Photographer Spends 16 Years Documenting Baltimore’s Abandoned Homes

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Three narrow, multi-story row houses painted bright red, green, and blue stand side-by-side, with the blue house featuring boarded-up windows and a tax preparation sign.

A photographer has been capturing abandoned homes in Baltimore and the surrounding areas for the past 16 years — dodging ticks, copperheads, drug dealers, hunters with high-powered rifles, and farmers on ATVs.

Ben Marcin has documented crumbling row houses in the inner city that somehow survived the wrecking ball, to abandoned houses on the Eastern Shore, where the last generations of families either passed away or moved on after decades of farming the land. He’s also photographed temporary homeless camps in the city, none of which have ever survived for more than a year.

A narrow, three-story brick row house stands isolated in an empty lot, with boarded-up windows and a red no-trespassing sign.

A narrow, three-story red brick building stands vacant with boarded-up windows and doors, surrounded by bare trees.

A weathered, yellow two-story house with missing windows and a collapsed porch stands alone in the middle of a vast, dry field under a cloudy sky.

An abandoned, ivy-covered house sits nestled among dense trees and overgrown vegetation.

A makeshift shelter constructed from camouflage tarps and wood sits in a wooded area, decorated with a large American flag, Baltimore Ravens logos, and a banner reading "JESUS.

Marcin has curated his project for a debut photobook titled The Holdouts, which references a common real estate term that describes a property owner who refuses to sell a building or lot to a developer, thus greatly hindering the completion of a larger, community-based project.

“I either found them by the side of the road or stumbled upon them while hiking in the woods,” Marcin tells PetaPixel about how he discovered the properties. “It was important to show as much of the surroundings as possible in order to achieve a strong sense of isolation and context.”

Marcin says that in the case of an abandoned home, it was evident that the homeowner or farmer wanted to be left alone.

“I also decided not to photograph any of the people who lived in the campsites or row houses. I frequently talked to them but I felt that the series would be more mysterious without them in it,” he adds.

A two-story, weathered red brick house stands in a field of dry, brown grass under an overcast sky, with blue tarps covering its damaged roof.

An abandoned, weathered two-story wooden farmhouse stands in the middle of a dry, harvested field under a pale sky.

A makeshift shelter constructed from tarps, plywood, and stacked plastic milk crates sits in a wooded area.

A makeshift outdoor bar with three stools sits under a blue tarp roof in a wooded area, featuring a grill, a fan, and a tiled patio floor.

A vacant, overgrown lot sits between brick apartment buildings under a cloudy sky, with bare trees and scattered debris in the foreground.

Marcin, who likes to explore the idea of home and the passing of time in his work, says that strictly speaking, none of the houses or campsites would be considered real estate holdouts.

“No shopping center, highway overpass, or gambling casino ever took their place. However, they do personify a more straightforward definition of what a holdout is, namely, the act of resisting something or refusing to accept what is offered,” Marcin says.

“I have been photographing the places where people live for almost 40 years. At first, I did this primarily on my trips around the world but, over time, I withdrew closer and closer to home until I found myself working on sites just a short distance from my own house (in Baltimore). In short, I began to understand where I live.”

The Holdouts by Ben Marcin is published by Gost.

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