Morolo Italy – Industrial decay

Untitled (Morolo) 2010 copyright Douglas Stockdale

Lately, I have veered away from the urban/industrial landscape in favor of things that are more ambiguous and tighter framed. Nevertheless, I have a ton of earlier work that pricked my soul and this abandoned industrial site, above, in particular.

When driving to an assignment, I prefer to take the back roads rather than a freeway directly to my destination. While working in Ferentino (Italy) and working on my project Ciociaria, my back road route took me past this group of buildings, with this one structure capturing my imagination in particular. It looks like the top structure of a ship, with the stacks looming over the terrain. I am not sure what it’s purpose was, but the locals do a lot of stone quarry work to support the construction in Rome and the surrounding area. Typically they just wear a local hill down to the nub, then when the stone or other natural materials are exhausted, walk away and leave all of the infrastructure in place in the hopes that it will eventually vanish.

Over a period of a year, I have been looking at this site, first while driving by, then when I found an appropriate parking spot, to then start walking the grounds. Even in places like this, sometimes the owners still like to keep a watch dog, but none of these were present. Looking at some photographs made during the mid day, I realized that I needed some additional moodiness to convey the forlorn melancholy feeling of this place. Thus one overcast morning while driving in, I realized that what external environmental conditions I had per-visualized was now present.

Industrial decay, devoid of any individuals or humanity, does speak to the past and memories, but in this case, there is no attempt to preserve the memories of things that occurred. There are many photographic projects about industrial decay, thus not a genre that I am interested in, but this image could help supplement another concept. Thus I will attempt to preserve this memory, one as it relates to my experience in making this composition and as I work on other concepts, might this photograph become relevant.

Cheers!