No Trespassing

Colorful Thoughts on a Gray Area

First things first: One big ol’ underrated, but awkwardly Midwestern hug to all of our new subscribers that clocked into the Night Shift here in this dark little corner of Substack! Hope you guys stay awhile and, ooo, maybe even tell your friends? We just got back from a six-day roadtrip through all four corners of North Dakota. We’ve got so much to share, but please be patient as we dig ourselves out from the grit and thaw out our toes.

In the meantime, enjoy our breakdown of another Flash Nites Hot Topic that addresses some of the legalities (or lack thereof ) around what we do for a living…

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Silence is actually a sweet comfort when it’s almost midnight and you’re supposed to be all alone in the middle of nowhere. So when the soft rolling crunch of four wheels on gravel enters the scene, the adrenaline rush to your system packs a jolt that could wake the deadest of the dead.

Trepidatiously, you watch as headlights veer right and slice the thick darkness in half. Like a frightened rabbit, you revert back to your animal instincts. Frozen in place, eyes wide, ears perked, fur standing on end.

Because the fact that the car turned right means one thing and one thing only:

They’re here.

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Like a criminal, I raise my hands up to the spotlights that coat every square inch of what we’re up to. I wave a hand side-to-side to indicate the Universal Sign of Truce. As the crisp prairie wind toys with my hair, I feel so free out here, and yet so very captured. Chris and I stand there for what feels like hours in the dramatic pause of the twin beams.

But then the car unexpectedly twists to the left in a U-turn and barrels back toward the main road, away from our shooting spot. On the way out, it stops momentarily in front of the infamous partially-constructed (or partially-deconstructed?) abandoned house at the corner. And then it turns right—the opposite direction from which it arrived.

Chris and I trade hushed interrogation: Wait, they had to have seen us, right? I was waving, I was right there! How did they know we were out here? Did we trigger a trail cam? Where are they headed now? Are they collecting their burly farmer posse to come back and torture us with rusty pruning shears??!

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After folks ask us if our work is Photoshopped, the second most common question we get is this:

“Do you get permission to go inside?”

To which I initially respond, “Ummm...who’s asking?”

In all seriousness, we know exactly what everyone else wants to know, and it’s a two-part inquisition to suss out if our work is laced with wrong:

Qa. “Do you trespass?” 

Qb. “Do you break and enter?” 

Well, judge, we’re here to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Aa. Sort of. Maybe. Yes. Sorry, we didn’t see the sign posted, we apologize, Mr. Officer. Which is a funny thing to try to explain to your future employer after they run your background check.

Ab. Absolutely not-ish. Breaking and entering is at most a felony and at least a very rude thing to do. To be fair, every place we shoot is divine, sacred, holey, get it? These buildings have been legally abandoned, according to most state laws, for the better part of the last century. And due to the structural decline, there are plenty of openings to slip inside which makes the “B” in B&E unnecessary. (Ok, like 99.9% of the time. But that .1% is a story for another day and historically justifiable.) With that said, the “breaking” part isn’t always required to be convicted of said crime, so the whole thing is a gamble, and we don’t condone our actions.

But here’s the thing….

If this country is built on anything, it’s not really so much freedom, but more so ownership of property. From the day those pioneers and pilgrims stepped foot on this land, they swaggered around like they owned the place—despite up to 112 million indigenous folks already living here—throwing a white picket fence around every amber acre of all the waves of grain.

Did you know that over 95% of Texas is privately owned compared to 60.2% of the United States?

The American Dream is on lock, even when it’s rotting away, literally getting swallowed up by the earth from which it came.

It all comes down to this: Chris and I have this passion for crafting a hunk of decay into something worthy of attention, worthy of an audience (that’s you!). On the flip side, typically these places are abandoned for the very opposite reason: Someone made the decision that these places are no longer worthy of their attention (aka: bank account) and jumped ship, but of course retain their right to horde the land and everything on it because that’s what we do here in the good ol’ You’ss of Ass.

When Chris and I stumble upon a place that used to be someone’s prized possession—used to be someone’s American Dream—how can we not give her one last go at magnificence? One last chance to feel alive and breathtaking and beautiful? One final spin in her old rags. When someone sees an abandoned thing, their initial reaction is: “ugh, well that’s sad” — our mission is to brighten up the place and give it USE again.

And yes, Art = Useful.

So—even despite signage occasionally telling us to keep out—we’ll climb in.

If someone hints to us that there’s a secret entry, we’ll search through the weeds for 45 minutes, we’ll walk the 3-miler unpaved road, we’ll get down on our bellies, shove all our equipment through the shoulder-width hole, and shimmy on in there, coated in all kinds of mud, grime, and animal excrement.

But yeah, when property owners show up, we’ve got some ‘splainin to do. And to be honest—aside from a tiny handful of times—we’re usually met with a bewildered “oooookkaaaay?” They leave, and we carry on to complete the mission.

We also have our limits though. Lately, America has become a lot more aggressively protective and trigger-happy. While we never burn or ruin or tag or steal (“take only photographs, leave only footprints,” as the old oath goes), we respectfully tread into a very gray area amongst the broad stripes and bright stars. So we pick our battles more wisely these days. If property is absolutely coated in aggressive signage—especially if those signs are tacked to the actual abandoned structure itself—we’ll leave it alone.

For example, here’s a sign that helped us immediately decide that the really cool old house was actually not worth the shoddy dismemberment via rusty pruning shears: 

Note triple-underlined “out” rather than “off” — so much worse.

In any case, there may or may not have been signage somewhere in the vicinity of the old busted up St. John’s Lutheran church in Arena, North Dakota — est. 1906, abnd. 1996 — but this place is such a hot spot for Dakota ghost town explorers, it has its own Wikipedia page. Prior to the vehicular meet-cute, we would’ve rated this location PG*.

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Soothing video footage of the church during our daytime scout session (also on youtube):

St. John’s Lutheran Church – Arena, North Dakota

So after that mysterious car U-turns and leaves us there to figure out our next move, the once comfy quiet shifts to the kind of horror show silence that gives the nerves ample opportunity to play tricks on your adrenaline-soaked amygdala. You know, the pregnant pause before the jump scare. So before our fear gets the best of us, we have to decide whether or not to continue the mission. We page through the case of Risk v. Reward: Did we get the shot yet? Are we blessed with ideal sky conditions? Did we spend way too much gas to get here? Is the location worth it? Could we try again another time?

We look up and the clouds are screaming in, which makes the decision an easy one: grab a couple more quick shots and bounce. With more time and less jitters, we would’ve taken an array of angles and colors of this beauty, made sure the lighting was perfect, etc. But sometimes you get what you got, and you move onto the next one: another risk to fuel the reward that puts interesting art into the world.

Break me open and let me breathe

Now it’s your turn!

1. Do you own a percentage of Texas private property?

2. What’s the stupidest gray-area law you’ve bended?

3. What’s the best excuse you’ve drummed up to sweet talk authority into a warning?

Before you go, don’t forget to give our heart a squeeze. And maybe exit through the gift shop.

OR if you just can’t get enough, read about our OTHER brush with legal trouble:

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*Our informal rating system:

• G - Permission granted with minimal opportunities to be maimed

• PG - No permission granted, risk of injury is slightly more obvious 

• PG-13 - No permission granted, potential to break a limb is definitely possible

• R - No permission granted, climbing required, potential to fall to death is high

• X - B&E, do not recommend unless the City’s Finest shrugs and looks away

A few small portions of this essay originally appeared in a piece we wrote for The Sirens Call, Summer 2023, Issue 62.

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