in Middle America.

This tiny house (or storage building?) is behind the bigger house (first image).

Walking around to the back side of the tiny house, I found this pile of rocks from the collapsed structure, an old cast iron bathtub and other debris.

The title for this image is inspired by the small object I spotted in the upper left corner of the door frame. I know that object might be too small in this image for a viewer to identify, but it is an old Prince Albert tobacco tin. Prince Albert tobacco is still produced and it was very common and popular, when I was a kid growing up. Empty, discarded tins like this were common litter items back then.

There are two abandoned houses at this homestead, the one in the first image and the one in the image above.

Shooting the windmill from another direction, shows the first house and the tiny house in the background.

There are modern electric power generating windmills on the far horizon in this image, indicating the continuity of wind energy in Middle America from the past into the future.

Thanks for following,

Ken

More Relics in Rural America – Part 4

This is a continuation of photographs of rural relics I encountered in a spring of 2025 road trip through middle America.

Didn’t I always shelter you from the rain and the cold? Wasn’t I always here, when you returned from a hard days’ work?

More relics are down the road,

Ken

More Relics in Rural America – Part 3

More photos taken in rural America, during an early June 2025 roadtrip.

My first inclination was to call this “Puddle House” for an obvious reason. I had to shoot this old, abandoned house from a fence line near the roadway with a big zoom to get the close up image.

More relics are just down the road,

Ken

More Relics in Rural America – Part 2

This post is a continuation of photographs of relics I encountered during my June, 2025 trip to and from Badlands National Park, South Dakota.

This old house in a small rural town has so much lean that it appears to be relishing its status with a “swagger”. It was raining lightly, when I stopped to photograph here, so I moved around as expeditiously as I could, while capturing these images. Weeks later, when I got around to processing these images, I at first thought that my lens had distorted this old house, since I did not recall noting this much lean in real time. After examing multiple images, I had to conclude that the lean was not exaggerated by my camera.

The concrete pad out front with the water hydrant, makes me think this could have been a business site, maybe an old service station?

Across the street from “Swagger”, is this old boarded up house with a metal roof that seems to be in much better condition than the rest of the house. Maybe this place has not been abandoned for too many years.

There were a number of other abandoned homes and other old structures in the same neighborhood. “Made in the Shade” house seems to be relaxing in the shade of a tree, retired after a long life of sheltering others.

“Not as Neat as I Once Was” is done with the days of neat and orderly, with more important things to contemplate in its old age.

This old home has multiple outdoor laundry facilities.

“Gravity Wins” is the likely future for the abandoned structures in this post.

More Relic to come,

Ken

More Relics in Rural America

On my way to and from Badlands National Park in early June 2025, I drove through many small towns and rural areas between Texas and South Dakota. I always keep my eyes open for photographic opportunities to break up the long drives. One of my favorite targets for such are old, rural structures, especially those that appear to have been abandoned. This post will feature some of those photographs from this trip.

I spotted this magnificent old house just a few miles before my first ovenight stop over in Kansas. It sits well back from the roadway in an open field. I shot from a fence line near the roadway with my 24-70mm, then used my 80-400mm to get a closer view of the house.

The following day, not long after leaving my overnight area, I spotted more intriguing structures, which required some minor rerouting to get close enough to shoot.

This stone house appears to be in fairly good condition, but seems to be abandoned. It is not far from a dirt road, but there is no indication of any roadway access to this structure.

I had to walk a considerable distance on a muddy, dirt road in a drizzling rain to get close enough to shoot this old one and even then I had to stop at a fence line and photograph from a distance. I had only brought my 24-70mm lens mounted on my D850 and wished I had put on my 80-400mm, when I had to stop at that fenceline.

There was another, smaller structure, in similar condition, down the hill from the house, but I was too far away to get a good shot of that with my 24-70mm.

I would have liked to have gotten closer, but I did not want to cross that fenceline and trespass, since that fence was obviously there to keep people out. There was no evidence of graffiti, which I suspect is an indication of the lack of easy access from the local roadways and the remote rural location of this structure.

Stay tuned for more Rural Relics,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2023, Part 4 – Old Country Home

Abandoned Home 1, Indiana Backroad October 24, 2023

I found this old, abandoned house just a short distance from the cabin in which we were staying in the fall of 2022.

I returned this fall (2023) to photograph it again. The fall leaves had mostly fallen the year before, when I found it. This year the fall color was good and not yet peak.

The house is little changed since 2022, but the weeds around it were taller and thicker, as if the lot is more neglected now.

Abandoned Home 2, Indiana Backroad October 24, 2023

More Indiana Fall to come,

Ken

Indiana Fall 2023, Part 2 – Old, Leaning House

Leaning House 1, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana

I first photographed this small, old, abandoned, leaning house in the fall of 2022. It is just off of the highway running through Bean Blossom and Morgantown, Indiana. My wife and I drove past it a number of times this fall (2023) and I stopped once to photograph it, while the trees still retained most of their fall foliage.

There are other homes and buildings nearby this house, which I tried to keep as much out of the photos as possible. That limited how I could compose these images.

Leaning House 2, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana

Leaning House 3, October 24, 2023 Bean Blossom Indiana

As I returned across the highway to my vehicle, a woman leaving the parking lot stopped to tell me that there had been more old structures where the parking lot and a store were now located. All those had been taken down to put in the store and parking lot. I wish I had been around to photograph those now missing structures.

More fall photos later,

Ken

Cuervo, New Mexico, March 2023, Part 6

In rural U.S. it is not unusual to see bullet holes in abandoned objects and road signs. This is perhaps a sign of the U.S. love affair with guns. Shooting at such objects as this abandoned vehicle could put other in danger, since there are still a few people in this area and many vehicles pass through on I-40.

Cuervo Ghost Town – Abandoned Automobile

One can see in the image above an indication of the traffic along I-40 through Cuervo. I usually tried to wait until there was no traffic in the background of my shots, but sometime that required more time than I had the patience for.