I felt that the decrepit state of these once magnificent buildings, with their broken gutters, walls blackened by rainwater, crumbling plaster revealing the coarse masonry beneath it, windows boarded up or clad with corrugated iron, precisely reflected my own state of mind…
― W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz

Below is the original photo used to create this image. At a rest area on a trip to visit my parents, I found this filmy puddle and couldn’t help taking a quick pic… No special lighting or retouching, just a snap from my smart phone.