PUBLIC MARKS with tag decay

J. Bennett Fitts traveled some 20,000 miles to produce “No Lifeguard on Duty,” an investigation of America’s forgotten roadside motels. These vestiges of an earlier era—when families packed into their cars for summer vacations via two-lane highways—now exist in various stages of operation and disrepair. With their parking-lot-adjacent swimming pools prominently in the foreground, the motels reveal a decayed Americana and a near permanent sense of vacancy. However, beyond the cracked paint and the decrepit chain-links lies the nostalgia of life on the open road.

In the zone of alienation in northern Ukraine, Kiev Oblast, near the border with Belarus. Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident. Today, the only residents are deer and wolves along with a solitary guard.