Full series: https://eliaskarppinen.com/laitmanintie-series
Laitmanintie (Laitman's road) is a short stretch of gravel road in Espoo, Finland. All the homes on the road have been left abandoned over the years. Very short distance from the capital city Helsinki, Laitmanintie and it's abandoned houses are in the middle of an urban area under constant development and building. But, despite new buildings rising everywhere in the surrounding area, the old wooden houses remain, stuck in a limbo between the happier times gone by, when they were still occupied and the uncertain future development of the area.
This series of images, taken during a single visit to this abandoned stretch of road, is telling a story by trying to stir up same kind of feelings that a person would feel while visiting this place, or any abandoned man-made site for that matter. These images are meant to create a setting and give a glimpse to the multitude of stories and moments that have happened in this location, but also show the bland current moment and situation for this place .
Visually, the intention was to remain within the limits of neutral, documentary style of image making. Abandoned sites all over the world are often romanticized quite a bit more than necessary with the imagery people make of them, when truth is that behind the dramatic, heavily edited images lies quite casual stories, reality that is usually quite bleak and a future that is nearly always very uncertain and often problematic for parties involved. I truly feel that as interesting and often visually appealing as these locations can be, they are often in a dire need of more honest documentation and truthful storytelling.
