Personal Work | Pieces of Detroit (Part I)
A couple of weekends ago, I had the opportunity to do something that I have always wanted to do, but for obvious reasons, could not have done by myself. And that something was to go on an urban exploration/photoshoot of Detroit.
To those that don’t live in the Detroit area, the city seems like a wasteland–headlines of bankruptcy and abandoned buildings–representing everything that’s wrong with America. To those that are local and active in the scene, there is an under current of positive energy and change happening. Abandoned buildings are quickly being bought up and torn down, and while it may be 5 to 10 years (or longer) for dramatic change to happen, it will happen. So I wanted to do some photographing before that happened ;)
For this photoshoot, our guide had us sign a liability waiver (if injury, death, etc happens), and I remember hesitating for the teeniest second before signing. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I’m one of those people that have an overactive imagination and can think of 239483 worse case scenarios before they even happen. But heck, I woke up at 5:45am to do this, and I AM NOT a morning person–so there def was no turning back now.
I have to be honest and say, I didn’t find this subject matter super inspiring, as it is way too depressing for my liking (I love photographing cute, happy pets, haha). Overall though, I’m glad I did it. Would I do it again? Maybe… it is kind of cool to see what once was and imagine how it must have been.
Btw, I used a regular full frame DSLR camera to take these images. They’re just cropped in square format because I am kind of obsessed with that form right now, thanks to instagram (and the medium format camera)… I also did not move any of the items; they are all taken as how I found them.
