Long Exposure of Memory

Decaying buildings, with artefacts still intact, the camera captures the remains of people’s most intimate moments, people I knew, exposing a story without knowing the real story. It’s like bringing the past to the present.

I spent 7 years photographing the same group of decaying buildings getting to know them intimately. They feel like part of me as I look for light and shade casting over dusty remains; imagining the people living in them; telling my own story with pictures as I tread carefully over detritus, the silence, broken by the occasional squawk of a crow, wind tossing the trees, or iron clattering loosely on a roof.

My work represents change in rural communities as smaller farms are bought out and empty farmhouses are repurposed for storage or shearers quarters. Mostly, I saw change between visits as roofing iron dislodged, casting different geometric light shapes across the floors and walls. This gradual destruction feels like loss on a dry silent landscape.

My works peel away the dirt and detritus to show how special mundane objects and decaying remains can be.

As magnum photographer Eve Arnold said:
“it’s the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is”.