I don't take pictures very often, as you can tell from the crappy outdoor photos here. But I took a lot of pictures the last time I visited the San Francisco Bay Area, where I lived most of my life before moving to New York a decade ago.
I've let the photos sit for years; they still look more interesting to me than they should, and it's hard to communicate the feeling because I can't separate what I see from the undertow of memory.
One series I was going to put together was of stores and other buildings that had been turned into churches. I guess someone new to the area (around Richmond, at the northeast end of the bay) wouldn't notice them, but I sure did, because there were so many. I remember thinking "Who needs grocery stores? God will provide," and thought of Mimi Rogers waiting on a hilltop for God in The Rapture.
The whole area fits the American Model, where a shiny new suburb is built one more exit down the freeway, thrives for a few years, then watches the cars pass its tired mall for newer ones further out. Apparently God fills the vacuum left in the wake of a new Wal-Mart down the road.
The picture above is my favorite, taken in a deserted shopping center, with the Prayer Chapel clinging to life in the shadows. The two pictures below are of supermarkets turned to religious use.
