What happened with my big project?

Happy Sunday everyone. Today I wanted to give you all an update on what has been going on with me. A lot of people have been asking me on how my documentary film project on abandoned spaces has been going and for me it is on hold. With all of the medical issues I have been going through the past couple of months like my constant migraines and my hiatal hernia, plus how much work I have been getting for my business I decided to place this on hold. 

So speaking of medical issues after a few visits to the Dr and some new medication I am happy to say that I have not had a migraine for almost two weeks now. The hiatal hernia is under control so I am happy about that but on the flip side mr Dr is sending me to see some specialists to see if they can get to the root of the problem. 

So I think that I am going to wait until the holiday's before I restart the project. Hopefully by then I will be feeling completely better and can tackle this project head on. 

Now I need to end this blog post for today as I need to get another video editied and sent out to the client. See you all next week.

Beauty and Decay with Amira

Time for another throwback for this weeks blog post. I know I promised some new material for this week but I wont be able to release the images until next week so I should have it up for next Sunday.

A few weeks ago I shared my most recent shoot from my Beauty and Decay series and today I wanted to share one of my earlier shoots. Amira and I met a few years ago at the NC State Fair and we instantly became friends. I knew that I wanted to shoot her for my series and I had the perfect location to shoot.

Right across the highway from South of the Border was an abandoned hotel. If you are unfamiliar with South of the Border it is a highway rest stop on the NC and SC line off of interstate 95. It is well known for all of the billboards that advertise it for hundreds of miles in each direction. When I was a kid and we would take our family trips to Florida I remember bugging my dad to stop there.

Ok let's get back on track. Amira and I drove down there early in the morning and spent a few minutes walking around looking for spots to shoot and then we got to shooting.

One of the neat things that I loved about this location was that the front wall of the hotel was gone and all the rooms were exposed and it gave so much more of a decayed look. 

There was some interesting graffiti in some of the rooms.

We then moved on to what was left of the playground. There used to be a huge spaceship playground on the property but I think most of it was stolen over the years but there was still a spinning carousel setup there and I asked Amira to ride on it and get a few pictures

Of course she wanted to spin on it too and have some fun.

Amira has an amazing tattoo that covers her entire back and I wanted to get a shot to feature it. I had her sit in the grass and I got the image below. This was a my favorite image from the entire shoot.

Next it was time for an outfit change and we moved over to the pool area although there was some very nasty water in the pool Amira was a trooper and went in and stayed in the dry area and we got some shots.

It was just about time to wrap up the shoot and we decided to get one last look. We pulled out a table and char from one of the rooms and took a few shots.

We had so much fun shooting at this location and I would love to go back there again but I found out through an urban explorer friend of mine that there was a fire and it destroyed what was left of the buildings. At least I was able to capture some amazing shots from this place. 

Well that's it for this week. I really hope that you are enjoying the blog posts every week and I promise to post some new material for next week as I should finally be able to share my images from the Portrait Pallozza event. 

My obsession with all things abandoned

For todays blog post I wanted to do another throwback and talk a little more about my love for all things abandoned. A few years ago I got the opportunity to visit and spend the day exploring the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. I went with my friends Sterling and Harry and we met up with a couple of Sterling's friends up in WV. 

Since this was a 5 to 6 hour drive away we decided to make a vacation out of it. We drove up a couple of days before and decided to explore the state and see what we could find. West Virginia is a beautiful state with a ton of abandoned places to explore. We just drove around going down back roads to see what we could find and we found some goldmines. 

After driving down this back road with many twists we came upon this old house and when I say old I mean that there was no bathrooms inside this house old. I took some video and posted it to YouTube.

The next day it was finally time. The 5 of us met at the asylum in the very early morning and we met our guide for the day. While abandoned this place is open to the public. The ghost hunters have filmed episodes for the TV show here and they lead group tours but for today the 5 of us had the whole place to ourselves.

Our guide had mentioned that the place is haunted and that there is a ghost of a 9 year old girl that roams the halls. People leave toys for her throughout the facility. The first part of the asylum we toured was an area that was restored.

The one restored section of the hospital. 

Yea it's nice and all but I want to see decay. The main hospital was 4 floors and was a huge facility. We got a tour of each floor and then we had an hour to photograph it and then we would move on to the next floor. Below are some of my favorite images from the main building. 

Looking into the cafateria 

I love long hallways

Some of the many toys left for the ghost.

