For the last three decades, I have photographed abandoned filling stations, mostly in American ghettos. For me, they evoked the vision of the end of a gas-based world. In the beginning, this vision was largely confined to disadvantaged neighborhoods. Not anymore. Today, with gasoline prices at record levels, the fragility of a lifestyle, economy and culture dependent on fossil fuel is sensed by everyone, even the most comfortable among us.

I have often been amazed by the ways harsh and aggressive forms are taken over by the natural world. The gas stations and pumps that make modern life possible are among our most rationally planned buildings. Their function: get the customers to stop and fill their tanks, fast. And yet how quickly filling stations disintegrate without constant maintenance. They lose their characteristic smell of oil and exhaust. Scavengers strip the pumps, revealing their hoses, belts, gears and electric motors. In some cases, trees grow out of the concrete; nature sings its song as the loud greens of the ailanthus trees, bushes and white flowers mix with the fading reds of the station walls.

Filling stations can be taken over in other ways, too. At the East Friendship Baptist Church in Detroit, a circular sign that used to showcase the name of an oil company was redone to say, "Jesus Still Saves." -- Camilo José Vergara