All photos © Douglas Ljungkvist.

Douglas Ljungkvist first experienced Ocean Beach, New Jersey, in the early Nineties while visiting friends vacationing there. His first impression was that it looked like a work camp, mainly because of the enormous area with its small cottages, all the same size, laid out in a grid with streets made of sand.

Through this work, Ljungkvist takes on the role of visual historian and anthropologist as he works to capture the fast growing minority of cottages that have not yet shed its wood paneling and kitschy beach decorations for generic white sheetrock walls, flat screen TVs, and Wi-Fi Internet access. This may offer vacationers more comfort and conveniences but also sacrifices the strong sense of place and charm that Ljungkvist remembers. He has come here five times since that initial visit in the Nineties and plans to keep coming back.

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© Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes

In 1908, the town of Kolmanskop in southern Namibia  had become a profitable gold mine. Once the resources were exhausted, it was abandoned in 1954 and homes, hospitals, theaters, and factory buildings were left at the mercy of the Namib desert. Since then, the winds have filled the rooms of these deserted buildings with sand. See more from this series and more of Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes’s work here.