Andy Summons is a photographer and writer living in Byron Bay. He co-founded boutique surf, travel and photography magazine Paper Sea Quarterly in 2011 and ran it as Editor-In-Chief for seven years before leaving to focus on personal projects. He’s captured a strong body of work from years of misadventure, travel, and everyday moments with a camera in his hand. Andy grew up on the land, moved to the city, and now lives in the sea. He started taking photographs with his grandfather’s Pentax ES when he was a child and continued exploring and snapping with different film and digital cameras and the unique perspectives they offer. Andy’s background in storytelling can be felt in his landscapes, portraits, and outdoor photographs.
About the Ghost Town series by Andy Summons
No friends in the ghost town (article from Andy's website)
Just outside Luderitz, in a nondescript area of desert, we drove into one of my favourite parts of the entire trip – a ghost town. Not just any ghost town, this one was built on diamonds and buried in sand. Kolmanskop was a bustling town built in German style on the false promise of never-ending diamonds. The gold leaf wallpaper, hand-turned balustrades and enamel light switches showed that no expense was spared in the doomed town’s grand designs. But the mines ran out of diamonds so the town ran out of people, and the desert ran amok and set about taking back the real estate it once owned. The result is a photographer’s dream. I spent hours running through abandoned mansions enthralled by the different personalities and design elements in each room of each house. The views through the beautiful windows were matched by the sand-covered hallways and half-buried doors. I heard David calling my name for 30 minutes before I let on that I could hear him. I was having too much fun, but we hit the road and soon, the South African border.