Shadows of the Past
2006-2024

Image #6

In 2005, a friend directed me to Pier 70, which was being dismantled. He knew I would be interested in the area, even though it was not the kind of subject matter that usually appealed to me.

I photographed that area for several years, and then I presented my work to the Port Commission. They put me on their mailing list and invited me to all the guided excursions to the fenced-off areas of Port 70.

I had a box full of pictures of that area but never got around to trying to show the work, since it was not my usual "personal and intimate" subject matter.

Recently I pulled out the box of Pier 70 pictures and decided to put them to use in some new way. I printed color transparencies of some of my nature images and layered them over the original Pier 70 pictures. I was amazed at how the layering transformed the original images. The added bit of nature (water, clouds, sky, grasses) gave the static pictures of decay a new life. I felt the pictures were in flux and changing before my eyes.

We all hear a lot about climate change and how it is affecting everything and everyone. I had just finished reading The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert and felt my pictures were both shadows of the past and reflections of the present. 

Images are sequenced and printed into a book, Shadows of the Past.
Book size : 9.5" x 8". Images sizes vary.

- Elena Sheehan