Hi everyone. I'm the photographer who took the images being discussed here.
First, let me thank those of you who had kind words.
Second, I want to defend myself against some of the accusations being leveled here by hudkina, particularly the one above. hudkina is 100% correct about the story behind st. cyril's abandonment (something I have never shied away from writing about myself). In fact, hudkina echoes the very point that I made to Vice Magazine when they came to Detroit to write about journalists and photographers swarming the city for ruin porn. I was trying to make a more subtle point with Vice than the article states, that is, a camera doesn't lie about what's in front of it, but it does keep mum about what's behind it. I explained to them how I was guilty of taking one photo in a particular spot (the ONLY photo in that set from St. Cyril) that ignored the thriving industrial park behind me. I was trying to express how you can portray the city with your camera one way, but it can't possibly transport the viewer to the city himself to see the "complete" picture. . .this is the point hudkina is making and it is a good one.
I have a wide angle lens but I still haven't figured out a way for it to capture the entire city. What these photos show is only one way of telling a truth, which is the truth I am here most interested to tell.
That said, my photos in the "lost neighborhoods" set were taken ALL OVER the city. In fact, despite hudkina's accusations most are clearly identified where they were taken. The only one that came from St. Cyril was the car in the abandoned intersection from a higher vantage point. There are shots in there from all over the east side, from Brightmoor, from Southwest, and even Briggs and Poletown. I actually don't like shooting St. Cyril because most of the infrastructure has been removed and it doesn't look like a neighborhood at all. I do love going to St. Cyril with my birddog for pheasant "hunting." The streets are blocked off with Jersey barriers and the light posts, electrical wires, and abandoned homes are all gone. Even Jane Cooper School is dust now.
Detroit is an amazing city. Parts of it are disappearing and parts of it are just like any other city. My documentation comes from a point of view skewed towards highlighting how nature is reclaiming what is gone, and it is only one part of the city's story. Sadly, if there were more interest in well-kept blocks of suburban-style housing like you see in parts of the west side, I'm sure someone would be telling that part of the story too. And look, here's great article about just such a neighborhood:
http://wunderkammermag.com/politics-and-society/essay-detroit
My guess is that the vast majority of those images were taken in the old St. Cyril's neighborhood.