There is something about a ruin that speaks to me as a photographer. The stories the old structures could tell of people and events from the past sometimes seem more vivid than those of a better-preserved or reconstructed old building. And where better to explore some ruins than among the temples of Angkor in Cambodia?
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The Nevada ghost town of Rhyolite was once very grand, but was very short-lived. The mine got into financial difficulties in 1910, five years after opening, and closed the following year. With no work in the area the population of Rhyolite declined rapidly, to below 1,000 immediately after the mine’s closure and close to zero by 1920.
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I’m not a fan of living in the past. Nostalgia can be a dangerous exercise and too often people look back with rose-tinted glasses at a past that never really existed. But I do enjoy looking through sepia-tinted glasses from time to time!
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Bodie is a former gold mining town, now a ghost town which, as the state park website says, has been ‘preserved in a state of arrested decay'. It looks largely as it did when the last residents left, its buildings still furnished and stocked with goods, offering a unique glimpse into the past.
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Our first sight of a potential subject has us reaching for our camera, naturally. And sometimes the first shot we take is great, but often (always?) it could be bettered. We could perhaps find a more interesting angle or move closer to take in the details. I'm illustrating this principle with images taken of the temples and other ancient ruins that surround the town of Siem Reap in Cambodia.
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There is something rather haunting about standing on a spot occupied by people millennia ago. Stone circles such as that of Stonehenge, the Treasury and other tombs of Petra, the pyramids and temples of Egypt …. Sardinia too offers just such an experience, or rather, 7,000 of them!
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On a mountain high above Oaxaca lies one of the most significant archaeological sites in all of Mexico, Monte Albán. This mountain top was home to the Zapotec people for thirteen centuries. It is jointly UNESCO listed, with the city of Oaxaca itself. UNESCO describe it as, ‘an outstanding example of a pre-Columbian ceremonial centre’. The listing summarises the site’s history:
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Dereliction and decay are natural subjects for black and white photography. The lack of colour adds to a sense of aging, perhaps because we associate it with the photos taken by past generations. Also, the textures of decay stand out more when colour is subtracted.
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Long before the Aztecs set foot in what is today Mexico, another people built their city there, creating one of the first urban societies in the Americas. But little is known about these people. When the Aztecs arrived the city was already abandoned. Yet the new arrivals were so impressed by what they found that they named it Teotihuacan, 'the place where the gods were created'.
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All through the centuries powerful rulers have erected monuments and building that demonstrate their own sense of self-importance and yes, their narcissism. ‘Look at me, see how mighty I am’, these structures seem to say. And at the time those rulers were indeed mighty. But time passes and their power with it
