So I've managed to shoot the two regions I set out to shoot and even got in a bonus third region on this trip. I didn't know what I would find here - it turns out there's not a lot left or what I thought might be here - but this is a documentary project so I'm here to document what I see and what is. And it turns out that there is a reoccurring theme along this highway and throughout a lot of Florida (and probably a lot of America right now) and that theme is property. There is property everywhere. New properties, old properties, abandoned properties, new and vacant properties, torn down lots that were never rebuilt upon. There is an excess of space. But there is no one to use it.
In my series I photographed the empty lot that used to be the Daytona Bowl. I know it was the Daytona Bowl because I remember skipping class one afternoon to go there with a friend in high school. I had never been bowling before and it seemed like an odd way to spend a skip day but I found out I was fairly decent at the sport that day.
The Daytona Bowl lot was purchased in 2004 and torn down in preparation for a condominium that was never built. Now the empty lot is up for sale. There are a lot of things in Daytona that were torn down in the real estate boom that were never replaced. And I can't help but think as I drive by them that if only they hadn't been torn down in the first place we could still be bowling or playing skee ball at the boardwalk, or who knows what.
How long can we as a society continue to expand? Is new always better? Is old always bad?
