This series was taken in and around a vacant industrial building here in St. Louis. The 1890s building, with its nearly three-foot-thick brick walls and decaying roof, felt and smelled like a cave. Empty but for the occasional artifact or pile of debris, the building nevertheless impressed me with its solidity and sense of former importance. But on that particular day, a clear sky let the bright sun pierce in through every window, awakening the spaces and their sparse contents as if for the first time in decades. The effect was beautiful even the thick layer of dirt looked luxurious in that warm glow.
Any photograph derives interpretive power from the photographer's choice of subjects of where and on what to focus the camera lens. In these images, I focused my attention on that day's essential meeting of darkness and light by removing from view everything that was not entirely one or the other.