Photographing the Ruins

I have the opportunity to photograph a burned Harley!  And I'm going to the railroad yard to explore the graffiti covered cars.  Rust, decaying wood,  the skeletal remains of a collapsed building -- these are the subjects of my heart, the targets of my trusty Rebel with its Sigma telephoto lens.

A student asked the other day why I was so excited about my shoot at the abandoned warehouses in the barrio. Why didn't I want to photograph babies, she asked, or sunsets, or puppies?  Well ... there's beauty in everything. And what can I say?  A collapsing shed just draws my eye.  

I was pleased to see the recent (September 09)  "Dereliction Special" issue of Practical Photography, which showcased photographs of rusting cars, abandoned houses and decaying barns -- just my style!  Photography like this goes under various labels: urban decay, urban dereliction, urban landscape, industrial, grunge.  What it all has in common is a fascination with the remnants and traces of human creation and a love of the strange beauty left behind when things are abandoned, trashed or left to decay.

Search the web for galleries; browse the stock sites using any of the keywords I just mentioned. You'll find some stunning images, offering glimpses of  a world so many never notice. Over the next few weeks in this blog I'll be talking more about dereliction photography, how it's done, and where it can be seen.  I'll include links to galleries and photographers and discuss images of my own.  There's an old quote: "Rust never sleeps."  And sometimes -- it creates art.