The Coleman Company, maker of all kinds of outdoor and camping gear, is headquartered here in Wichita.  For years their main building was downtown, but a few years back they moved out of it.  It’s been abandoned ever since; the pollution they were responsible for was so bad that it’s now a superfund site and they’ve been utterly unable to sell or otherwise offload the property.

The back side of the building is up against a raised railroad track.  There’s a gravel alley in between, and a number of shipping/receiving docks.  I was intrigued to discover that one of them had a garage door that was completely unlocked.  All I had to do was raise it up, and I was in.

I went in exploring a number of times, but only once did I make a photographic expedition out of it.  I got a few friends togther and we took flashes, flashlights, colored gels, tripods, everything.

This shot was taken from a second or third floor room that overlooked what I imagine was some sort of production floor.  A friend opened the shutter while I wandered around the floor, popping colored flashes.

These containers were in some of the rooms.  This one had some standing water in front of it.  I shone a flashlight on the water, and the reflection is what’s lighting the top portion of the container.

This one was fun.  These big translucent plastic or fiberglass containers were empty, so I had friends standing on the far sides of them, firing flashes into them.  They appear to glow with some sort of imagined radioactive sludge.

Here’s another shot featuring that container that was tagged “n00b”.  This time I framed in the standing water and walked past with a sparkler while the shutter was open.

We found a portion of the building where a homeless person was apparently squatting.  He had been using this broom to keep his little area swept and clean.

This is probably my favorite shot from this location.  The room had holes in the floor, so I sent my friends to the room below, and they fired flashes and flashlights through the holes while my shutter was open.  In the mean time, I danced through the room with the homeless guy’s broom, sweeping as much dust into the air as I could.  (I returned the broom.)

It was an interesting place.