Is this creepy enough for you?

This was the only ghost I saw that day. Do you see the face?

My favorite shot of the day.

After we got done touring the main building we got to explore some of the outer buildings. There was the women's center and the building for the criminally insane. These buildings were the most decayed and were the most fun to explore. Since there was only 5 of us we were free to explore these buildings on our own and we were by ourselves for a good portion of the afternoon. It really made me think about what went on in these buildings. The guide had mentioned that a lot of lobotomy's were performed in this facility and it must of been hell for a lot of the patients. 

Another hallway. This was in the women's center.

I dont know what it is about bathrooms in abandoned buildings that I love so much.

And another hallway. 

Found the morgue. The guide said that people like to get their picture taken on the slab.

An old coffin. 

I hope to come back here again someday. Maybe when I start filming my movie I can make this one of my stops. Thanks for reading my blogs every week I really hope that you enjoy them. I promise to have some more new images soon. 

Time for another throwback

Hello everyone! It's Sunday and that means it's time for another blog post. This post is coming out later then usual as I normally write these on Saturday and then post them on Sunday morning but last night Jeannie and I went out to celebrate a friends birthday and it was also daylight savings time so that is my excuse. Ok on with the blog

For this week I wanted to do a throwback to a cool place that my friend Nita and I explored. She had told me about this old leaning barn that was in the middle of nowhere in southern Virginia. My friend and urban exploring buddy Sterling had shot the barn and the pictures were amazing and I decided that I needed to see this place for myself. 

We hit the road very early in the morning as we wanted to get to the location for sunrise and it was about a 90 minute drive to get there. After a couple of wrong turns we made it just as the sun was coming up. Got out my camera and got this shot.

I fell in love with this shot. The contrails from the planes and the road all led up to the barn. After this shot the sun was really starting to come up so it was time to try to get some different angles of this amazing barn.

The crazy in me decided to go inside to see if there was anything of interest in the barn. I felt that is was stable enough and I made sure to stay by the door so I could jump out quickly if I needed too. All that I really saw inside was a bunch of empty bottles of DDT.

As I was finishing up taking my photos I decided to get one last shot and I shot this HDR photo which turned out to be my favorite shot of the day. This is 5 shot HDR.

After i processed these i decided to make prints out of the first picture I shoed and this last one. The first one I had printed on canvas and the HDR I had printed on metal. When I got the metal print back i was floored on the amount of detail in the photo and how much it popped. I have hung both of these at the gallery and have sold a few prints of each. Every first Friday I get so many nice comments on this photo and I also get asked if I photoshopped the lean into the barn. I have to tell them that I am not anywhere near the skill level to do something like this in post. 

Now for the sad news. About a month after I shared these pictures another friend of mine made the drive up to photograph the barn and all he found was a pile of rubble. I am not sure what made the barn finally fall but it made me sad as I wanted to go back again and photograph it in different lighting conditions.

Well thats going to do it for this weeks post. If you would like to see these images in person please come see me at the gallery on the first Friday of every month. I am at 311 Gallery located at 311 W. Martin St. in downtown Raleigh. I will see you next Sunday for another post. 

The start of a very big project

Hi everyone! For this weeks blog I wanted to talk about a project that I have been wanting to do for quite a long time but I have been putting it on the back burner as I took care of other things but i figured it was time to see if I can actually pull it off.

As many of you know I love to photograph abandoned buildings. There is something in the decay of these old structures that just draws me to it like a moth to a light bulb. i have also been falling in love with shooting video and filmmaking and I have been studying filmmaking and honing my editing skills while running my own YouTube channel and the Peace Camera YouTube channel. Now that I feel that my skills are getting better I think I am ready to take the big leap on this idea.

So what the idea Dave? Just spit it out already. Ok so here it is. I want to make a documentary film all about abandoned places. I want to start out by filming some of the local places that I have been to already as well as meet up with other urban explorers like myself and interview them on what fascinates them with abandoned buildings.

I would like to travel around the country visiting a lot of abandoned spots that are high on my list of places to visit. This includes abandoned malls, schools, hospitals, factories and amusement parks. If possible I would even like to hit certain places around the world. One place I definitely want to visit and is the number one place on my bucket list of places to go would be Chernobyl in the Ukraine.  For years I have dreamed about visiting there. Yes I know it is the site of the worst nuclear accident in history but It has been over 30 years ago and it is now relatively safe to visit and they now lead tours through there. But it is an entire city that has been abandoned so I have to go if I get the chance.

