Dead Malls Tell Tales
I had no plan. Just a camera, 2 tilt-shift lenses and a desire to capture remnant echoes of the past.
They call them “Dead Malls”, and for those of us who lived through the 1970s and 1980s ‘mall culture’, it’s a reminder of times long gone.
What remains of our 20th Century Social Media is now just a faint reminder of earlier days and a distant youth.
I photographed at University Mall in Tampa. Yes, I got permission and I had restrictions as to where I could go and what I could photograph. Actually, this was fine by me and both management and security were professional and polite.
I wasn’t there to make the mall look bad. It wasn’t about anything done or not done by “the mall”. This is simply a document of cultural shifts and the vibe of times long gone.
Like I said, I had no plan. My intention was to “let the mall talk to me” and to create what I felt was an artistic representation of an almost forgotten era when malls ruled the Earth.
I spent 3 hours photographing. Fired off 159 frames. And it was bliss! I absolutely couldn’t say what I was doing and where I was going. The process was completely by a deep emotional feel. I was there, and I ‘wasn’t there’. This is how I create my art.
As far as the camera goes, I wanted my look to be gritty and grainy. Representative of a lost dream, distant youth, and a “where did the time go” feeling. That said, everything in these images is intentional. The light, the noise, the compositions. And it was all achieved using very minimal post-production.
I only used Lightroom Classic for all except one image. And that image was a 2 shot composite where I “removed” a person walking in the distance. Super easy stuff. As I rely so much on what I can get from the camera rather than saving (or creating) an image in post.
All of these images were photographed on June 24th, 2026. I ended up with 125 finished (edited images). So much more than I’ve posted here. Check my social IG: @michael_oster for lots more.
