“Simple things have profound affect on us, if we just give ourselves over to them.”
-Joel Meyerowitz
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I’ve been borderline obsessed with this empty waterpark for several months now. I photographed it one cloudy day back at the end of summer, when it so perfectly summed up the dark and empty feeling that the pandemic had brought; a place I’d been used to seeing packed with people and laughter, instead a sea of empty chairs. I photographed it in the snow as well, when the sun had already set back behind the winter gray sky. Somehow it was less strange to see it snow covered in the late evening light than it was empty in the summer.
Now it’s almost spring; the days are getting longer and warmer. And the park feels even emptier than the times before. All of the chairs are put away, and viewing it in the harsh midday sun makes all of the colors wash into beautiful pastel tones. Looking at it now feels almost peaceful.
Perhaps it’s the beauty of removing the extraneous. As so much of this past year has been about cutting out all that doesn't matter, everything but the essentials, maybe it’s seeing this place stripped so bare that resonates. Maybe that’s why the emptier it gets, the more beautiful it seems to me.