SMALL BUILDINGS

 

Small buildings dot and define America’s landscape. Usually built for a single purpose, apartments, grocery store, retail, bar, or restaurant. They all start with the glitter, excitement and bright signs of the original owner.

Overtime those signs fade, owners retire or pass away. The building struggle to be repurposed, but seldom are. They languish for years, people remember the life once there, reluctant to tear them down. They look different in various parts of the country. 

In the desert, they take on a bleached look. Separated by distance between them, the speak of loneliness. Urban small building often occupy crowded corners or are tucked away between larger properties. Almost afraid to show themselves for fear of being torn down. Small town ones form the closest bindings to the community, part of the landscape. These tend to last the longest, the small towns working to make them live again. Keeping them in the future as a fabric of the community.

When a community dies, like a factory town, it is the small buildings that are the gravestones.

My camera is always drawn to small buildings. Perhaps it is the sense of what they were are are. The life once within. Maybe the mystery of their presence. 

Desert Small Buildings