Palmdale Insane Asylum

Last friday Riki and I were driving in circles in the Antelope Valley looking for something to shoot. Every preconceived idea we had on the list had flopped. We pulled into a gas station in Lancaster about 9 and Riki gets the brilliant idea to say to Joe the attendant “Hey, know where there are any abandoned places around here?” And with a straight face the guys says to us “Ever been to the Asylum in Palmdale?”

Following his sketchy directions and combing google earth for it, we parked nearby at about 11:00 and hiked in. Every square inch of the place was tagged, giving all the walls a kind of white noise effect. I tried to downplay it with my lighting, turning it into a texture. Except for the reaper. Being a friday night at a place popular with the locals, there was a lot of traffic: several cars parked for a while, a white Silverado 4-wheeled it’s way up the mountain on a trail to the Northeast at about 1:00, and we split about 2:30 when a pack of wasted teenagers wandered up on foot.

No, I don’t think it actually was an Asylum, it’s just too small, and the cinderblock architecture, large windows, fireplace, and location on an old, long bypassed dirt road lead me to think it was more likely part of some kind of recreational site from the early 20th Century. Either way, a fun way to spend an evening.

All 2-4-minute exposures under 3/4 moon, lit with Protomachines flashlight.