Ovid

I have been photographing abandoned farmhouses since I first came to upstate New York as a college freshman in the fall of 1960. There is something about these buildings that absolutely fascinates me. Perhaps it has to do with the sense that these buildings have stories to tell, about the lives that have been lived here. As I photographed this farmhouse today, I wondered what it looked like when it was brand new, and I wondered who built it, and what their life was like. There is a richness to the architectural detail in most of these buildings. But more importantly, there is a power in ruins that draws me in every time. This building is by the side of the road about a mile south of Ovid, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes.