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And my traveling companions
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I'm looking at ghosts and empties
--Paul Simon
There is reality and there is myth. In between are dreams and memories formed by our imperfect recollections merged with imagination and desire.
It was over ten years between the time when I first saw this abandoned amusement park and when I was able to return and photograph it. During that time mental images of the decaying park periodically haunted me, creating a sequence of dream-like visions in my mind. On my return, it was obvious that the realities of the place did not match the magically interesting dreamscapes my mind had created over the years. So I used computer manipulations to alter the visual reality of the raw photographs to better match the dreamy surreal look of my mental images. The result is a set of ghostly impressions of the remnants of the past that exist in this old amusement park.
Symbolically the images represent nostalgic memories of childhood escapism, but also the intrusive realities of real life and the relentless effects of time. They are comforting as well as to a degree disconcerting, invoking both nostalgia and a sense of loss.
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