Appreciation post: I started taking pictures of the small things in dead malls

I used to just snap a wide shot of the empty food court or a dark corridor and call it a day. On my last trip to the old Northgate Mall in Spokane, I forced myself to slow down. I spent a full hour just looking at one shuttered storefront, a 90s-era arcade called 'Pixel Palace'. I took close-ups of the dust on the ticket counter, the faded price sticker on a broken prize machine, and the single, forgotten sneaker tucked behind a planter. It hit me that the big, empty spaces tell one story, but these tiny, left-behind details tell a hundred more. They're the real history of the place. Now my camera roll is full of stuff like that instead of just grand, sad halls. Does anyone else focus on the small artifacts, or am I just getting weirdly sentimental?

2 comments

2 Comments

tessa_lewis3d ago

A single forgotten sneaker? That's the kind of detail that gives me chills. Makes you wonder about the kid who lost it and never came back. Your camera roll must be a total time capsule now. Do you ever try to guess the stories behind the stuff you find?

david_singh613d ago

Wait, a time capsule? It's more like a sad museum... I don't just guess the stories, @tessa_lewis, I sometimes find them. That sneaker was by a bus stop bench covered in stickers for a band that broke up in 2012. I saw a guy there once, maybe in his twenties, just staring at the ground. Makes you think the shoe wasn't from a kid, but from someone having a really bad day who just... walked away.