Sometimes when something seems old and outdated and seems to no longer serve any useful purpose, perhaps it has simply adopted a NEW purpose. This old truck no longer hauls hay and feed, no longer takes teenagers to drive-in movies or to get ice cream on a hot day. But it CAN reflect the play of the light and shadows around it; it serves as a nice backdrop for a tangle of tall grasses and creeping vines. As the integrity of the old metal gives way to the ravages of rust, passersby who take a moment to stop and look, can enjoy the varying textures and colors of the process of oxidation and decay. Whooda thought destruction could be so charming?

Too bad I can’t look in the mirror at the ravages of time as played out on my own carbon unit, and appreciate the process of aging as aptly as I can in this old truck. Wrinkles, freckles, age spots and cellulite just don’t come across as quaint and beautiful as rusted metal. But I CAN lose myself–in all my inglorious imperfections–behind the lens of a camera, as I continue to seek out and reveal the surprising beauty of unlikely places.

It was my original intention to write something inspiring or insightful to accompany this image of an old wooden box of bottles I found tucked under a board in an old abandoned barn. But when it was done, I thought…BLEH.

What I wrote wasn’t entirely bad…nor was it entirely good. Not sure if it’s the value of the content of what I wrote which is lacking, or if it’s just my somewhat sour mood that makes it seem so, but sometimes, perhaps it’s best to simply present an image and let the viewer’s imagination provide the background story.

Maybe no story is necessary at all. Sometimes, just viewing something interesting is, in itself, enough to soothe the restless soul…or at the very least, provide a temporary distraction.

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This is actually a re-work. I had originally posted the original shot when I first set up this website…it was my first post. This version was processed with Photomatrix and tonemapped to bring out the depth of texture and tones in the dramatic sky. This is one in a series I’m currently working on putting together for a grouping.

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I have a thing for old antique trucks. I discovered this particular treasure in the spring of 2009 on a trip from South Carolina to Indiana with a good friend. We had stopped at a Quick Mart in North Carolina for a fill-up, a bathroom stop and some travel snacks and I spotted this truck parked in an abandoned parking lot across the road. Because of it’s positioning and proximity to the highway, I had difficulty getting every angle I would have liked, but I shot as many as I could.

After returning home and browsing through my shots from the trip, I wanted to do something nice with one of the several I got of Karen’s favorite overlook on Skyline Drive in her hometown of Seymore, Indiana. Only a couple were even acceptably good, but the best of those were still in the ‘snapshot’ category…nothing really noteworthy.

Contemplating ways I might improve upon the mediocre scenic shots and somehow make at least ONE of them ‘special,’ I started playing around with positioning some cuts of the NC truck (a FABULOUS subject trapped in the horrible background of an abandoned parking lot) and came up with the perfect picture. This turned out to be one of those pics that you can almost see yourself in…smell the grass, feel the summer breeze in your hair, hear the birds, FEEL the history in the presence of the old truck and the past it bears witness to.

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I’ve been wanting to work on this piece ever since I shot it but haven’t been able to find the spare time to do so. I captured this old antique car on a recent excursion to the mountains with friends to see some autumn color. We had actually stopped for a car accident that we happened upon, while one of our party assisted the victims until the rescue teams got there. The accident happened in front of a couple of old country stores in a stretch of road called Echo Valley, so I got out with my camera and started exploring. This old car was parked out by a shed behind the stores in a fenced lot that hosted an interesting array of ducks, geese, ostrich and other assorted critters. I had to shoot through a hole in the chain link fence, and was limited in the angles I was able to try because of the fence and the layout of the scene. In the original photo, there was a tangle of chain link directly in front of the car, and an old metal bar round pen in front of a lean-to off to the left of the car. My exposure wasn’t great and neither was the background scenery, sooooo, I CHANGED it up with some elements from some other photos in my collection. The shed behind the car seemed dull somehow, even after all the editing and effects, so I added an old weathered coke sign to it. Ahhh, yeah…just right! Too bad the ugly things in LIFE aren’t so easy to change and improve.

I was attending a rodeo at the C-C ranch in my community. The C-C is a working cattle ranch run by a working cowboy, Jack Cudd, who lives here with his beloved Wilma…a remarkable lady whom I most honored to call my friend. Wilma’s yard is an ever-changing picture of down-home rural landscaping.

After taking some action shots at the rodeo, I was walking back to the Cudd yard to get some still life shots of Wilma’s landscaping. This old antique saddle was on the railing of a fence Wilma had erected on the corner. It’s not there anymore…not sure whatever happened to it. Exposure to the weather probably eventually reduced it to mere rubble. But thanks to my passion for old, forgotten things, it is now immortalized as an Artwerk by Donna.

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Soooo, here we are, a fully functioning website complete with a contact form and search feature, both of which actually WORK…er, wErk (I KNOW they work, I’ve already contacted and searched myself). It’s colorful and pretty and flashy and all that good stuff. Now, I have my own place of the worldwide web. Now I’m important. Now I’m SOMEbody. I feel a little like Steve Martin’s character in the movie, The Jerk, the first time he saw his name in a phone book…

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