It is a perverse irony that when life gets hard, be it from overwork or depression, the very things that provide succor and distraction can lose their appeal. So it became, for me, with photography. It has been half a year since I’ve posted anything here, and what better way to get off the schneid … Continue reading A Winter’s Campus
A return to Gary, the struggling steel town about 45 minutes outside Chicago, is always welcome. I spent so much time here when I started in photography that there isn’t much here I haven’t seen, and yet I feel I always come away with some fresh shots. And, as my avocation has become more ambitious … Continue reading Gary, Winter
This is the last post in a series on last month’s trip to Italy. I hope to finish on a high note, with some of what I think were my best photographs from the churches we visited, and likely the trip overall. The first shot is a one off. This church overlooked a steep hillside … Continue reading The Churches of Italy, Part Two
The fourth part in the series on last month’s trip to Italy. Here is an interesting factoid. On last year’s trip around the north, villas were the most common type of abandoned building we saw. Hands down this year, it was churches in the south. One might be able to draw some conclusions about the … Continue reading The Churches of Italy
The third post in a series on last month’s urbex trip to Italy. To start, here is a former military hospital in southern Italy. Built at the height of Mussolini’s fascist rule in streamline moderne style, it covers a large swath of land in the middle if Bari. Though the buildings are mostly barren and … Continue reading Abandoned Italy
I thought ghost towns were largely a stateside phenomenon, but as it turns out, Italy may have us beat. One source I saw claimed that the country has six thousand of them. I can’t say why there seem to be so many, but I’d speculate that the old Italian propensity for settling on hilltops may … Continue reading The Ghost Towns of Italy
About a month ago, my friend and I returned to Italy to try our luck, yet again, with this beautiful country. A year ago we mostly toured the northern half, a frantic meandering that even took us into the alps. This time, we did a loop around the south that started and ended in Rome … Continue reading Many Happy Returns
Labor Day weekend found me in the rolling Appalachian mountains of West Virginia. It was a showery weekend, making for very humid hiking, but making for a moody, misty atmosphere that felt like that state at its most iconic. On Sunday’s hike, my friend did the splits involuntarily while crossing a very slippery stream and … Continue reading Country Roads, Take Me Home
Two years ago, I got a chance to shoot this abandoned arena in Memphis. In an arrangement similar to what I wrote about in my last post on the Sterick building, a group of photographers were allowed to shoot the place in return for some photos. In each case, the owners were looking to drum … Continue reading Mid-South Coliseum
The Sterick building in downtown Memphis has the demeanor of a deposed queen, who, despite having lost her power and much of her wealth, has lost none of her grace and haughtiness and remains the focal point of the city’s skyline. When finished in 1930, she was said to be the tallest building of the … Continue reading The Sterick, Dowager Empress of Memphis
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