loves of a whirlygig

well it has been a while since my last post but i have been busy, there was no fall break for the whirlygig kids. the friday of the break brought damian, ryan and stephen rogers out to the farm. it was rainy so they had to wait for the rain to subside. what resulted was some very dark, cloud filled images. it gave quite a stark look and will add to the spooky side of this story. rain and curious onlookers spooked these kids so much that they bagged it in instead of staying through on saturday. but the results were spectacular, they shot about 2+ hrs of video and plenty of 35 mm digital shots before calling it a night. ryan confided in me that to stay overnight would be an insane thought, since at that time i thought that i would stay through since i was coming up mon and tuesday. i met damian on saturday afternoon and picked up the equipment since my stage was set for mon and tues.

mon morning came early and i called my friend hannah to let her know we were ready to go. she came and picked me up with the gear and we stopped by some stores to pick up supplies (batteries, tapes, etc). well nothing was open until 10 am so we had to wait for an hour. i noticed hannah was wearing flip flops and i advised her on bringing shoes since this was the country. so we went back to her house and since she was a photography major i asked her what kind of cameras was she bringing. she told me and then she said, " hey i got a fisheye lens camera for my birthday, should we get that?" i was stoked, i said hell yeah so even though we had to wait to leave wilmington, it turned out to be worth it.

so we finally get on the road and 2.5 hrs later we arrive to the farm. vollis is in his shop and just getting ready to start working. i took the hint and decided to go show hannah the farm and let vollis get started. we decided to start w/35 mm film slr since that was why she was there. we spent about 2 hrs taking pictures and shooting some video and super8 mm. it was about 3:30 and i decided to go see how vollis was getting along. i arrived at his shop and saw that unfortunately he was packing in for the day. i thought crap, how am i going to get shots of him working. i asked him what his schedule was for tuesday, and he said he had a doctor appt. but he should be back after 2pm. so about that time, hannah had let the bugs and heat get the best of her and she was heading back to wilmington. we unpacked all of the gear out of her car, and i said thanks and she left. i was completely alone at acid park.

i had made arrangements for a buddy of mine to come and help me shoot camera and the interview i had scheduled for tuesday. he didnt get to acid park until about 6 or 7pm. we were losing daylight fast. i had not stopped shooting footage and film since about 12:30 pm. i decided to call it a day and me and kasey (my friend) started packing up. vollis came by and checked on us, and to lock up the gate. he showed us his arsenal of lights he had rigged up with a car battery in the bed of his truck. they were no joke and lit up quite a bit. he started to feel comfortable around us and started telling us stories of people stealing signs and general mayhem. i was tired and kind of out of it when he told us about the night he actually did shoot somebody, that was on his land. he was shooting a warning shot and actually shot a guy with his shotgun. the crazy old man aspect of the story where he will shoot you...that's completely true. he carries the gun around to defend himself and his land. and if you're messing around with his stuff he has a right to shoot you. i found out the next day that the law and the county is completely on his side and support him. it was pitch black so there would be no filming this story since we were busy filming the sun set on the farm. we did a lot of drive by night shots and filmed the old abandoned house that is part of one legend and some of the abandoned car and left the whirlygig farm to seek a hotel room and food. tomorrow was another day.