Johnny Joo – Rust Belt Girl

Posted on September 16, 2019November 30, 2019 by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 26 Comments

My interview with photographer and author Johnny Joo

I’m so thrilled to present this interview with Johnny Joo, a fellow Northeast Ohio native, whose photography* I’ve featured at the blog before. But this time, we get the stories behind the lens…

Johnny Joo is an internationally accredited artist, most notably recognized for his photography of abandoned architecture and surrealistic digital compositions. Growing up sandwiched between the urban cityscape of Cleveland and boundless fields of rural Northeast Ohio provided Johnny with a front row ticket to a specialized cycle of abandonment, destruction, and nature’s reclamation of countless structures. Since he started, his art has expanded, including the publication of four books, music, spoken word poetry, art installations, and videography.

Johnny, how did you first get into photography–and abandonment photography in particular?

I was an art student in high school, and photography was another art class I could take, so I took it to fill space with as much art stuff as I could–not thinking that I would like it as much as I did. I got super interested in the whole science behind it and being able to capture a moment in time that would not happen again. For one of the first projects, I photographed some empty rooms in the high school, and also photographed an old farm house. It reminded me of Silent Hill and other horror games and movies I enjoyed.

I thought it was a great subject for photos, and I loved the way nature wore it down to create something so dark and eerie, yet calm and beautiful. That’s the film photo of the empty class room [above]. I gave the rest of my film and binder to my photography teacher, so I don’t have anything else, but I did keep my favorite photo–and it’s the first photo I developed successfully.

I just kept photographing any abandoned or creepy historic place I could find (along with EVERYTHING else) and started sifting through papers in some of the old buildings and found so much history left behind.

I thought it was interesting to piece a life and history together–being able to know so much without ever having known any of the people beforehand.

The stadium had hosted over 1,500 football games for the high schools in Akron, as well as for Ohio High School Athletic Association playoff games. The Cleveland Browns had also used the stadium for 19 preseason games over the years.

via Abandoned Akron Rubber Bowl Stadium Comes Down — Architectural Afterlife

Rebecca here: Photographer Johnny Joo is “Preserving History Through Imagery” at his site, Architectural Afterlife. You don’t have to be a Northeast Ohio native (like Johnny and this gal) to appreciate his stirring photography. Much more than capturing abandoned sites, he provides the history behind the sites–separating his work from the likes of “ruin porn,” in my opinion.

What do you think?

What’s on your plate today? Photography? A good summer read? I can’t get enough of discussing A Gentleman in Moscow. Otherwise, I’m buried under work-writing but hope to surface soon!

Posted on May 2, 2018May 2, 2018 by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 15 Comments

“Watching Time”

An island in the rust belt,
once perhaps a wayward
rhinestone jewel and now?

Some parts have seen
better times and some
have seen bitter times,…

…some hang around
like the ghosts of a
history of light and dark,…

…and some don’t see time
at all, but time sees them
and watches…..closely.

Like a rag or a bag snagged
on a stick in the river, some
parts moving, some standing still,…

…a city that seems at
times not to know where—
or even when—it is.

“Watching Time” poem and images by Johnny Crabcakes at A Prayer Like Gravity

Rebecca here: thank you, thank you to Johnny Crabcakes at A Prayer Like Gravity for these fine photographs and words. Together, they provide a window into the Rust Belt city of St. Louis, always changing, ever still. Please visit A Prayer Like Gravity for much more.

I’ve said before that my lack of talent with a camera has turned out to be a blessing. Wanting to feature regional photography here at Rust Belt Girl, I’ve turned to the experts–like Johnny Crabcakes; along with my fellow Northeast Ohio native, Johnny Joo, who specializes in abandonment photography at architecturalafterlife.com; and Michelle Cole, who posts her thoughts and photography at Intensity Without Mastery and who shared with Rust Belt Girl here and here what her life is like today in Lima, Ohio.

Want more photography? Check out my handy-dandy Categories.

Are you a photographer in a Rust Belt-ish place? I’d love to hear from you!

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 13 Comments

Revisiting summers past through the abandonment photography of Johnny Joo

Geauga Lake image_Johnny Joo — This and all images in this post are by Johnny Joo at architecturalafterlife.com.

Go ahead and call it nostalgia. Or rose-colored glasses, cockeyed Midwestern optimism, or plain delusion. (Or, as snow remains in the forecast well into April here in my adopted southern home, call it willful reversion.) Whatever.

I dream of childhood summers in Ohio.

Summer, especially, felt like a gift from the heavens after enduring a frigid (Daily Prompt) winter in the Snowbelt and a five-minute spring that brought little more than a white Easter, a lackluster Maple Festival, and mud.

Summer, glorious, oblivious 1980s summer brought us SeaWorld.

Yep, that SeaWorld–not in California or Florida but in Ohio. No joke. The smallest of the SeaWorld parks, at 50 acres, SeaWorld Ohio opened in 1970 and was located on Geauga Lake, where 1950s-esque good-guy-gets-the-girl acts were performed atop pyramids of water-skiers. (How I wanted to be one of those girls!) Then there were the animals: the sea lions show, the jumping dolphins, the otters who were made to “talk” with piped-in chipmunk voices. The shark and penguin encounters. And, of course, the stars: Shamu and Mamu, the killer whales.

This was long before your average theme park attendee called them orcas or gave a thought to the health and socialization of large animals in captivity. Zoos still thrived; the circus hadn’t died.

By 2004, SeaWorld Ohio was basically abandoned. You can view eerie before and after photos taken by former SeaWorld Ohio animal trainer Nico Maragos.

More of a thrill-seeker? Geauga Lake amusement park was right across the lake from SeaWorld’s water-ski shows and called to us with her skyline of roller coasters. Ohio-based photographer Johnny Joo has captured stunning images of the theme park (like the one at the top of this post), which closed in 2007.

Here’s a couple more:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

See them all via The Abandoned Geauga Lake pre-demolition

I’ve included Rust Belt photography on my blog before, but Joo covers not only abandoned places of work but of play.

I’ve also railed against abandonment photography, sometimes called ruin porn, for forgetting the people the places left behind. (Of course many of us did leave these places behind, in droves, often for warmer climes.) Still, Joo’s mission is exactly the opposite for his blog Architectural Afterlife: Preserving History Through Imagery. I hope you’ll check it out.

Are you a Rust Belt photographer with images to share? Let me know! Just summer-dreaming?