JPG Magazine: Stories: Photo Essay: Hidden Silhouettes In Unrefined Shades

Hidden Silhouettes In Unrefined Shades

By Nicole Gesmondi

13 March 2008

Photography is a process that incorporates time not only in the apparatus of the camera (shutter speed) but in the darkroom as well (printing and developing). Photography acts as a recorder of images, and documents the passage of time, as in the snapshot or family album, thus becoming history.

Abandoned buildings have visually and conceptually fascinated me. Their structures are geometries that creates lines, offering rich fields of textures and colors. These walls cannot speak, but their peeling paints are reminders of the past, now forgotten and deteriorated.

There are metaphoric and conceptual links between photography and its processes with these buildings. They bear witness to aging and time, both central themes in my project, Hidden Silhouettes In Unrefined Shades. Photographing these structures, one question comes to my mind, "What happened here?" This question references the past, while the question of "What can happen now?," addresses the present.

I use color film because this choice allows me to emphasize the vibrant color of the peeling paint while maximizing the depiction of layered texture. My pictures tell their own story. Their beauty, now blown up and cropped, reveals its history. Photographed flat and in a straightforward style, my images represent formal aspects in photography, captured in a non-traditional way. They reference the surfaces of maps and recall the Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollack and the photography of Aaron Siskind.

These images were photographed at the Sockanossett Boys Training School in Cranston, Rhode Island. I have been photographing this site since 1999, when I was in High School. In college, I was able to research, study and document the abandoned edifices on this site. Hidden Silhouettes In Unrefined Shades is unlike my earlier work of this site: working more close up, focusing on vibrant color and layers upon layers of peeling paint that provide textures. This familiarity allows my project the advantages of time, again.