It was the summer of 2006.   I was working, living in a house, and trying to get used to taking care of a dog as my only companion.  One evening, I surprised myself when I watched a weather report.  My surprise was that I knew the places on the weather map as merely dots on the TV screen.  I did not know them as actual places.  I had to get out and see these places that I only knew as names on an evening weather report.

Around that same time, I took fascination at those homes in which no one was living any more.  What happened in these places?  What stories could these walls tell?  Was there someone living there one day, and gone the next?  There was a great deal of speculation, and in many cases, it was likely not any of my business.  Yet, I felt it would be harmless if I were to at least photograph these homes, so I could tell myself that I was there.  I supposed I needed to participate in the building's existence, if even to legitimize its self along with me.  

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These two realizations led me to my travels which included a digital camera.  I would often times on my day off, load up the car with my camera and my dog, and pop on a CD of Matt Dillon reading Kerouac's On the Road while I just pointed my car in one direction, and let the road dictate where we went.  My stops were often for gas, sometimes for a bathroom, but almost always for those buildings, homes, and structures that I wanted to keep with me.

I often felt a little strange, being the one to focus on buildings that had been abandoned and left in disrepair.  Would I be exploiting the misery of those who left it?  Would I be capitalizing on the despair of others?  

I could not answer those questions, other than to say that my intent has never been malicious or condescending.  My intent has been preservation, if only as a photograph and memory.

Phil Palm
January 2013
Colorado Springs, Colorado