Blog Archives
roadside wings
The clouds seem to mirror the wings on the cross, like the spirit of the person has ascended skyward.
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 8.17.2025
life’s hard road
Like most photographers, I have certain scenes that I am attracted to, that are meaningful to me.
About 1997 I started photographing roadside crosses; it was an exceedingly odd thing for me to do, because I would never considered myself to be a photographer. But there was a voice in my head, a feeling in my soul that I *had* to do it. I tried to ignore it as long as I could but eventually that voice became too much to ignore. For a decade, I photographed these memorials, first using a point-and-shoot film camera, then moving on to a very basic digital camera; I almost never photographed anything except these sad memorials.
Then one day, I was done. With the project, and with photography.
Only of course I wasn’t: two years later I took up posting a daily image and here I still am, shooting and posting my way through.
And eleven days ago, I stopped at a roadside memorial. Some things just don’t relinquish their hold on you.
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 8.17.2025
Draperies + gravity
In my various wanderings, peering into abandoned buildings (or even going inside, briefly), I am always amazed by the kinds of things that get left behind when the school closes down, the business can’t make it, the homeowners leave.
This school has been abandoned since 1975, and the drapes are still there.
But, like everything else, those left-behind curtains are giving in to gravity.
You know who will win.
Bula School (abandoned)
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
The hearthside chair
The door was open. Literally, I mean. The heavy metal door was unlocked, so I pulled it open. Behind it, a screen door like the kind on a 1950s house. I pushed it open, using my elbow, and stepped inside. Not far, though, as the floor was covered with debris and I am not quite current on my tetanus shot.
But across the room, I saw this chair and heater, looking quite happy together.
Bula School (abandoned)
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 2.16.2014
Recline. Decline.
Out in Bailey County, on the corner where Farm Road 54 makes a hard left to the north, the old Bula School molders away. The oldest building has collapsed to the point where on the front facade remains; there are a couple of other buildings that aren’t quite that far gone but it’s easy to see where they are heading.
inside the remains of the Bula School
Bailey County, Texas
photographed 2.4.2011
One Day | One Image 