Insiders Guide: Ground Rules Revisited

My lead post last year when I introduced the Insider’s Guide for paid subscribers contained some of my own basic ground rules for photographing old houses. If you have subscribed since then, you may have missed it, so here is a reprint.

“How do you find these places?” I get the questions every day. Maybe it’s time to start answering. After a decade of “finding places” all over the South, I do have a few suggestions.

Most any Southern town of a certain age, large or small, will provide an old house enthusiast with plenty of opportunities to find, photograph and share beautiful images. The rub comes when confronted with time. Half a day or more can be wasted by wandering up the wrong streets (as in, nothing older here than 1977), or by finding the perfect subject, except for the fact that the sun is now behind it and the only thing your camera sees is a black silhouette. Would you like to inquire about how I know all of this?

Over time, I have perfected a system that makes the best use of my efforts. Beginning next Friday, and every Friday thereafter, I’ll focus on a singular town and give insider tips on how to find the best streets, the hidden gems, the iconic houses, and more.

But ahead of that, here are a few basic suggestions that apply across the board, gleaned from many years and many mistakes on the road. I hope these will save you the same trouble:

Look Ahead: Learn what you can before you go, while you have time to burn. Once there, you’re burning not only time but daylight. And for a photographer, daylight is the ballgame. Search online with search terms such as “Historic houses in Natchez, Ms.” or “National Register of Historic Places in Kershaw County, SC”. Buy a few books dedicated to the subject - Amazon is full of them, both new and used. Look for websites that point you to the historic treasures. In other words, do your homework, take notes of what catches your eye, write down street addresses, etc., and make a plan.

Check Ahead: This is different from “look ahead”. It involves making sure you’re headed into a safe area. Learn how to use Google Maps and Street View. If you are unsure about a location, find it on Google and see what’s up. Look at the approach, look at the neighborhood around it. The last thing you want to do is simply go by a street address and then find yourself ten blocks into a sketchy area or two blocks down a really scary dirt road from which there is no quick or easy exit. Again, ask me how I know. Street view will also tell you something incredibly important - it may very well tell you if the subject is even accessible to photograph. High walls, fences, heavy vegetation between the street and the subject - all can factor in.

Keep Your Eye Peeled: Surfing social media sites dedicated to old houses can provide a wealth of great ideas about places and houses to visit, but there is an unwritten rule of etiquette. Do your own work. If you see something that catches your eye, make note of whatever information is offered freely, but past that, find the rest of the info on your own. There is nothing more annoying or transparent or insulting than a lazy old-house enthusiast who thinks that all they need to do is cherry-pick the person doing the posting and then turn around and post a location and act like they found it all by themselves.

Check the Light: The height of frustration is to arrive at a wonderful old house after a three-hour drive only to find it at the wrong time of day, backlit by the sun and pretty much useless to photograph. Check your maps. If a house faces east, for instance, common sense tells you the front will be lit in the morning and dark in the afternoon. Time of day can make a big difference as well. The “golden hour” - first hour after sunrise and last hour before sunset - is ideal, but generally first three and last three hours of daylight give better results than mid-day shots. The same structure can show up in a photo looking like two different houses, depending on the light.

Check the Seasons: Trees full of leaves can completely hide a house, so check street view to see if it affords any clues in that regard. Some of the most glorious old structures are visible only in winter when all the trees are bare.

Mind Your Manners: The vast majority of my photographs are taken while standing on public property - a sidewalk, a street, a country road, a parking lot across the street. Just because a house is famous or noteworthy does not give permission to violate privacy. Do not barge up a long driveway or march up a sidewalk or traipse across a front lawn. And, God forbid, don’t go knocking on doors or peering in windows. Without prior permission to come close, and unless a property is open to the public or on some sort of home tour - use common sense manners and keep yourself out of trouble.

Avoid Guided Tours of Interiors: This is not antisocial advice, but rather a practical necessity. Guided house tours are usually very time consuming. They can take up to an hour, with a lot of that time used while standing in crowded room after crowded room listening to a docent explain the significance of the lace curtains - and - the photo opportunities will most certainly involve a room full of people who don’t belong in the shot, before you are all compelled as a group to move on to the next room. In a town packed with great old houses, you can spend an afternoon and hit maybe two good house tours - or - spend that same afternoon and come home with fifty beautiful exterior shots of fifty different houses. That math, for me, is not hard to do.

Hope this at least gets your wheels turning and perhaps lights a fire under you to hit the road and see what’s out there. Above all else, have fun.

Photo of Hunter House, Madison, Georgia, by Beth Yarbrough.