Blog Archives
fringes
Fringes of a band of rain moving through west of where I was.
Fringes of metal on the sides of an abandoned cotton gin.
Allmon, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024
light giving way to darkness
So what happened was that I signed up for an online photography class with a theme of “cold.” Most of the participants, I figured, would be from New England and have actual cold to photograph. I decided the challenge of shooting images on the theme of cold in a mild Texas winter was something I was up for. I spend the two week time that we had to make our images shooting concepts of cold, rather than actual cold. Honestly, while the images themselves were OK, as concepts to illustrate the theme, they were…what’s the term I’m looking for here?…weak. They were weak. They were weak in the extreme.
And then, the very day that we were supposed to turn in our three images for a critique, I woke to actual cold, actual still-falling snow. And I re-shot the assignment.
This is an abandoned cotton gin. I mean, at this time of year, they are all abandoned because the ginning season is over, but this one seems to be permanently abandoned.
Lubbock County, Texas
photographed 1.24.2023
After the season
I heard a young man defend his decision to not become a fifth generation farmer: It’s too hard. When the rain doesn’t come on the right day, you’ve lost everything.
He’s a physical therapist instead.
The cotton ginning season begins in early October; in a good year, it takes six months to gin the crop. The lot at this gin was already empty by January, waiting for next year, which everyone hopes will be better.
City Gin
Abernathy, Texas
photographed 1.26.2013
PS – Want to learn about the ginning process?
March 18
There’s an abandoned cotton gin right in the middle of Levelland. I don’t know how long it’s been closed, but the ground around it is still springy with cotton pellets left from the ginning process.
Levelland, Texas
photographed 3.14.2012
One Day | One Image 