Abyss
134 creative works found
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This shot was taken on an overcast and rainy day at Flynn’s Beach in Port Macquarie.. I had to take a shot as the colour of the water was a very nice blue-green.. I was also happy with the way I captured the wave crashing on the rocks offshore.
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We lay up on the golden sands – I got my equipment out
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A brief candle; both ends burning / An endless mile; a bus wheel turning / A friend to share the lonesome times / A handshake and a sip of wine / So say it loud and let it ring / We are all a part of everything / The future, present and the past / Fly on proud bird / You’re free at last. - written by Charlie Daniels, en route to the funeral for his friend, Ronnie Van Zant of the band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-- / all rights reserved. photo taken at teton state hospital. / more of my work is available at www.abandonedamerica.org
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easily one of the grandest and most ornate asylums ever built, / algonquin river state hospital was a cause of great local controversy during construction / due to running far over budget. the extravagance is evident in the beautiful masonry, / the ornamental woodwork, the stained glass windows with their decorative yet functional iron grating. / olmsted, the man who designed central park, laid out the grounds and the span of the wings / is half a mile, if you walked end to end. / to do so now is impossible. / in an ironic twist, the much-contested (and extremely expensive) yellow pine floors / fared far less impressively over time than those made of other, cheaper materials. / the epic scale of the structural collapse, combined with a devastating fire last summer, / make algonquin river state hospital quite possibly the most deadly building in existence. / floors like the one shown here / give way into gaping abysses, punji pits full of sharp, splintered boards / fanning out from the basement like jagged teeth in the ever-hungry mouth of death itself. / to take this photo i had to make it from the crumbling doorway on the left / onto the sagging mess in the extreme foreground. the floor shifted beneath my feet / and my added weight sent dust and debris cascading ominously into oblivion below. / it was quite possibly the most frightening moment of my life, second only to the one / where i had to get back into the doorway with no real solid ground to support me as i inched closer. / i may not be terribly afraid of death. i may even frequently wish for it. / i am, however, afraid of being paralyzed, of falling onto a rotted shard of floorboard and / laying impaled and broken for hours, with no real help available. i am not too proud / to admit that i wanted nothing more than to stay in the relative safety of the door frame, / or that i am glad that i will never again have to make the nerve-wracking leap of faith / back to the only exit. / that being said, i would do it again if i had to. there is no better example than algonquin / that all things fall apart, and i feel a certain kinship with it. we are both collapsing inside, / and it is an odd thing to see before your very eyes what you imagine / your own heart looks like. / very odd indeed. / —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-- photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. all rights reserved. / more of my work is available on abandonedamerica.org
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if one cares at all for the truth, it is important / to periodically step back and look at what defines / the world around us, and by extension, ourselves. / in algonquin river state hospital’s case, it is defined by / its grand ambitions and idealistic foundation / and now, by the collapse of these noble ambitions. / it is a place haunted by the scores of tragedies that litter its past, / by its inability to integrate into the world around it, / and its inevitable decline into obsolescence and disrepair - / much like me. / if i were to be honest, i don’t want to see it demolished, / but i don’t want to see it restored either. / it is what it is because of these things, / and its status as some behemoth / enshrouded in its own obscurity and decay makes it / larger than life, legendary even. / to tear it down to make some development or store / seems so pedestrian, insultingly dull, in much the same way as / trying to undo all of the damage wrought upon it, / cleaning it and sterilizing it and packaging it for the masses / ultimately belittles what it truly is. you may look at it / and wince at the sheer scale of the calamity it has become, / but no matter what you think it has finally revealed its true nature, / and has become something far more intricate and ornate / than our ordinary world, / with its gray cubicles and prefabricated sentiments, allows. / to see algonquin river state hospital, you have to actively seek it, / much like you are making a pilgrimage to some hallowed site / that is a shrine to all that fails, all hopes that are smashed by time. / to change it, to ‘save’ it, ultimately destroys it anyway. / and so too, i suppose there is something necessary about / my own longing to leave this world. if i were not consumed by my / relentless desire for my own destruction, why would i seek such things? / sometimes it is the very things that eat us apart, / that ultimately kill us, even, that are our own defining characteristics. / i have no delusions about my own greatness, or lack thereof, but nevertheless / if edgar allen poe wouldn’t have followed a trajectory that left him / dead in some back street’s gutter, if van gogh hadn’t followed a path / of loneliness so severe that it drove him mad - / would we ever know of their works? would they even have accomplished any? / i postulate that dissatisfaction is the mother of creation. / without it we have no incentive to create or to change, as / contentment is suspicious of change, lest it throw off comfortable equilibrium. / and so i suppose my own defining characteristics are a necessary evil. / were i to be happy, were i not to suffer, / this work that i do that defines me, that is paradoxically one of my only joys / would likely cease to be as well. / i don’t want to be a walmart, a business park, a playground. / when i am gone, let it be left to those few who care / to wonder at what drove me to do what i do, and / what frightening and magnificent things i saw in places like this. / i have chosen this path and where it will lead me, all in the hope that / it will entertain, edify, and maybe even enlighten / those of you gracious enough to join me and peer into my life through / the small window of my camera’s lens. / this is my downward spiral in all its splendor, friends. / enjoy. / -—-—-—-—-—-——- / photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is online at www.abandonedamerica.org
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Since greeting cards are officially available on RB, I decided to let one of my favorite babes join the big pool as well. This piece was created based on the idea of fractal, though I didn’t use any fractal softwares to make it. I will write more details on this later on. By the way, if you want a print of mighty big scale (36”x36” to be exact), it’s availabe on my shop.
