The visual power of decay

I’ve just moved to a new place, and at the corner of my street there’s a “mysterious house”. Mysterious to me at least.

Through the windows, inside, I can see yellowed, rotting lace curtains, both on the ground and the first floor. I’ve never seen the lights on, in those rooms at night, but the house is actually inhabited in other parts.

The building is not decaying in itself, but those rooms…those mysterious old rooms left as they were…are becoming a little obsession.

I’m totally enthralled by it.

I would like to go inside to look at the details, learn it’s story and take pictures. I dream of walking at its front door, ring the bell and ask, beg whoever lives there, to let me in, to let me see the place.

But it’s unlikely I’ll ever do that.

That made me think of the visual power of decadence and decay and the importance it always had in my work.

Since childhood I have always been fascinated by images of abandoned, declining structures. Not ruins as such – I was born in Rome and there’s plenty of those there!

I’m more interested in post-industrial remains, glories of a recent past, still around to haunt us.

I found them fascinating and unsettling at the same time.

Recently I came across the beautiful images from a photographic book “The ruins of Detroit” by french photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

With stunning images, taken during the course of a five years collaboration, they have been documenting the rise and fall of the city of Detroit, as a major industrial capital of the XXth century.

I advice you to visit their website and see the images in a larger size and in their full glory.