Iron Town – work in process

Liepaja is a harbour and industrial city on the west coast of Latvia. Since 2003 I have spent all summers in a small village nearby. For long I've been aware of the aesthetic potential of Liepaja, but not before summer 2017 have I felt like starting a dedicated project in it. I had slowly familiarized myself with the town's visual "vocabulary" and finally last summer I felt the urge to find out what kind of pictures I would come up with. Being from Finland but having spent a lot of time in the region, I like to think I am seeing it as an insider and as an outsider at the same time. Liepaja has been an important harbour through centuries and since the late 19th century it grew into a significant area of industries, especially steel industry. The city's population has declined since early 1990's, first because of dissolution of The Soviet Union: Liepaja had been a major Soviet military harbour. After Latvia joined the EU, migration to western European countries has been a major cause. Liepaja population in 2017 is below 70.000 – about 40% less than 25 years earlier. The stricter industry rules in EU have had an impact on industries here. At the time of this writing, the steelworks have been inactive for a couple of years, but production should start again in near future. I had a rare opportunity for a full day of photographing at the idle steelworks. Apart from that material this project (a work in progress) includes lot of pictures taken during long wanderings around the city; in residential and commercial settings as well as the outskirts.