Abandoned Buildings Series

Big Chief Gas Station, Zia Pueblo, New Mexico

For some reason old abandoned or unused buildings appeal to me. I especially like vernacular architecture but encounter it less than I would like.

Vernacular architecture is concerned with domestic and functional rather than monumental buildings. It’s associated with those buildings that were architecturally very distinctive, like the giant donut building in Los Angeles or the Owl Café in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I suppose those small, metal diner buildings would fall into this category, also.

And there is a large dollop of nostalgia. There is a definite sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations from my youth.

I suppose some of my fascination comes from my interest in functional buildings that are now in disrepair.

I guess I’m honoring these buildings in my own way by photographing them.

I didn’t simply want to document them, I wanted to try to show them in a transitory state, as if we are looking at them between when they were actually functional and operating and when they will eventually be gone.

To illustrate that transitory state I first decided to eliminate color. Then I added texture and grain and a bit of blur, to simulate the building’s journey between its life and afterlife.