urban decay 6 Wuppertal district Barmen

© Carsten, on January 1, 2008, said:

Thank you John, I made this series because I uploaded so many nicier photos before. But the world I am living in is decaying. I want to show this.

Greetings,

Carsten

PeSchn, on January 5, 2008, said:

Schön romantisch, könnte man denken, es erinnert mich etwas an unsere Burgruinen hier. Aber es fühlt sich sicher ganz anders an, wenn man es jeden Tag sehen muss... Irgendwie schade, dass das alles einfach so verrottet... Großartige Serie auf jeden Fall, Carsten! Grüße, Peter

♫ Swissmay, on January 15, 2008, said:

Carsten, I love this photo, just because of its decay. As I said in another photo yof yours, I don't see anything to be frighten of, if something decays, much more unbearable, if it didn't. Think of some ugly building which would last for centuries. This photo has to be seen in the original size to discover the beauty of decay. Look at the colour of the bricks and the weed growing between them. I prefer this a hundred times to the carefully rebuilt ruins of the Roman bath or the renewed kind of museum neat old town parts in many places with coaches full of tourists visiting them. I usually run off in seeing anything like it, or else I feel a growing impulse to dig out a few copplestone… just to get a feeling of authenticity. I hope to have been able to explain, why I like these walls. ;) Good photo!

Greetings to you and Xenia!

May

© Carsten, on January 15, 2008, said:

Thank you May, unfortunatly I am very busy at work right now and I have to leave in one hour to drive through the traffic jam to Cologne. When I am back home I often just stare at my screen and don't do anything. And I am running out of words at 4 o'clock in the morning. This series is made also in colour. This is strange for me because I am a great fan of B/W. All the time Xenia and I walked to a photo location we passed rotten buildings and dirty streets. So I have a lot of pictures. I decided to take some of them into my gallery. But I can't upload more of them because this would not fit into the main appearence of a site (would be boring). When I have uploaded something else (that I don't have right now) I am going to continue uploading more. Regarding the point of rebuilt ruins I have to say in Xanten, home of the destroyed army of Varus, there is a park where they dig and reconstruct these buildings. The made a half reconstruction of a temple and paint just one column to show how these temples looked like. They always say that it is not original and they know that this is a grey area. I like their claim. If you say so it is ok. But in general I have to say, even a reconstruction in 1820 is history. I think nobody has a time machine so you have to use your imagination. But I can live with buildings like the Kaiserthermen in Trier. But I know you don't like the additional thing.

Thank you for your visit,

Greetings,

Carsten

♫ Swissmay, on January 15, 2008, said:

Your photos are fascinating. They remind me of very old persons, whose faces tell stories of a life time. Have you ever compared a handknotted carpet with a sleek machine produced carpet? What a story, how many things to discover, how many symbols are woven or knotted in the carpet done in different moods and situations, whereas the carpet produced in thousands of specimens is boring and without life. People's imagination is fed by the pieces, which are missing. Btw. are you sure, that some of the renovation didn't take place during the last decades at the Kaiserthermen? But never mind, I am very glad, that you showed them to us and your photos are great and the buildings are interesting.

My best wishes to you and Xenia and don't forget to relax!

May

Erik Eshuis, on January 15, 2008, said:

Carsten, I looked again at your series and I have too renew my first opinion. On the monitor I can't see the details and judge the quality. You have to see these ones in bigger prints, as Swissmay already said. I maybe still am a bit 'colored' in my opinion though about this subject. During my study and not only I, we were very much involved with photographing 'beauty in decay'. Here in Enschede there were lots of old textile factories in very beautiful stadia of decay, which are almost all gone now, however some are transformed in appartments or musea. I've made much B/W pictures during that time, but my teachers were not very enthusiastic, I think because they saw too much students doing the same thing. So that's my own story and says more about me than you. I don't mean to put it as a degradation of the subject, although I wonder what your fascination for decay is.

Greetings, Erik