Photographer James Griffioen left a comfy life as a securities lawyer in San Francisco to take pictures and raise his family in what many consider the most dangerous city in America thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. He now calls Detroit home sweet home.
Griffioen has since spent his days walking the streets of his disintegrating hometown photographing the houses that others have long left behind. In the absence of their owners, architectural structures are slowly taken over by green matter. He calls the series of photographs Feral Houses; feral meaning “reversion to a wild state” and belonging to the dead. There is nothing sinister about these images though. Instead they remind us of the indomitable power of nature — living proof of Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.
All images courtesy of James Griffioen.
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4 Responses
I live in the Carolina’s and Kudzu is rampant. This aggressive and fast growing vine (sometimes a foot a day!) takes over everything in its wake if it’s not cut back on a regular basis. there are a few houses in my neighborhood that look like the ones Griffioen shoots. I like the variety of overgrowth on his houses and the formal portrait style with which he composes the pic.
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This is pretty awesome. Reminds me of a video I saw that Bruce Sterling was pimping that talked about just how quiet some areas of detroit are now. Entire blocks taken over by animals and plants and perhaps one person who’s still living there but laying low.
Images would be perfect for an album cover for my band, Mondegreen.