My before and after shots from yesterday’s Edit Sunday, at the Point Reyes Shipwreck. First is the final version, then the original image.
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I understand many people don’t share my fascination with #abandoned places. And it’s hard to explain why I love them so much.
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I’ve been asked (often): “But isn’t it sad? To see a place where people used to live/work/exist and now there are none?”
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I can understand that, but it’s also not the way I see it. Abandoned places fascinate me for the same reason archaeology fascinated me as a child. It’s a record of human existence. Every abandoned place contains traces and remnants of the lives that shaped and were shaped by it.
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Exploring these places feels like observing a much more recent display of history than in most museums. When I was young I would wander into all the old abandoned houses I could find on the Greek islands my parents were from - there are quite a few after the mass urbanization taking place in Greece over the last half century. I found it mesmerizing and beautiful to get a glimpse into another person’s life, to walk through rooms and halls and see how someone else spent their day, what was important to them, how they lived and what they cared about. It feels like a form of connection to another person who once existed, a person you would never otherwise know.
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Do you like abandoned places?
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