Moab:Black and White

I took these pictures into black and white, and I really think they came out well. They are all from around the Moab area, Arches and Canyonlands national parks as well. Let me know what you think

Moab:Color

These are a few photos I've been taking while on vacation in Moab, Utah. Landscape photography is something I'm not quite used to doing, but it was fun to mess around with these.

Man on the Street

A friend and I were driving into the parking lot behind Meshuggah's cafe in the loop the other night. We were startled as we drove by a man lying next to a dumpster, who looked like perhaps he had been hit by a car. I parked, and we walked over to him. I asked was he alright, to which he responded with a loud snore. I immediately went to my car and grabbed my camera and tripod, and snapped away. Perhaps they may strike you as a tad creepy and/or odd, but what was curious about this man was that he did not appear to be homeless. He was dressed pretty tredily, and was sleeping quite soundly. I would have had more difficulty photographing someone dressed in rags with a bottle next to him, but this man's situation was not that of a homeless man. He was gone when we came back about and hour and a half later. These pictures remind me somewhat of the Providence photo project I did earlier.


This one is my favorite, becuase your attention is drawn at first to the dumpster, and then your eyes fall to the man beside it. This is more of a straight photography feel.


Hey look, it's the Wicked Witch!


(focus slightly edited in photoshop)

Providence 1

Debris crackles underfoot, diffused light falls lazily upon a kicked in television screen. Like a large patio, air flows freely through the grand rooms and out the shattered windows. Spray paint sticks to the walls menacingly, evoking curiosity, like an aged tattoo. Vague footprints lie about carelessly, difficult to discern. It is frightening at first, but that fades to sadness. Stale nostalgia lies like a sheet of cellophane over all surfaces.





The silence is thick. It rises to tumult when nothing moves, when the only whisper is from quiet inhales and exhales.



At night, the memories can lie comfortably: no one can see them. But in the fading sunlight, they are exposed. They scurry and hide amongst a shoe here, a record player over by the stairs. Here is one wallowing in the tip of a needle on the kitchen counter. Sometimes they sneak over across the room to meet each other, and they can be seen, a milky sheen in the yellow light.



Broken and burnt and alone and sad and cracked and desolate and rusted and peeled and bent. Forgotten.

Providence 2

People have been here, like gusts in between broken panes of glass. They were small and discarded. Some still lean against the walls at night, hugging the plaster for warmth.



Dried sweat tinges the air. Cheap vodka. Romance and feigned pleasure.





Ghosts roam these halls, memories shimmering in the fading light. These floors are tired; they have staunchly endured feet padding quickly to the bathroom, boots stomping loudly on the way out the door, blue and white sneakers treading lightly over decades of debris.

Providence 3

These are cities inside of cities, museums of trash. Styrofoam is like linoleum, lining the floors with takeout and to go cups.



The walls have been scarred–punctured here–an ancient sailor displaying the shark tooth that still lives in his thigh. There is wallpaper too, pink and blue and green, floral. There has been love here, hate and longing as well.





Monuments to loneliness and regret, these edifices are all part of a sprawling metropolis of rubble. Paint sags from the wall. Who has been here?

Providence 4

The buildings have wilted and crumbled; fallen from times of Television sets and new dinnerware. Their residents have dulled with them, fragments of previous glamour.




The bricks are caked with old fires. Perhaps there was a bedroom here, and a dresser in the corner. The foundation remains, but the rest has been converted to ashes.




Blankets line some corners. There is still deep silence, but there is something here, bubbling from the floorboards and lying under the roof when it rains. As a sprout cracking concrete, there is life emerging here.


Are we to remember the past, or leave it to whither away?

Palimpsest

Here is my first post as a 'blogger,' and I'm pretty excited. I've been bumming around North and East St. Louis lately, taking photos for the purpose of illustrating urban decay as it is unfolding. Here is one of the photos I've taken. I find this one interesting because of the emotions it evokes in the viewer, a sort of dark comedy. I also like the contrast between reds and the dark grey colors. I took this right before I encountered a few homeless, and had to dodge myself and my Nikon out of the area.