Skram

Firstly, I started as an abandoned architecture photographer, and that starting influence remains strongly within my aesthetic.

This photo was taken in black and white film and colorized. This was on the rooftop of an abandoned mining train factory, Goodman Manufacturing, in Chicago on the south side. This panel either controlled the industrial elevators or the electrical system of the building in general at one time. The building was abandoned in the late 90’s and graffiti artists and scavengers have made their mark almost everywhere, thus the highly stylized ‘SKRAM’ on the upper left of the circuit board.

Within context to the arts of organization and application, my interest lies more in what remains when the era of specific application has been spent and that once organized mechanism is left to decay; witness a death of increasing weight and evidence, of a decreasing chance of ever serving a useful purpose again. I see both beauty and ugliness in these images and my hope is that those that meditate on them for more than a moment will see some personal mixture of the same dynamics to varying relevance. This is the gist of the photos in these five.

---

Shipping Containers

This is a storage lot for excess storage containers – there are a number of them in Chicago as the city is a nexus for ‘intermodal’ transportation. Places like this breathe in and out with the economy and the health of the international shipping market. There is a limit to their useful life; the question is whether they will ever make it back into circulation before they become structurally untenable.

I never noticed this aspect before but when I made this image, I was working through an Ansel Adams book on Yosemite and was taken aback at how much of the sky he cropped out of those photos, saving only the land or waterfall or mountain that he wanted in the image. In doing so, he essentially removed context. In this instance, however, the foreground does lend context. The abandoned tires are a nice touch.

---

Power Lines

I took this photo because I was struck by the nakedness of the farmland juxtaposed with the imposing scale of the power-line towers., along with some rolling hills or forest on the horizon. These lines are live. Personally, I’m struck by both the beauty of the organization and the strong juxtaposition between man’s artificial distribution system and nature’s subtle distribution system underneath.

---

Cline Avenue Water Tower

This photo was taken through my car window on a high-point of Cline Avenue in East Chicago, Indiana. Part of my attraction to this image was the framing through the car window. Besides that, this represents old industry, old manufacturing, and old processes for distribution, patiently waiting for their last day.

---

Fenced Stairs

Running up the back of a grain elevator in the formerly industrial town of Waukegan, Illinois. I was drawn to the rust on the stairs, the contrast between accessibility implied in the stairs, and the chain-link cage surrounding them limiting access.

---

Featured Download: CLICK HERE to unlock the methods for preparing your life for creative inspiration and visionary change.