10/08/2026
I got started in photography years ago through a photography blog where I photographed and wrote about ghost towns and abandoned places. I traveled more than 100,000 miles across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Montana, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska, photographing out of the way places. In place after place, if you silenced your phone and stood quietly, listening, you could hear the ghosts of the past speaking, sharing their stories: they were stories of hope and heartbreak, triumph and defeat. Tales of love and loss, families who tried, and some who moved on.
There was beauty in what remained — the way the wind swished through unharvested crops, and colorful prairie grasses waved banners of yellow and purple. I would take the photos and write what I felt, and now and then, a beautiful image would inspire a turn of phrase, and the combined result was art that could stoke the fires of imagination.
This photo became one of those. It was taken in the withering near-ghost town known as Miranda, South Dakota, and I always believed it's title, "The Lonely Streets of Miranda," worked as a song title equally as well.
I appreciate you reading and following my work. — Troy
