Photographing emptiness

You can’t photograph nothing. All black or all white is something; it’s framed, signifying.

There’s a strong sense of emptiness in knowing that people use these pictured things, walk this way sometimes, or may soon again. The lack is stronger for being nearer. It’s an opposite to utter desolation, which is also an emptiness. Where there may be little sense of movement in a desolate scene, the only-just-empty would more likely betray a purpose, a history.

This is the kernel for a series. There’s a set on flickr.

Tags: desolation, emptiness, lonely path

Posted on May 30, 2010