Abandoned office. Maysville, Georgia Highway 98. Hall County.
An ongoing theme of my photography, at least since the early '70s, has been abandonment. You may have picked up on that if you've been reading this blog for a while. As I say in my artist's statement, located in the upper left corner of this page:
"My domain is the old, the odd, and the ordinary; the beautiful, the abandoned, and the about to vanish away. I am a visual historian of an earlier America and a recorder of the interface between man and nature; a keeper of vanishing ways of life."
That may sound somewhat grandiose, but that's what I attempt to do with my pictures. I've always been drawn to things that are old, run-down, abandoned. Things that are physical records of lives lived mostly in obscurity.
I don't know why this is. It's not as if I were abandoned as a child or anything. But there were several old, abandoned houses in the country neighborhood where I grew up, and I liked exploring them, even though there was nothing much to find except old rags and bottles. Maybe the experience somehow permanently warped me!
Gulf Station. Georgia Highway 169, Tatnall County.
This Gulf station doesn't look all that abandoned. The roof is in good shape and the building looks as if the gas pumps could be reinstalled and the business reopened tomorrow. But gas hasn't sold for $1.05 per gallon since around the turn of the century and Gulf has been out of business for many years. Also, the little sign in the window says "CLOSED."
It may not look as rundown as the little office building in the top photo, but it's definitely abandoned, and therefore of interest to me.
The photos: The office was photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Classic; the Gulf station with a Canon EOS 20D. Both pictures are from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait.
Visit my online gallery at https://davejenkins.pixels.com/
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Photography and text copyright 2025 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
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