Ruin of Tabby (Shell) Construction, St. Mary's, Georgia, 1936 Possibly 1936 - 1974

Walker Evans made this photograph of the Ruin of Tabby (Shell) Construction in St. Mary's, Georgia, in 1936. It feels like I'm looking at a painting. The surface has so much variation in texture, from the smooth grey of the tree trunk to the rough, cratered surface of the ruined wall. The way the light falls makes the wall's surface feel alive. All those shells glinting out. I want to run my hands over it, to feel the history embedded there. And the trees behind and in front! It’s not just a backdrop. They have their own presence. Look at the geometry of the openings in the wall. The way the dark interiors make them feel like eyes, or mouths, giving the ruin a face. You can see the influence of Eugène Atget here, that same sense of seeing the beauty in the everyday, the overlooked. But also something of the starkness of the New Topographics photographers.