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Thursday 10 July 2014

No Place Like Ohm


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 Last Call, George's, Vernalis, California. Argus c3 with long expired (and damaged) technical pan: photo by efo, 22 June 2014


After a period of time things start to rot and crumble. Decay is always happening, even when no one's looking. And now no one's ever going to be looking any more. That movement in the tall grass, an almost imperceptible rustling, a changing of the depth of shadow, those disconnected power lines, that telephone that's never going to ring. Abandonment. No one's oiled the ferris wheel motor in living memory. Rust moves across the vacant lots with the stealth of a thief. The temporary businesses have departed. The electricity has stopped flowing. Rattlesnakes and weeds and dust, all that's left. There's no place like Ohm, and in Ohm nobody's ever going to be home any more. 





Forks of Buffalo, Virginia: photo by efo, 4 July 2014



Country fair, Bustleburg, Virginia: photo by efo, 4 July 2014


Dwelt (Ohm, California): photo by efo, 22 June 2014



Dwelt vdb (Ohm, California). Selenium toned Van Dyke brown print. San Joaquin Valley, California. Shot with the indomitable Kodak No. 2 Folding Cartridge Hawk-Eye Model B with the aperture limiter removed, around f/10 : photo by efo, 7 July 2014



  George's Service, Vernalis, California
photo by efo, 22 June 2014



Last Call, George's, Vernalis, California. Argus c3 with long expired (and damaged) technical pan: photo by efo, 22 June 2014


Country fair, Bustleburg, Virginia: photo by efo, 4 July 2014
 

1 comment:

TC said...

When all presence is continually haunted by absence and all appearances are replaced by disappearances, every ghost town gets to look a lot like every other ghost town; so that, in truth, it might just be possible to feel right at home in Ohm, so long as one kept one's distance.

In the dimlit back of the mind all along, perhaps, was this:

Wallace Stevens: Disappearance

... and triggered by certain other disappearances, the sudden fading of summer, not to mention the amazing way everything inessential seems to escape from every frame of every efo photograph, leaving only the soul.