For most of my life, I’ve felt like I really didn’t fit in. Ignored, ridiculed, bullied, forgotten…at one point or another, I have had these feelings. It’s not necessarily how I felt about myself, but how I felt those around me perceived me. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in, always the last kid (and adult) picked, whatever the game may be.

That is probably why I have such an affinity for shooting abandonment. I feel some kind of connection with those things and places that have been abandoned. Those things that are passed by with nary a glance, more of an eyesore or a nuisance than anything else. I realize that there is something unique in each of these things, there is definitely a hidden beauty. Certainly not beauty in the “classic sense”. I look at these places, objects, rooms, and I marvel at what time and the elements have done to them. They have taken something that was ordinary or nondescript before and changed it into something new and unique. These places and things become something that I look at with awe and wonder.

I can literally spend hours stumbling around in an abandoned property. I forget time, I am too busy looking at what has been given to me. The rotting wood and piles of discarded furniture can make the most amazing shadows when the light is right. Nature can take over and eat away and reclaim whatever it wants, leaving behind something brand new. 

I do not stage a photograph. It’s not my “job” to go in a make a pretty picture. It’s my job merely to document what has been left behind. And months later, maybe I’ll go back and see what has changed. Very rarely am I disappointed.