Ruins photography

Detroit's abandoned Michigan Central Station is a frequent subject of photographers, and a backdrop for movie-makers

Ruins photography, sometimes called ruin porn,^[1] is a recent movement in photography that takes the decline of the built-environment (cities, buildings, infrastructure) as its subject. While "ruins" may be broadly defined as the remnants, or residue of human achievement from the temples of ancient Sumeria to Machu Picchu, ruins photography refers specifically to the capture of urban decay and decline in the post-industrial zones of the world. Ruins photography aestheticizes the abandonment and decline of the city most of all, and has sparked conversations about the role of art in various revitalization and restoration projects from Detroit to Berlin.

Background

Though seeing a recent resurgence as a modern form of photography that focuses on urban decay, its roots come from popular notions of the picturesque which would often feature motifs concerned with the aesthetics of abandoned and dilapidated architecture.^[2] Subjects are typically large industrialized cities (e.g. New York City, Chicago, or Detroit) but can be any landscape, building, or symbolic representation of modern ruin and deindustrialization. Popular staples of ruins photography can include abandoned houses, neglected factories left over from the Industrial Revolution or auto industry booms, as well as bridges, abandoned lots, tenant or apartment buildings, or gutted theaters or offices.

Photographer Camilo José Vergara helped to bring the style greater recognition in the 1990s with his books The New American Ghetto and American Ruins. In the 2010s, photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre published The Ruins of Detroit which brought renewed interest.

The style relies heavily on lighting, detail close-ups, long shots, and digital imaging. Ruins photography is different from historical architectural photography in that it does not focus on comparisons between past and present, but instead focuses on the state of the subject and how it came to be dilapidated.^[3]

Reception

Some critics liken ruins photography to exploitation, comparing its appeal to that of sensationalist pornography.^[4] While most regard it for aesthetic purposes, critics find fault with the style’s minimal attention to the cities and places visited.

John Patrick Leary, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, said:

And others roll their eyes at all the positive attention heaped on the young, mostly white ‘creatives,’ which glosses over the city’s deep structural problems and the diversity of ideas to help fix them. So much ruin photography and ruin film aestheticizes poverty without inquiring of its origins, dramatizes spaces but never seeks out the people that inhabit and transform them, and romanticizes isolated acts of resistance without acknowledging the massive political and social forces aligned against the real transformation, and not just stubborn survival, of the city.^[4]

Others embrace ruins photography as a way of marketing for potential tourism, while yet others have insisted that it can serve as a powerful call to action. Responding to critics such as Leary, Detroit blogger James Griffioen suggested that there are different ways to mediatize urban and industrial decline: one spectacular and sensational (exploitative), the other more responsible.

The few photographers and reporters I met weren’t interested at all in telling the story of Detroit, but instead gravitated to the most obvious (and over-photographed) ‘ruins,’ and then used them to illustrate stories about problems that had nothing to do with the city (which has looked like this for decades). I take pictures of ruins, too, but I put them in the context of living in the city. These photographers were showing up with $40,000 cameras to take pictures of houses worth less than their hotel bills.^[5]

Ruins photographers are responding to critics who suggest that the genre pays little attention to local stories, by bringing the histories of the places and structures they photograph into their narratives. However, this new wave of ruins photography—more sensitive to the histories of structures and cities—is being met by a new wave of criticism. Locals in Detroit, Chicago, and other Rust Belt cities most featured by ruins photographers, point to the continued absence of the people living among the ruins from such accounts.

Ruins around the world

Detroit, Michigan is a major center for ruins photography. Experiencing rapid population decline after the 1950s, Detroit has seen many homes and large buildings abandoned, vandalized, and destroyed. Many other major cities and smaller settlements that once thrived have decayed over periods of time, some even becoming ghost towns due to economic hardship or civil unrest.

The town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, saw its population vanish due to a fire that spread from a nearby cemetery and ended up sparking smoldering flames in extensive abandoned coal mines below the district. The state of Pennsylvania has blocked roads to the area, but there are about ten vigilant inhabitants that remain.^[6] Other examples of urban decay include Gary, Indiana, and Camden, New Jersey.^[7]

Hashima Island, Nagasaki, Japan was an empty island that became populated due to its coal deposits. Home to some of Japan's first concrete high rise buildings, it became a ghost town when petroleum replaced coal.^[8] Another example of a ghost town is Kolmanskop, Namibia, built by Germans into a successful diamond mining community. After the mining stopped and the workers left, the desert repossessed the area.^[9]

See also

• Dead malls
• Howard Mansfield
• The Capital of the Ruins
• Urban exploration

References

Further reading

• Lyons, Siobhan (2018) Ruin Porn and the Obsession with Decay. Basingstoke: Palgrave
• gjohnsit (June 2, 2013). "Ruin Porn: How foreigners see the United States". Daily Kos. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
• Detroit Ruin Porn, The Huffington Post search
• Binelli, Mark (November 9, 2012). "How Detroit Became the World Capital of Staring at Abandoned Old Buildings". The New York Times. And in Detroit, you can't talk aesthetics without talking ruin porn, a term that has become increasingly familiar in the city. Detroiters, understandably, can get touchy about the way descriptions and photographs of ruined buildings have become the favorite Midwestern souvenirs of visiting reporters.
• Mullins, Paul (August 19, 2012). "The Politics and Archaeology of 'Ruin Porn'". Archaeology and Material Culture. Retrieved July 19, 2013.
• Brook, Pete (June 13, 2012). "Photos of Detroit Need to Move Beyond Ruin Porn". Wired.
• Polter, Julie (August 2013). "Beyond 'Ruin Porn'". Sojourners.

External links

• "‘Ruin Porn’ — the Aftermath of the Beijing Olympics", International Herald Tribune, July 2012
• "Beijing Olympic Venues ", Modern Day Ruins, August 2012