Detroit Ruin Porn and White Guilt
It suddenly hit me why I was walking swiftly and directly back to my car after snapping a few photos: shame. Like so many others, I was making the most of my visit to Detroit by roaming the inner city neighborhoods and documenting the ruins. "Documenting” might be an inaccurate term. It’s not as if Detroit ’s continuing fall hasn’t already been photographed and recorded thousands of times over by proper journalists. No, these snapshots were for my personal collection. Why you ask? To make myself feel like an actual photo-journalist? To prove I was there? Sure, why not… But really, let’s admit it was at least partly morbid curiosity. “Ruin porn.” Hence the occasional shame, and why I found myself avoiding eye contact with local residents and walking directly back to my car after being spotted depressing the shutter button. Imagining yourself taking these pictures and actually doing it are two differ...