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there is something eerie about staring down through / the remains of rooms where the flooring has collapsed. / it goes beyond the mortal fear of falling and death, / beyond the realization that there but for the grace of god go i. / maybe there is some inate sense that this is not something that is or should be possible. / it is like staring through holes torn in the fabric of different dimensions / and it throws off your balance and perspective, leaving everything askew. / splintered shards of boards jut off at illogical angles, / heavy radiators dangle from pipes like rusted fruit on steel vines, / and doorways swing outward into cavernous voids. / people once walked, talked, worked, and slept / along these planes now almost entirely inaccessable to man. / distant portals open to rooms and wards whose secrets will remain hidden / until they are erased by decay, by fire, by the wrecking ball. / there is always this pervasive sense that these are the areas where the answers lie, / that if one only pushes a little harder, takes a few more risks / this search for who knows what will produce some tangible results / and this consuming drive well somehow be rewarded with / reprieve, release, redemption. / this is the nature of my obsession. when you look at me, / you should see not what lies before you / my physical shell, a fragmented collection of skin and bones and blood. / you should see the conspicuous absence of what i was, what i could be, / of my very spirit, which has divorced itself from my corporeal form. / i once walked and talked, worked and slept along planes / now almost entirely inaccessable to man. / even now as we speak i am drifting somewhere, restless / stuck in limbo, in the space between floors. / -—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-— more available at my (recently updated) site, www.abandonedamerica.org / photo taken at algonquin state hospital / all rights reserved. may not be reproduced without permission.
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photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is available at www.abandonedamerica.org
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Some visual fun for the eyes. :]
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abyss
by falsehopethe crystal tears fall from her sad eyes / she spreads her delicate hands / embraces this falling
it was cold this morning
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A fractal collage
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photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more of my work is on www.abandonedamerica.org
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Cone flower
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I have arisen all phoenix-like from a few months of despair. The relief is something I am continuously aware of… a sweet loose strength in my limbs. It does not hurt to breathe, to move. / “Bliss can be only a cessation of pain.”Me. / I would write more but must needs run around and around making beautiful things. Thank you all with the fullness that my heart, exquisitely light for this moment, affords me. The words of your support have meant worlds to me… / Here, I finally nailed this for a newspaper article a small paper is doing on my show. I thought I would share it. Love to all Paul. ARTIST’S STATEMENT – I find the elitism in the art world obscene and utterly misguided. / I want to MOVE OTHER HUMAN HEARTS with my work, and this is my ultimate goal, in everything I do and make. This includes all of humanity. / We are born with the same passions, demons, love and wonder. There is tragedy in everyone’s existence, as there is, I hope, joy. / If I can reach that common truth in another I have succeeded in a rare gift and blessing in this life. If I am lucky enough to witness this it gives me more than I can possibly convey, and at times leaves me with tears standing in my own eyes. / No matter our beliefs as individuals, we are certain only perhaps of the time that we pass through, and of the inevitability of this time ending. I am not religious, so within the limitations of my own view there is no more than this. / Our lives are, to me, not lessened in value by these convictions being some of the only absolutes that I have. In an unqualified sense, this life – each week day hour minute second is in actuality made infinitely more precious by this knowledge. It must mean more to us, because this is all that we have. / It means also that the responsibility for living well, for living to the hilt with everything within us lies with us, in our hearts and minds. With our love, our strength, the veracity and purity of our actions. Our choices, and fundamentally our kindness. / That this can be purely, wildly, essentially beautiful is at the core of my work. / In some ways, this is also a bleak way of looking at the world. Because to me, these moments must end. They must. / Almost every one of my pieces has a kind of fierce attempt at beauty, and it has an undercurrent, a swelling, of sorrow. Because life is beautiful. / And because life is also sad. Paul D Robertson / 0417 977 048 / pauldrobertson@hotmail.com / www.pauldrobertson.com
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Cemeteries located near rue des abysses-Paris
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photo taken at john f. grantham correctional facility. / more of my work is available at www.abandonedamerica.org
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“If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” / Friedrich Nietzsche Check my Sepia Version
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This abstract looks like shards of glass. It actually is a multi-colored tile that I manipulated to look like a dangerous region populated by malicious creatures that threaten the sanity of those who dare enter this dark realm. The master of the abyss is the large figure on the left wall with a large horn and what appears to be a missing ear. Figures are clinging to the walls to avoid falling into the shards of glass that are occupied by demonic figures. On the far upper right, can you see the tortured face of a woman in black and white screaming in terror? Can she be saved from a horrible fate? There are many other images to be discovered in this abstract photograph? I am always interested in what you perceive and the stories that accompany your projections.
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photo taken at algonquin river state hospital. / more ofmy work is viewable at www.abandonedamerica.org
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photo taken at algonquin state hospital. / more of my work is viewable at www.abandonedamerica.org
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This is a shot of an Amish woman on a ride at the state fair. She appeared to be in deep thought possibly pontificating the blue abyss.
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This series dealt with the manipulation of light to create an illusion of mystery and darkness. It thus represents the deep, dark an unknown just like an abyss in oneself. The images were taken with a pinhole camera, lights and blue gels.
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