About Photographer Jay Sigal

I've been drawn to abandoned places and forgotten objects since I started shooting. I did this for years without questioning why. I now pursue it deliberately—I forage for things that have been left behind. Forsaken. No longer able to function as designed.

I'm not chasing perfect light or rare wildlife. While working, I'm equipped with only my Canon 5D and the kit lens I bought in 2005. Whether cruising the dim back alleys of Cleveland or Compton, or down a rural farm to market road in the heart of breadbasket America, something catches my eye. I'll hit the brakes, and go back looking for what I thought I saw. Sometimes I find it.

I'll often uncover something else entirely. Either way, I walk around it—looking at how the structure works, where the shadows fall, what's actually there versus what I imagined. I wander with the camera until the composition suddenly makes sense. The subject stops being a thing—becomes potential. It clicks. I get this physio-mental buzz. Tough to describe, but when it happens—that's when I shoot.

Most of my images end up in the discard pile. The ratio is worse than I'd like to admit. But I'm doing this for the few that work. I never delete any images from the catalog. Even those I've dismissed. Sometime later, weeks, maybe years, I'll rediscover one of those I dismissed, open it and see it again with fresh eyes. Its original potential tells me to reconsider.

Every image here earned its place. I'm showing you how I see the relationship between deterioration and structure, between what's dark and what catches the light. These are places and objects in transition—fully themselves, not yet gone, their fates nevertheless certain. You're witnessing my practice of investigating what most people will never see. These images represent my belief that things don't have to be pristine or dramatic to demand your attention.