Camera shutters clicked in the dawn. Tripods were hastily set up and compositions framed in the glow before the shifting light. Broken down houses in piles of sand, rotting boards and desolation marked the ghost towns of Kolmanskopp and Elizabeth Bay in Namibia, Africa. The diamond mining towns had been deserted for decades. I wondered, what the others were seeing?

I looked again. More sand and more deteriorating buildings than I saw the first time. What would I do here? My wife's admonition before I left- "Don't bring home more pictures of broken doors and rotting wood," was playing in my mind. I walked to the end of the town and slid on the sand through one of the windows of a small home.

As the first light shined in, as light thru a diamond, it illuminated walls, doors and ceilings to reveal a palette of soft, sensuous colors. The sand and the wind, like time itself, had softened the dazzling memories of the past until they only whispered. As ghosts, the colors hinted at the semblance of luxury and splendor that was the 1920's mining town. I moved from building to building searching for fragments of faded colors. Working with a wide angle lens I photographed the rooms while the sands suggested and the shadows aroused my suspicions.

In Elizabeth Bay, I found a strange building, more factory like in shape than the other dwelling places. It was filled with hundreds of small stalls- dark, uncolored and without warmth. I caught my breath as I realized I was looking at the homes of the workers that had mined the diamonds. The government had the chains from each of the stalls removed.

The photograph, entitled Home, is one of the most personal in the collection. The black and white quality and stark separation of tones underscores the real and physical divide. The lone window with bars a bleak reminder of the past. I lay down on the hard stone and thought of the homes down the road a few hundred feet wondering- were not those homes, also, filled with fathers, brothers, cousins, and loved ones? Would the love of those who lay in these stalls prove a stronger bond than the rough iron cuffs and chains that cut their ankles and their feet?

Several days after the shoot, Andy Biggs was looking at the photographs I had taken in the ghost towns. As photo after photo passed by in the slideshow, he repeated, "These look nothing like anyone else's in the group." I smiled.