One of the things I love about photography is the ability to explore an endless number of ideas through different styles, characters and locations. My interests are varied and have shifted greatly over my career, but the things that compel me the most—that I keep getting pulled back to—are nostalgia, architecture and story. This image mashes all of these together in the best way for me.

This summer, I happened to be in Astoria, OR and came across this architectural beauty of a building, which serves as the county courthouse. It immediately reminded me of a time in our history where we poured our skills and craftsmanship into creating these beautiful edifices that were meant to stand the test of time and serve as symbols of the ideals of these institutions. While this particular building still serves its original function, sadly many of its kind do not and are left to be forgotten, neglected and finally demolished to make way for the modern and the relevant.

This idea of lost history has always haunted me, and is a big part of why I pursued preservation engineering as my first career path. In fact, my college thesis focused on a very similar building to this one—a courthouse in Worcester, MA that sat vacant for 20 years under threat of demolition. In my dissertation, I imagined a number of ways of repurposing the building, from transforming it to a library, shopping center or—what it eventually would become—an apartment complex.

While I’ve made the switch from engineer to photographer, my passion for our built history hasn’t dwindled, and I hope to use my art to continue advocating for the preservation and adaptive reuse of these structures. The beauty of art is that imagination is endless—and a tired old courthouse can become a school full of happy children, breathing new life into a space.