Monthly Archives: May 2021
Freedmen’s Church
This was a nice find during my Big Day o’ Wandering.
This church was established in 1874 to serve the residents of Peyton Colony, a freedmen’s community named after Peyton Roberts, a former slave and one of the first freedmen to settle in the area. Please check out this video to learn more about Freedmen’s Communities in Texas; it is interesting and surely was not taught in Texas history when I was growing up.
Peyton Colony, Texas
photographed 4.18.2021
Death and the unlatched gate
I was mostly just turning down any available road, without any real purpose or direction. And also without any real concept of where, exactly, I was. But there was a cemetery, so of course I stopped.
I had a weird feeling, like I’d been there before.
And you know why? Because in 2009, on a similar day of wandering (with my dear friend Carlos), we’d found this exact spot. And I posted this photo on my blog, which was all of 220 days old at the time.*
McKinney Cemetery
Hays County, Texas
photographed 4.18.2021
*I’d link to that first blog, but there’s no reason for any of us to have to endure that particular horror. You’re welcome.
on and on (for many a year)
Believe it or not, this row of mailboxes presented such a compelling photographic vision that I made a u-turn to get back to it.
This was at the end of a long day of wandering and photographing. The day started out slowly. Nothing seemed to want to be a photograph. The things I saw at first were too new and shiny to be of interest. There was too much traffic to make sudden stops and/or u-turns safe alternatives. But eventually, I hit my stride (not coincidentally that happened when I started turning down any road that was less travelled than the one I was currently on) and suddenly a day’s worth of images were right there in front of me. Everything seemed like it was worthy of my lens: it was the best of days.
Hays County, Texas
photographed 4.18.2021
Burned Out
I am not sure what this used to be. Maybe it was a restaurant? Or maybe someone’s house?
I am sure that there’d been a fire here. I am like an arson investigator: I see charred wood on a structure and can instantly determine that there’s been a fire. Maybe you didn’t realize that I was so vastly talented.
Hays County, Texas
photographed 4.18.2021





