Each day hundreds of motorists pass by relics of Shenandoah Valley history. Along major highways and back roads, history sits neglected, showing the grim effects of weather and time. Like, for instance, vinyl records, these buildings are underneath quite some dust and debris, but they hold significance to the culture of the valley – whether it be a store, restaurant, business, or church.

Through the use of a wide-angle lens and monochromatic photography, Relics seeks to shed new light on the beauty underneath the scars of time, presenting the settings as they currently are. The unique lens choice changes the perspective on a number of these structures, allowing one to see these pieces of history in a different manner.

In Percy Shelley’s 1818 poem “Ozymandias,” the narrator recalls an encounter with a traveller who described to him the sight of the ruins of a colossal statue of Ramses II (Younger Memnon, 1270 BCE). The poem reflects on the hubris of Ramses (called Ozymandias in Greek), and the fleeting nature of power and wealth.

In our society, power is contingent upon wealth; we observe a greater level of economic and social stratification than any other period in history. There are men with billions, even trillions, of dollars to their name, who could, if they so desired, end world hunger with a snap of their fingers, and yet do nothing as the poor of the world struggle, work themselves to death, starve, or die of preventable diseases. Today we no longer have pharaohs, but rather billionaires.

However, this wealth and power that they have, much like the power of Ramses II, is fleeting. The era of excess will collapse in on itself when it can no longer be sustained, and much like the Younger Memnon, nothing will remain of their great empires but a memory of the narcissism and violence of the rich.

Featured here are four of the most powerful men in recent memory - the four horsemen, if you will: Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).

Ozymandias by Percy Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“You ask me how to get out of the finite dimensions when I feel like it. I certainly don’t use logic when I do it. Logic’s the first thing you have to get rid of’. - J.D Salinger

In a time where so many see the world in black and white, so little color and imagination is left. We often overlook the many possibilities and ideas our minds can dream up. Fantasy and surrealistic scenes do not always fit into the reality of today. We must allow our subconscious to create without hinderance despite what might be acceptable. In my vision, portals exist as the ability to jump between time and space to arrive in an instant. What is waiting for you on the other side can be either unknown or familiar. 

You start in a dull monochrome scene. A portal opens leading you to a parallel dimension to the one you once knew. If you close your eyes and count to ten and reopen, what do you see? Bright colors blaze as your eyes open. Mesmerized by what imagination and wild dreams have made, you continue jumping through portals. Each one leads back to the colorless alternative where creativity is fleeting. Passing through the opening of each new location gives a sense of hope that this surreal realm could become reality.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Liam Wong’s cyberpunk photography aesthetic lead me to explore my fascination with surrealism and dreamlike worlds. Using a wide-angle lens to skew reality, I photographed local towns and cities for the foundation of each image. I then altered color, drew portals and layered images to create my neon-noir world in Adobe Photoshop to make my vision come to life.