The next time you are at The Lake House visit the work of Barbara Erlandson, whose photographs will be on display through the end of June. This collection of photos was taken in Kolmanskop, Namibia, a long-ago deserted town in the Namib desert with an interesting history.
In 1908, a worker, responsible for clearing sand off the railroad tracks found a stone that he showed to his boss who recognized it as a diamond. At this time in this area of Namibia, diamonds were found simply laying on top of the sand.
Within two years, the desert town was the richest in the African continent. By 1911, the town had electric power, luxurious houses, a casino, school, hospital, ice factory, theater, ballroom, sport-hall, bowling alley, and salt-water swimming pool for the 400 residents. The hospital had the first x-ray machine in southern Africa, which may have been used to determine if workers had swallowed diamonds. The people living there worked for the diamond mines owned by DeBeers.
By 1914 at the start of WWI, diamond production dropped from one ton of diamonds to nearly nothing. The Kolmanskop diamond area was largely depleted and a new, rich source of diamonds was discovered south at the Orange River. At that time, almost all diamond mining was moved to that location. The last inhabitants of the town left in the 1950s and the sand has been working to reclaim the buildings ever since. Most of the original buildings are still standing with remnants of painted walls, wall paper and architectural details. Some buildings still have plumbing fixtures like bathtubs and basins.
I have been attracted to abandoned buildings since I was a child. One Sunday morning, as we were returning from church, my father stopped to explore a home that had burned. There were items still remaining in the home showcasing the family life that existed before the home was abandoned. It’s the remnants of the life that was contained within that fascinates me. In the last 10 years, I have photographed abandoned individual homes, ghost towns, silk mills, and a trolly graveyard.
My photographic journey began with travel in 2005. I got a Canon Rebel DLSR in preparation for a trip to Botswana. Since then, I’ve traveled the world with a camera including trips to the Atacama Desert in Chile, Easter Island, Bolivia, Iguazu Falls in Brazil, the Azores, Portugal, the Dolomites, Tuscany and Venice in Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda as well as various locations in North America. My next photographic adventure is Patagonia.
Barbara Erlandson
You can find Barbara’s work on Facebook, Instagram and Erlandson-Photography.com.
-Submitted by Seabrook Island Photography Club