Ghost Riding

Welcome back to Retail on the Thames! Today's post is going to be one of two Halloween themed posts (the second will be coming in a few days from now). While this first post isn't necessarily about anything related to Halloween, the general atmosphere when I photographed this building was pretty spooky, so I thought I would add it. Now let's get into it!

The building we're going to bee looking at is an abandoned Motorsports Nation in Plainfield, Connecticut. From what I understand, Motorsports Nation is a very small chain that only has 3 locations. Two of their locations are in Eastern Connecticut, with one being a new location in Plainfield, and the other being in Waterford. The third location is fairly far from the others in Seekonk, Massachusetts. They mainly sell different off-road vehicles, such as street bikes, off-road bikes, and ATVs.

As for this location itself,  it was built in 2005. The building used to have an Ace Hardware attached to it, which can be seen in an image from Plainfield's property records. Around late 2018 or early 2019, Motorsports Nation re-located down the road to a smaller location that used to host a bowling alley. I honestly don't see why Motorsports Nation re-located, unless it was for a financial reason, since I think their original building was much nicer. Now it's time for the pictures.

Remember when I said that the abandoned McDonald's in Westerly felt ghostly? Well this place had the same feeling to it. I think part of this was because the sun was setting when I explored this place, so it had a very spooky and unsettling vibe to it. Despite that, it was super fun to get pictures of this place, and I consider this to be one of my favorite photoshoots.

While this building doesn't look amazing, it had some sort of haunted appeal to it due to it being abandoned, albeit not for a long time. This place felt giant when I was walking back and forth to get shots, which added even more appeal. You could tell that a lot of work went in to this place, which makes this vacancy simultaneously impressive and sad.

This shoot was also fun since I was able to test out different shutter speeds at night, due to the shoot occurring just after sundown. The photo on top was done at a slower speed (around 1/40-1/80), while the second shot was done at a faster speed (around 1/125-1/200). While I prefer the photo on the top, I like how both of these came out.

The interior felt more like a small office or a warehouse due to the lights being off. I must admit that it did look a little creepy in there.

Lastly, here's a condemned elevator inside of the property. I wasn't able to tell what it was from the window, and this blurry zoomed-in shot didn't help either. I asked some other people if they could identify what it was, and the general consensus was that it was a ThyssenKrupp Aurora, which does fit when the property was built, since the Aurora was made throughout most of the 2000's.

That's it for this one. I'll see you in a few days for the second Halloween post!

-Simpsonfan311