I personally like to photograph decaying structures because of the texture and tonality presented, but I also gained new respect for documentary photography while I worked for the Oregon Historical Society. While I try to create "art" when photographing old stuctures, there also is some value to future generations in any "record shots" of old buldings.
The OHS files are full of pictures of magnificent structures lost to "urban renewal", fire, or just plain decay. The Pacific Northwest rains take quite a toll on stationary objects.
Add one more for texture! Especially getting in close and being able to capture the detail of peeling paint, rusting metal and wood grain. I look for these things to create abstract images, not to convey romanticism or a story. I started out with the abstract theme with 35mm, worked my way up through MF and now to LF. I'd have gone to a ULF format by now if I had the money.
For me it's more of a metaphor that states more dramatically that "nothing lasts forever". Fleetingness of time..etc.
There's also the humanistic aspect being that these were places that were inhabited; people lived there, maybe died there, maybe born there. There's a certain intrigue inherent to urban decay.
I also like the 'Ozymandias' aspect of decay: 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.' What makes me laugh is that many 'archivally processed record shots' won't last anything like as long as the decaying subjects they portray -- which may already have been around for centuries or millennia, and should be good for a while yet.
Unlike (I suspect) communism. I'd be surprised if it makes its 200th birthday (dating from Marx's manifesto). Even so, communist iconography (like Nazi iconography) can be visually magnificent, as long as you can divorce it from its ideology.
Maybe it's just our inner "eternal pessimist" that draws us to decay. A node acknowledging that everything is eventually destined to fail or die, combined with a slightly morbid fascination to catch an glimpse of the workings of Mr. Grim Reaper. Last Sunday's Pearls before Swine comic provided a pretty good definition: http://news.yahoo.com/comics/070415/...media/20071504
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Hicks
Unlike (I suspect) communism. I'd be surprised if it makes its 200th birthday (dating from Marx's manifesto). Even so, communist iconography (like Nazi iconography) can be visually magnificent, as long as you can divorce it from its ideology.
Respectfully have to disagree somewhat with the nature of your statement (without going into a lenghty discussion). I find it a bit off the mark to throw communism into the same pot as the Nazis, sorry. I grew up in one of the communist labeled countries, and while I can't say that it was all roses and champagne, it wasn't all bad either and certainly had nothing in common with nazi ideology (actually, I lived a pretty good life in the former GDR without the need having to be a communist). Any ideology can be warped, abused and misused by people in power if they are bent on doing so (Mao, Stalin, and a few more recent ones which I won't name) to fit their own agendas (power, greed, madness), but please don't generalize with a broad brush across the spectrum.
Chris
__________________ [SIZE=1]Tiptoeing through life's grand theater - and falling down flat.[/SIZE]
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