Lisa is a fairly new blogger – she’s an amazing writer and a great photographer! I’m sure she’d love it if you went over and said hello. 🙂 Look around while you’re there – I’m sure you’ll enjoy what you see.
Thanks so much again for the mention, Lisa. It’s my pleasure to help. 🙂
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I am new to blogging. Very new, as in 6 months new. I didn’t read a book on how to become a successful blogger because when I began, I wasn’t interested in monetizing the product. The purpose was to finally succumb to a driving desire to write. Encouraged by a couple of friends, I finally stripped bare and leapt off the cliff, arms aloft, screaming bloody murder the whole way down.But the water is warm and inviting. Turns out it’s crowded, too. An element I hadn’t expected but find welcoming and delightful. I’m sure I’ll hit some cold springs now and then, but I love it so far.
I want to take a moment to recognize two bloggers who have given a little of their time to help me. The first isLindaGHillfor helping me through my email issue, and the second is Dark Night Chroniclesfor the prompt…
I’ve always loved looking at abandoned buildings. I remember going on long car trips with my parents and sitting in the back seat watching the scenery go by; nothing caught my attention quite like an old house with its windows boarded up and ivy threatening to consume it whole, or a broken down barn, its walls leaning off its stone foundation as though a good wind could transport it to Oz. Such sceneries inspired me to wonder who lived there, and what ultimately caused them to walk away. Even better were the houses with the front door left open. Traveling by at 60mph my nose would be pressed up against the glass, hoping for a glimpse of peeling wallpaper inside. Did it burn? Perhaps the dog got out and they ran after it, never to return.
I think for me its mostly about the history I can’t read about in a book. I can walk around somewhere like Canterbury Cathedral and think more about all the shoes that wore the floor into ruts than I pay attention to the plaques, telling me which king or queen was entombed where. That’s what imagination is for, after all. Pure inspiration.
And so yes, for these reasons I enjoy looking at photos of abandoned buildings, taken by photographers who love to go into such places. I’d seen the term “ruin porn” a few times around the internet, but it wasn’t until I discovered photographer Seph Lawless, just yesterday in fact, that I decided to look up the term and see exactly what it means.
According to Wikipedia and another article – The Psychology of Ruin Porn I found, the term “ruin porn” refers to the concept that there are photographers out there who take pictures of abandoned places without documenting the wheres, whys and hows in which the places became dilapidated, thus exploiting them much like pornography exploits its subjects. I beg to differ. And yet, can I?
The third (and final) definition in Merriam Webster’s free online dictionary – and the only one not mentioning sex specifically, is this:
3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction
There is definitely something to this in regards to “ruin porn.” In seeing a picture of belongings left behind in the aftermath of disaster, strong feelings indeed are provoked. There’s nothing quite like an abandoned teddy bear left in the mud to bring a tear to the eye. We tend to sympathize inasmuch as what if it happened to us? But what of an empty, abandoned house? Must we know everything about its previous owners and what kind of devastation, whether financial or physical, caused them to leave in order to sympathize with them? Is taking a picture of the structure exploiting their misery in the same way the pornographer exploits his or her human subjects, for the sake of money and lust?
It’s a tough call.
I won’t stop looking at ruin photography; it still inspires stories within me. Does that make me a pornographer? Or is this all just another case of oversensitivity?
lindaghill.com 