Throughout my years of wherever I’ve been,
there are many unique and interesting places that I’ve gone to and seen –
especially in the West. Having lived in Arizona and Washington and spent time
in Colorado, I’ve been to numerous ghost towns and areas that have been
isolated or uncared for and forgotten about. Such areas have been fun to walk
around and think about how life once was as well as to photograph the area.
Letting the imagination wander as well as understanding history of the
locations bring a perspective of feeling and connection.
Going
back to my first blog, I love photography and taking pictures of old places
such as ghost towns and abandoned, forgotten about areas and buildings.
Photographing them helps preserve their stories and history – even if they’re
in a dilapidated state and falling apart. Not everything lasts forever and back
in the 19th century, many towns were started with the hopes of
mining being ample enough to thrive. Not many towns survived. Ones that did had
other resources to help such as Leadville and being a great city for the
outdoorsman. Once mining dwindled, the town struggled until finding a new way
to bring people in. Other towns were not so lucky or did not survive that long.
Once there was no longer any resources for townspeople to make a living, people
left. Look at Detroit the past couple of decades. So many people have left the
once megacity to find jobs elsewhere. Not that Detroit will become a ghost town
by any means, even though many neighborhoods and areas have, the city will find
new ways to keep people there and bring in a new population. Others, such as
the two largest ghost towns remaining in Arizona, Vulture and Ruby, people have
left which left the buildings to fend for themselves over time. Sadly, since
the towns lost their citizens, others have come in and vandalized property or
stolen parts such as building roofs, doors, and so forth, which have weakened the
buildings even more.
Moving beyond ghost towns and old buildings, I have thousands of photographs. What
I hate worse is there are so many just sitting on my hard drive being wasted.
Even though I’ve had them displayed and sold at a couple of coffee shops, I
feel as if they’re being wasted on my computer. With that being said, I finally
decided to put out photography collections of certain locations. The first one
from the Abandoned series coming out
at an unknown date but likely within the next two months, if that, will be of
Leadville, Colorado. Leadville is an old gold and silver town featuring many
mining camps throughout the area. Years have gone by as many buildings remain
uncared for, the buildings were photographed throughout a few different visits
and sadly since then, some of the buildings have completely fallen. Second of
the series will be an Arizona ghost town so please be on the lookout for the Abandonment series, coming soon from Barnes and Noble!
