DAY 150

SOCIAL & POLITICAL COMMENTARY

Urban Decay

FINDING A POINT OF VIEW

Documenting urban decay sends photographers into cities searching for areas that have become disenfranchised, separated, and cut off from the flow of prosperity. Urban decay begins to look the same, no matter what city or state it is found in, unless the photographer begins to probe its causes.

Capturing causes reveals the history behind the decay. Causes are myriad—changes in modes of transportation; the building of highways, road and rail lines that divide populations; the closing of industrial facilities or failed attempts to create jobs; contaminated parcels of land, failed infrastructures.

Consider the pattern of decay in a community—cities may be surrounded by decay or find their wealthier communities circling the decay. There may be “players” (groups or individuals) that have caused or initiated the decay, or there may be other social issues that added to the decay (economic conditions, plant closings) that are worth exploring. As a social subject, urban decay requires the photographer to take a step further into the decline. The photographer must find a point of view from which to begin. Identifying the causes of the decay may serve to stir the instinctive, visual nature of the photographer. —MLR