Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre are two French photography artists who collaborate in "ruin photograhy" and "detroitism", a recent movement in which the two are considered forerunners. This approach to the medium focuses on the aesthetic and artistic value of modern urban decay. One collaboration in particular, appropriately named "The Ruins of Detroit", documents precisely what the title describes. The results are generally desaturated, devoid of life, and focus on overall depressing sights of decrepit buildings and forgotten objects. I don't find the work depressing however; I think it does an excellent job at bringing attention to sights that would otherwise not be considered for their aesthetic value because of their physical state. According to their website, close to half of the 160 square miles of Detroit are disused or rather unoccupied; making for a perfect stage for this collaborative effort.
Quoting Patrick Leary, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit who published an article on "detroitism":
"The few photographers and reporters I met weren’t interested at all in
telling the story of Detroit, but instead gravitated to the most obvious
(and over-photographed) ‘ruins,’ and then used them to illustrate
stories about problems that had nothing to do with the city (which has
looked like this for decades). I take pictures of ruins, too, but I put
them in the context of living in the city. These photographers were
showing up with $40,000 cameras to take pictures of houses worth less
than their hotel bills."
Max Gilbert
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