Blog Archives

Another unnamed building

Here’s something to try for fun: first, let someone drive you around in an unfamiliar town, on a road that’s not really on a map. Then notice a building that you’d like to photograph. Make sure you’re in a situation where you can’t stop to get the shot. And, then, a few days later, try to find it again.There are bonus points if you can give your Patient Spouse (who is in an unfamiliar role as navigator) vague directions like “maybe the cross street is called Industrial?” or “there were some crosses by the railroad crossing.” And lots of bonus points if you get to town so late in the afternoon that it’s too dark anyway (because it’s solstice, after all). And then the regular number of points if you go back again on another day, have a bit of a “discussion” with the Patient Spouse about how to find the place, but since he’s driving and you’re navigating, then you eventually do locate it.

Just think of the fun!

Also, this: my first thought when we actually did locate the damn thing was that it wasn’t even worth the effort. But by then I was committed to getting the shot, whether or not it was worth it. I’m stubborn that way…

Midland, Texas
photographed 12.25.2018
(but attempted 12.17.2018 and 12.21.2018)

The valiant effort, doomed

They tried, the builder of that adobe wall between two abandoned buildings. But it looks like the new wall will soon meet the predicable fate of the other buildings. In fact, the adobes are already starting to erode, returning to the dirt they’re made from.

Shafter, Texas
photographed 11.4.2017

Barrier

You can’t even imagine how much I’d like to get inside this place to look around and take a few* photos. That barbed wire, though…

Levelland, Texas
photographed 11.21.2018

*Not a few. A LOT more than a few.

Speed Limit

This oddly specific speed limit sign rusts away on the gate to an abandoned cottonseed oil mill. Maybe if people could have driven 11 or even 13 miles per hour, the place could have made it. I guess we’ll never know…

Levelland, Texas
photographed 11.21.2018

Whatever this was, it didn’t end well

A detail of some hulking ruins I encountered in Eureka Springs – I’m not sure what the owners intended, but I am sure it wasn’t this sad end.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas
photographed 10.6.2018