'France in Ruins' by Simon O'Corra
(now available at Foyles Bookshop)
France in Ruins by Simon O’Corra, and published by Golden House Publications, presents a spellbinding collection of evocative black-and-white pictures of ruined buildings in France. These ruins include churches, town houses, industrial buildings, former civic structures and castles. The magic of ruins is unmistakable. They have the power to appall and transfix us. No two ruins are the same and this book shows but a small sample of those that exist in France. Ruins exist to captivate us and this book reveals their history, the causes for their development and the relationship between the humans and ruins. This book is illustrated with more than 200 photographic pictures of ruined buildings.
From my point of view as I look at a sample of your beautiful photos, I do indeed see a reflection of the ruins' "glorious mystery and defiance" ... your photos capture that very well ... a certain spirit that's unique in each one of them.
Quentin B, America
Within a ruin it is possible to see changes in form and decay
often occasioned by the encroachment of nature
and also to witness a void caused by the negation of a building's initial purpose.
Rather like a magic trick, a ruin bears both descriptors within its being:
‘Now you see it now you don't’......
or maybe you see all of it in all its glorious mystery and defiance.
