From the abandoned house on Wilson, I was able to coerce a model into a shoot. We didn’t have much time and it seemed like visibility was making it more active to other explorers. With my good friend Alan acting as spotter, we explored the house once again.
It wasn’t difficult to convey the loneliness and sadness. Props weren’t necessary to bring, they were already present. I feel the nudity helped describe a sense of vulnerability. This house, long ago, must have contained many memories. Now those memories, tossed aside like bits of trash, were soon to be wiped out forever. No consideration for the past. No reflection on the struggles that made the present possible.
One time, I found myself arguing with a friend about history. “Who cares what happened in the past!”, she said. Can we be so arrogant as to not feel sensitive to the pains and toils of our forebears? Do we live so closely to our egocentric selves that we can’t see how people have suffered and worked to make our lives enriched? These thoughts always come to mind in any abandonment. They resonate in my mind. Keenly aware of the footsteps placed before me on the path of life.
This seems to be the nature of mankind. Our crushing desire for progress only desensitizes and devalues our culture in subliminal ways we can’t envision. And in the process, we immediately minimize our own significance in the world.
