Ghostcri's photostream  

I am currently a Senior at the University of South Florida, majoring in Studio Art with plans to afterward teach English in Japan and continue my research and documentation of discarded sites and the people that once worked, played in and depended on them.

As a photographer, my work focuses on derelict, forgotten and abandoned spaces and the narratives that can be found and even created within. I grew up exploring these spaces, guided by an uncle that reminded me that just because most people have forgotten and left these spaces for nature to reclaim, that they are still here and worthy of investigation. The traces left behind by workers, the discarded materials and belongings are echoes of a forgotten past that still functions and is visible to those that seek it out. My goal as an artist is to document and explore the relationship between my own feelings of abandonment and the literal abandonment and emptiness that exist within areas often overlooked by society. Most often I use ambient light in combination with contemporary light-painting techniques to draw out and create a narrative that reverberates within the viewer, to give a sense of the beauty that can be found within the forgotten walls of what might seem at first glance to be just a twisted urban or industrial wasteland. I want the viewer to see that even in an abandoned space, individuals and time itself leave marks that are reflected in the decayed remains.