Blog Archives
meda
There’d been a fire and the building’s roof was gone. Debris covered the floor, and graffiti covered the walls. If it is possible for many layers of spray paint to hold up a damaged structure, that is very like what is happening here.
Niland, California
photographed 2.13.2022
appliances
A cotton gin and a clothes dryer, both abandoned. (But to be honest, if they hadn’t been abandoned, they would have held much less photographic interest.)
near Calipatria, California
photographed 2.12.2022
boys at play (beside World War II ruins)
As unbelievable as it seems to someone whose city was never bombed, there are still building ruins in the heart of Palermo left over from 1943, when Allied and German forces battled for control of the island. (Read more here.)
One of the ruins was very near where we stayed, and the wire fencing on the left side of the photo surrounds the rubble. But, even with war ruins that are almost eighty years old, life in the rest of the neighborhood goes on, with boys playing a made-up game as two young women strolled along. (And as a quartet of photographers watched and, possibly, made more than a few images.)
Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.31.2022
gone to the dogs
There was only one reason I came here: I wanted to see what a place called “Nimrod” looked like. Mostly it looked like a church and a cemetery.
But there was this abandoned building; the sign over the door was illegible, so I don’t know what it was. But it was something related to dogs, and to trophies of dogs, and even a dog mural. Somehow these context clues made more mysterious.
Nimrod, Texas
photographed 8.7.2022
if you have a complaint
That little sign in the window says, “If you have a complaint…”
The woman I met just down the block had plenty of complaints. She started our conversation by saying, “Can I hep yew?” in a way that made it clear that what she really want to “hep” me do was leave. But then she got to talking (as we say in Texas) and I learned some things:
- There are “about” 58 people in Putnam
- She’s 66 and her husband is 68 and they are the youngest people in town.
- She hates living in Putnam. Just hates it. Always has.
- Her dream is to move to Abilene.
- People in Putnam are mean. They won’t talk to you.
- She hates it there.
- Everyone moved there just to be left alone.
- She just hates it.
It was hard to see an end to the conversation – once she got started she definitely warmed to her topic! – so I wished her a good day and told her that I hoped her dream of moving to Abilene came true. She said, “Oh I cain’t move until my husband dies. He ain’t leavin’ here.”
And ever since then, I’ve worried about her husband’s long-term life expectancy. If you know what I mean.
Putnam, Texas
photographed 8.7.2022
One Day | One Image 