BLOUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Lorna Fischer doesn’t see an abandoned farm house or a dilapidated storefront when she travels around north Alabama, taking the back roads and sometimes getting lost. Instead, she sees a structure with a history. She sees what once was a family’s home or a store that served a rural community.

She visualizes that history as she travels around the state photographing places that are either abandoned or overlooked. While some of her subjects are from places that are still in use, they are reminiscent of previous ages and still have their own story to tell.

“The past is never really gone, especially in rural areas of the south where reminders of it are everywhere,” Fischer wrote about her work.

Growing up in Alaska, Maine and Massachusetts, Fischer said she started taking photos when she was 10, using a hot pink camera that required her to save up to buy rolls of film. A few years later, she was enrolled in a high school photography course when she first visited Alabama. One of her assignments in that class was to capture a series of pictures with similar, yet different subjects. She chose to take pictures of the old structures she saw in rural parts of the state, as those did not seem to be as common up north.

“They just made such a big impression on me,” she said. “I was always so moved by the things that were left behind and would wonder what their story was and what happened to them.”

She said she fell in love with the area during that visit, and in 1991 she moved to Alabama. She now lives in Blountsville and maintains her interest in experiencing and documenting overlooked places.

While some people may see old structures as something that should be bulldozed over, Fischer said she sees them as a piece of history. The south, she said, seems to have a little more reverence for that history.

Across the state in areas like Gadsden and Talladega, as well as up into Tennessee and as far as Kentucky, Fischer said she will walk old city blocks or pull off on the side of a highway to capture a perfect shot.

“There’s such a peace to the exploring and standing in a new spot you’ve never been before,” she said.

Many of her photos show structures in Etowah County, including several old homes in the Altoona area that are no longer standing. An old storefront on a backroad in Boaz can be seen in one of her shots, and an old schoolhouse on the county line between Etowah and Blount Counties can be seen under a gloomy sky.

Some of her shots feature things that while they are not abandoned, they showcase vintage items from many years ago. In Gadsden, she has photographed the neon sign above The Choice restaurant and an old revolving door at a storefront on 4th Street.

Taking pictures of those places helps preserve their story, and Fischer said that photography transcends language.

“Everybody feels an emotion of some sort when they see a picture,” she said.

The emotions she feels are typically questions. She wonders about where the family that lived in that old house went. She wonders how the community adapted when that business closed. And she wonders about the work that went into building those places in the first place.

While she doesn’t always find the answers, she reiterated that she feels peace when she is exploring those places.

“Time marches on, and in today’s busy world we rarely have time to stop and reflect,” she wrote. “Yet something about these old places still speaks to us of a thousand yesterdays never to be lived again.”