Project When The Walls Talk. Helen McLain Photography

I often come to abandoned places and think about the past life and fate of people who used to live inside these crumbling walls. A long-closed asylum for the mentally ill, where the beauty of the surroundings served as therapy… A prison where death sentences were carried out by electric chair, and hundreds of prisoners died in a fire… Empty churches, hotels, shops, and residential buildings… Deserted coal mining towns and fishing villages… Old walls, like ancient manuscripts, have answers to many questions. I discover fragment by fragment, adding details, to establish connection to the past.