The models look at us with defiant eyes from among bare branches and weathered boards.
These photos are filled with something I love - antithesis, "a contrast or opposition between two things." There is juxtaposition here: of youth and age, of glamour and decay, fantasy and reality, sophistication and humility. To look at these photos is to sense both joy and sorrow - the span of human experience - the optimism of youth, the inevitability of death. Cheryl Strayed put it wonderfully in her book Tiny Beautiful Things "To be down low. To be of the earth. To be of the ground."
This series of photos was never intended to have a theme, Steampunk or otherwise. The photographer, Carly Kemper-Bos, and models, Sasha and Nikki Slivinski, bundled into the car and took a short drive to a cluster of abandoned farm structures behind the Chase bank. It was really just for fun, though Car was considering increasing the scope of her photography business to include model portfolios.
for a past that never was by Barbara Barrows