Empty Retail 01
©2011 Craig Ashby
Digital Photograph

Finally, Empty Retail 01 is the beginning of a lengthy new photo series. Showing my obsession with the bottoming out of American capitalism. These are the ghosts of old business hopes.

In New York these potential new retail locations are garishly lit. As painfully lit as tourist souvenir shops on Eighth Avenue. Beckoning potential businesses to bask under fluorescent light.

The garish lighting and the emptiness is probably what draws me. Any empty space in New York City seems ominously magical. Mostly ominous though.

Sometimes they appear like those pictures of abandoned cities or buildings. Detritus strewn about as the former tennant left in a hurry. I guess we all have ran from failed opportunities quickly.

Sometimes it is just fantasy that lures me in. I think about living in those empty spaces. Imagining what I would put where. How I would decorate and handle the issue of those giant street level windows.

Primarily though it is about documenting the change. Noticing how the forest of business is dying and growing. How certain businesses never had a chance. Noticing the surrounding businesses that seem to thrive but never being able to make sense of it.