These images are not meant to show the ugliness or frailty of things. Their content is not to be considered trash. The subjects capture a few moments of change, moments of the eternal metamorphosis, just like a snake that sheds its skin as time goes by. Most of the subjects are no longer where I found them and have moved on to a new destiny, but for me at the time and at the place is where their rareness stood out.
by Garth Leach
(click on thumbnails for full-size images)
Suburban Decay Realized
The sun was rising over the hills in a suburban Connecticut town. Warm light bathed the guts of an old gas pump at a long forgotten trucking company. Rusty pieces contrasting against shiny metal. This was the day that the idea of Suburban Decay series was born.
The “American Dream” starts in suburbia with family owned businesses and lively neighborhoods. It is during this pursuit that jetsam and flotsam get tossed to the side. Barnacles start to appear on the landscape as abandoned drive-in theaters, gas stations, and hobo shopping carts. As I started to look around I noticed more and more indications that suburbia was starting to change. Little pieces of this dream had been tossed away. 
Computers, children’s bicycles, abandoned cars all left for good.
In the ever changing universe things are realized and created. The innovations often spawn more innovations and some things get recycled and some things do not. Even Santa Claus is no longer safe within the borders of suburbia, found face down in a river.
Hobo Shopping Carts
Shopping carts have become a symbol of this series and I seem to be drawn to photographing them. It is always interesting to see a shopping cart miles from its home. The carts have a direct relationship with someone who was pushing them, a journey that some unknown person took and the cart acting as a demarcation point. There is something unexplainable about a hobo shopping cart and since I have found so many of them in the past year, I would like to think that all of the abandoned shopping carts that I have photographed found each other and have started a commune in the hills.
Rust
Many people seem to be 
drawn to the ‘old and forgotten’. Very likely many of our attics or basements are full of these little things with their own ‘stories’. For some reason though, it’s not until we go out there, and see the rusty switch, the mattress on the sidewalk or an old hard drive in the middle of busy street, that it makes us stop and wonder… what happened here? Who used these things before and how old are they? How long have they been sitting here unnoticed? What is the story behind it? The same fascination and wonder draws my lens to them. It is because they are found in such unexpected places, that this series taught me one lesson, very important for every enthusiastic photographer. That is to never, under any circumstances, leave the camera behind. Because you never know what is waiting there for only last few precious moments to be ‘rediscovered’ before disappearing forever.
The Challenge
I challenged myself to find objects that reflected these 
ideas and icons that were recognizable but out of place as we understand them. Some of the images were complete surprises and others were sought out. I feel that digital photography and blogging have given me the ability to express myself in almost real-time and sharing these images almost instantaneously on the internet is what gives me a sense of fulfillment.
I often quote, "Take pictures, draw, paint, write, videotape, record music. These will be the things that tell our history, that people will find decades from now. This is your chance to tell people the way things were through your eyes."
Photography and Suburban Decay series is one of my contributions. And I am sure that many ‘little contributions’ like this are yet to come.