So how am i going to do this you ask? Good question. I am hoping to do this with some help. I am starting to work up the numbers on the expense that this undertaking will be. Once I get all of that figured out I am going to record a trailer and place it on Kickstarter or Go fund me and try to raise the funds for this. I also need to figure out what my backers will get in return. One of this things I would also like to come out of this project would be a book documenting all the places I have visited and maybe offer limited edition prints as well. I want to make sure that I do this right and put out a product that I can be proud of and stand behind. 

Yes I know that this is a big undertaking. I will be bringing in help as needed and if I need to figure out a timetable for completing this project. I am estimating that this would take two years to complete. This would give me a year plus to travel to these locations and film and then about 6 months or longer to edit. Once it is done I would be submitting to film festivals to try to gain exposure and then I would hope to get it out on the mainstream media.

So yes this has been what I have been thinking about for quite a long time. I cant wait to get this started. I am working up the numbers and starting to cut a trailer that i hope to release within the next month or two. I hope that you will support me in this adventure. I will keep everyone up to date here on my blog and on my other social media accounts.

Until next week I will leave you with a few of the videos I have done in the past of abandoned places. 

Beauty and Decay with Jackie Tabor

For this weeks blog I am very excited to finally be able to share these images from a recent shoot. I had wanted to post them last week but since I had submitted these to some magazines for publication I was unable to as they require the images to be exclusive. Unfortunately I did not make it into the magazines but there is still hope for one more but they don't require the images to be exclusive.

There is an old abandoned house next to my apartment complex buried in the woods and is really only accessible during the winter months when all the leaves are on the ground and the bugs are not out. I had tried going in there during the summer months but I kept pulling ticks off of me and trying to avoid all the spider webs as well.

Since we have been having a warm February I reached out to a model that I have known for years on Facebook but I never had the opportunity to work with named Jackie. I reached out to her and explained my beauty and decay concept to her and she was in. My wonderful girlfriend Jeannie provided the dress for the shoot as well as a headpiece that she made for me as well as some props that we had found during some of our shopping trips.

The day of the shoot arrived and it was a beautiful morning. Jeannie did the makeup and we walked over to the abandoned house. 

We then walked back further into the woods to an old tobacco barn and fired off a few more shots.

I really loved the way the light was coming through the hole in the roof. This was Jackie's idea for this pose by the way.

As we started heading back I decided that I wanted to try one more pose. There is a few old cars buried in the woods by the house and I wanted to see if I could capture something with the car. This is the result.

Well that is going to wrap it up for this week. I am really going to try to get out and shoot a lot more for myself this year. Working with my girlfriend Jeannie on some of her shoots has really inspired me to do some more creative portraiture. Until next week. 

Model: Jackie Tabor

Photography: David Spector Photography

Make-Up: Jeannie Nadja

Wardrobe: NEW LOOK dress |JNS DESIGNED headpiece 

A Little Throwback

So for this weeks blog post I was trying to figure out what to write about. I haven't shot anything this week but I will be going out shooting tonight so I will have something cool for next week but I had nothing to share for this week. My wonderful and amazing girlfriend suggested to me that I do a throwback to some of my older work. So because she is so smart I decided to take her up on her idea and do a throwback blog post today.

So what to write about? I decided to write about one of the many abandoned locations that I love to visit and photograph. One of my recent favorites is an abandoned school that my friend Sterling told me about and we decided to visit it on one of the coldest days of the year.

The lone Red chair

It was 18 degrees that day and for me I love the cold weather but even I was freezing as we explored the school. The first place I went was the auditorium and I found this scene. I loved how the red chair was sitting there all along facing the rest of the chairs. I also found a piano and organ in there and got a shot of that.

My next stop was one of the classrooms and I saw all of the chairs stacked up and I thought it would make a great black and white image.

Nowhere to Sit

Then I wandered down to the library and when I saw this scene I was in awe. I always am amazed when places are abandoned why they leave everything behind. This library was full of books and a red leather couch. This was my favorite image of the day.

Overdue

Finally I decided to check out the upstairs which required walking up a very narrow staircase and the top floor of the school was a little dangerous to walk around as the floor was a little weak but I was able to get this image of one of the classrooms.

We got out of there after that to avoid being noticed by the neighbors. I did also shoot a video of the school and I will have the video below for you to watch and enjoy. I promise to have some new content for you next week.