Many of the most iconic photographs ever taken feature people as their subjects. But some photographs of empty spaces that are devoid of human life manage to freeze the echoes of human existence in a visually arresting way—and it can be difficult to understand why they capture our attention.
"My images are empty of people but they’re littered with the traces of human enterprise," says the graphic designer and photographer Rudy Vanderlans, whose work evokes the melancholy of vacant parking lots and other barren California landscapes. "To me, they're anything but empty."
