"Bannister and Shadows near the Old Showrooms"
Part of a project exploring an abandoned car dealership near my home (San José, California July 2023), this image exemplifies my approach: I decided to work only in black and white, to focus on contrasts, textures, and abstraction.
Shooting over the course of several weeks in autumn, I always returned to the dealership in early evening, when the sun cast long, sharp shadows. Since all doors, gates, and windows of the dealership were boarded up, I kept bumping into dead ends; the project soon became all about secrets and hidden spaces. In this image, a bannister has led us safely up a ramp - but there is nowhere to go; a heavy shadow lies across plywood covering the entrance. Because I was technically trespassing -although the place was never guarded- I had to move quickly, which meant short stints of shooting for about 15 minutes at a time. Using a pocket-sized camera with a pancake lens allowed me to move swiftly, and discreetly. Since each brief “session” explored a different section of the old dealership, I gradually built up a photographic narrative that covered almost the entire dealership.
I live in an area where housing is expensive, and scarce -and homelessness is at an all-time high. To see this sprawling property mothballed purely for speculation, seemed outrageous to me, so I chose this minimalist and almost expressionist approach to voice my anger and frustration.