By Jeff Kenney Citizen editor
It’s perhaps 20 degrees out – with the wind chill surely much lower – and Sue Neikirk is standing in the snow in a windy cornfield, taking pictures. What’s  more, she’s taking pictures of a structure many might call ugly: grey, rotting wood pocked with holes and looking altogether rather shabby and forsaken.
This is pretty typical, though, for Neikirk, who prefers shooting in the winter, when visibility of the old, abandoned structures she photographs is highest and, she says, isn’t threatened by the greenery of spring and summer overtaking the color of the buildings.

Neikirk, who grew up summering in Culver and today works at the Culver-Union Twp. Public Library (she and husband Frank live in Grovertown), three years ago turned a longtime photographing hobby into Rural Ruins Photography.
It was a venture that has led to showing her photos at several public libraries (Culver, Knox, and St. Joseph County, for example) and fairs, most notably the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, where her photos didn’t win, but were amongst the few hundred out of thousands to be chosen for display.
As the name Rural Ruins suggests, most of what Neikirk shoots is in some state of abandonment or disrepair, which is part of the appeal for her. “Nature’s taking them over,” she says. “They had been used at one point, and now nature has moved in and is reclaiming what once was (its own). Nature is drawing that car back down into the earth; chipmunks are running around in it, and trees are growing out of it.”
The subjects of her photos are also, of course, part of area history. “It’s like archaeology. It’s American archaeology. There (are) stories behind each and every one.”
These assorted pieces of past Midwestern life, she points out, are disappearing fast. “You’d see something and go, ‘Oh, I wish I had a picture of that,’ because it’d be gone the next time you pass it by. I’ve had that happen.”
And like many people, Sue Neikirk loves a good mystery. “The house in the middle of the woods that was just left: why? I had to jump a stream for that one. Or the house I was photographing when an old gentleman came up in his truck and explained it was built in 1889, and he told me how it was built and that there was an outhouse.”
Outhouses she finds particularly fascinating. “Outhouses are so interesting because you always need a place to go to the bathroom! I found an outhouse standing all alone in the middle of the woods. I said, ‘Frank, stop the car!’ I found it with the seat up. You could see there had been a house over there; you could see the stone foundation where the house was.”
Neikirk says she’s liable to slow or stop her car at just about anywhere this time of year. She’s developed some methodology towards safety and legality, including never venturing out and about to shoot without her hunters’ orange cap, complete with the company name printed on the front. She also carries cards bearing the same information as well as contact info. These she hands out as needed, including to local police wherever she is. “If I see a police officer, I’ll give them one of my cards and explain what I’m doing. If there’s a no trespassing sign, I’ll shoot from a distance or get permission. I do it once a year: I take my cards and give (the police) my license plate number and type of car I’m in. If they see it, they’ll know crazy Sue’s out there doing photography.”
Neikirk, unlike many regional photographers capturing disappearing structures and other facets of America’s past life, says she usually shoots in color, partly to capture what little color may be left on objects, which helps bring out their original look. “I’ve got thousands of pictures of probably several hundred structures. I shoot old houses, barns, outhouses, schoolhouses, old businesses, old graveyards, old trellises, stairs…anything that looks interesting.”
“Things are disappearing. One time I drove by and was going to take a picture of a little summer kitchen. The next time I came by, it was gone. That little piece of history is gone. Or there was a little creamery that I was given permission to go into and shoot. It had been like a little time capsule, and later (after shooting photos of it), I went back and it was stripped bare.”
Neikirk isn’t sure her long-range plans for her photos. “People ask me, ‘What do you want to do with these?’ I have no idea. I do shows; I would like to do a calendar or something at some point.”
In the meantime, Sue Neikirk will haunt the backroads and streets of the Culver and surrounding areas, camera in hand, capturing pieces of everyday local life frozen in time.
Sue Neikirk may be reached by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it