Stuart Murdoch – Abandoned: Empty Shops

My wanderings didn’t amount to a great deal pictorially, but at some point afterwards one image caught my eye. It was of an empty shop, with green walls and a contrasting purple set of stairs strewn with some detritus at the rear, photographed using my smartphone, for a variety of reasons.

For whatever reason this image struck a chord with me, perhaps the colour, perhaps the objects strewn on the floor, whatever, it seemed a pleasing image. As I scrolled though my digital archive a few days after, I started to notice other empty shops I’d photographed prior to this one, most likely subconsciously.

All had a similar composition. It then dawned on me it may be possible to create a body of work that examined this phenomenon of empty shops, after all, Australia at this point was meant to be weathering the GFC quite well. Yet these shops were not difficult to find.

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ABANDONED SERIES
The series brings together photobooks that each in its own way explore how we see and deal with things abandoned, past by.  Covering a wide thematic spectrum  – ranging from architecture to everyday objects – the titles ultimately share a common interest in how we deal with the transitory nature of the world around us.