ABANDONED # 1
A few years back I was preparing for two exhibitions, back-to-back. As most of the images were abstract studies I had spent a lot of time in the studio in the lead up to these shows. At the time I just felt like shooting some outdoor work in a lesser controlled environment. It was December 2006, I packed very little camera equipment, in an attempt to uncomplicated my mindset and headed out into the country side for three weeks. After a couple of days I found this old Opel Manta standing on a pole just off the main road. It was used to mark the entrance of a small farm in the Free State province of South Africa. One afternoon a storm started building in the South, I rushed over to this scene to find the light just right and the background perfect. I felt that the old Opel had been given a new lease on life, although it would never see the road again, it looked proud of itself even in its last years of life as if being showcased. It was then that I decided to shoot a series entitled Abandoned. I said to my wife at the time that I wanted to find similar subjects, that had similarly reached the end of their life. As with the car I wanted to portray these subjects in a positive light with lots of mood. I have been working on the series for just over three and a half years now and have included eighteen images in the collection.