Yeah, ruins, they’re American, too. Many people come here from another country and are so surprised how wide swaths of cities can get so run-down and neglected. Many from other places do not understand abandonment, particularly on such a large scale.
For myself, ruins symbolize the struggles of continually overcoming setbacks, only to be screwed and pushed backwards again, similar to the situation of the Browns, who, now, are in a will-do-anything mode for a championship. It’s, splendor, being sullied until the inevitable. but never willfully giving in.
But ruins are nothing more that symbols, of the dire consequences of a lack of money, and, thus, living amongst the ruins of industrial cities. Emapathy is not a bleeding heart or symapathy, just recognition, through experience, of what people go through. My symbols, and thought always starts at the bottom, and is based on the futility of, what it’s like.
I was shooting from a family’s porch across the street, when this guy was walking by. He recognized me as the picture man, and saw me, this very day, in the morning, shooting the apartment building he was, now, walking in front of.
Curiously, when I was shooting in the morning I ran into the family who were leaving in their car, and we struck up a long conversation, particularly about East Cleveland and its condition, and Charles Street, their street, and this was their evey day view and they were part of that scenario. She was fairly depondent about it, and would always lower her head and speak to the ground, while talking about a life, with children, on this block.
I came back around near sunset that day, to reshoot and when i pulled up, smelled smoke, and thought, another one of these abanodioned places was torched. But it was the family’s home, the place where i had been shhooting from, and talking with them earlier in the day.
When they cruised off, after talking, little did they know, but always feared, would come true and, that they would return to a scene, similar to what they were faced, every day. This time it was them.