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i will never understand what’s left behind
I have looked inside a lot of abandoned places, and have photographed all of them. And I do not – and likely never will – understand why some things get left behind.
Did they intend to come back and get the rest of their things? Or did they just say fuck it and walk away from failure, hoping that maybe on another day in another town, they’d get a new coffee cup? Or whatever.
Puerto de Luna, New Mexico
photographed 3.24.2018
upon layer
Back when I thought I was going to be a poet, I submitted some poems for a critique. One of the poems was titled “Deserts Always Win” – I’d written it after a drive through the deserts around Victorville, California, where I saw lots and lots of remnants of things that hadn’t worked out – homes, businesses, dreams. And – unlike places with heavy vegetation – plants didn’t grown up over the left-overs, so the defeat was always in clear view of anyone who bothered to look. Apparently, the person who critiqued my work had not ever been to a desert; they took very strong exception to my title and to the premise of the poem.
I’m not saying that unfavorable critique led directly to my becoming a photography. I am also not saying that it didn’t play a part…
Anyway, here’s a hulking ruin in eastern New Mexico; it appears to my photographic eye that once again, the desert was victorious. (Poetic me still stands by that, too.)
Chaves County, New Mexico
photographed 5.23.2021
that welcome seems a bit worn out
Well, sure, the sign DOES say “welcome.” But there isn’t really anything else around to support that, is there?
Irony, I guess.
Roswell, New Mexico
photographed 5.22.2021
mostly, that came out even
Come ON, letters! You – the L! And you – the O! GET IT TOGETHER AND GET YOURSELVES LINED UP WITH EVERYONE ELSE.
(an imaginary conversation, brought to you from inside my head.)
Tucumcari, New Mexico
photographed 6.4.2021
camo
If you’ve been around my work for more than say 10 to 13 minutes, you know that I photograph a lot of abandoned places. Rarely do I get bad vibes at a location…but this place (the place in the trees, I mean – not the mailboxes) felt very creepy to me. It was almost to the level that I call Murder House. And that’s why there’s just the one photo – sticking around wasn’t a thing I thought I needed to do. You know, in case it WAS a Murder House.
near Danbury, Nebraska
photographed 8.31.2014
One Day | One Image 