Which Came First?

This sort of thing happens once in while I guess. As I was checking out some bookmarked websites, I have been been a little remiss, I came across French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. I dig their work, totally my bag. As I was perusing their gorge large format images I happened upon their newish work set in Detroit (the new Cuba or Chernobyl seemingly), and found it awkwardly familiar. Shit did I shoot something like that? Last time I was in Detroit I was there for Superbowl and no, large format shooting was not in the cards. Did a friend of mine shoot something, that's hard also, if your the one bringing it up, "hey did you see so and so's piece in so and so", waiting the barrage of profanity down the phone line. No, nobody I could come up with, till I remembered Conscientious doing a piece on one of my faves, Andrew Moore. Yep that was it.So I scrolled through both sites. Wow, what do you say. Looks like a conveyor belt of Motor City photo op ruins. Who gives out the tickets for this.
Skewed differently in there photographic visions, the french duo hanging tough with their Architectural slant and Andrew venturing out to feel the more human element, still it must be hard to see similar images, if not downright exactly the same ones, as you have poured your heart and soul into a project. Cant say I like one series over the other yet but I don't agree with Joreg's "ruin porn" comment, I prefer Merchand & Meffre's
The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at
some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires.
Both are books already out in the case of Andrew's "Detroit Disassembled"and M&M "Ruin's of Detroit"
Deep down I wonder if one or the other doesn't feel like , "like bollix I should have seen that".