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See it. But don’t believe it.
Another view of a movie set in the wilds of West Texas that I featured earlier this year.
As with the previously-featured building, this one was disconcerting: the exterior looked old, with the hitching post out front and that porch roof made of branches*. But on the inside, modern-day plywood was visible…
near Lajitas, Texas
photographed 1.20.2013
*Correctly called latillas, which I could pretend I knew all along, but which actually I only just now looked up. We strive for honesty here at One Day | One Image. Unless an exaggeration** or cheap joke seems more appropriate.
** Actual comment, from my spouse to me, said without irony: You always exaggerate.
Same town but a different toilet
Remember this photo of a toilet? This is another toilet, plus a random chair and a wadded up towel, from the same building.
The walls behind the, uh, seats are old – those narrow wood slats indicate that the original wall was plaster, which fell from use after drywall (or Sheetrock™) became the favored building material.
(If you want to know a LOT more about plaster walls, or any other building material, I can highly recommend The Walls Around Us, by David Owen. It’s witty and accurate, a winning combination if you ask me.)
(On another subject, I had a chat recently with the curator of the local photographic society’s exhibit. My Toilet.Seat. print was in the show, but didn’t win. The curator, whom I had just met for the first time, said, “Oh, your photo of the toilet was SO popular. Everyone loved it….well, everyone except the juror, I mean.” So, there you go: jurors don’t speak for everyone.)
Tahoka, Texas
photographed 6.16.2010
The madonna in a harsh landscape
The cemetery in Saragosa, Texas, is always hot, always dry. The ground between graves is hard-packed dirt, with nothing growing to soften the edges of the markers, of memories, of loss.
A tornado struck the town in 1987, killing 30 people – including children and families taking part in a Head Start graduation ceremony at the parish hall. A loss of 30 people is bad…but at the time, the town’s population was less than 200.
It doesn’t take long in the cemetery to spot markers with a common date: May 27, 1987.
Toward the center of the cemetery, this blonde madonna guards a grave, her calm and patient face a respite from everything else.
Saragosa, Texas
photographed 11.11.2011
Many horizontals
When I took photography in college (which was a LONG time ago!), my professor didn’t permit us to crop our shots: everything had to be printed full-frame. I’ve long-since abandoned most of what I learned in that class (Zone System, anyone?) but for some reason the Do Not Crop rule is nearly always in play.
But this shot – I cropped this one. It felt daring, like I was really getting away with something. But mostly it felt like I was improving the shot: I wanted to emphasize all those horizontal lines and the original version, which had the entire building elevation, wasn’t doing that.
Know the rules, so you can break them, right?
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 4.28.2013
Do the math…
…you’ll save 60¢ on each meal with the #3 combo.
Or, to look at it another way, you can save yourself $14.99, since Burger Boy #2 appears to be out of business.
And, then, if you add in the savings in fuel costs by not even driving over there…well, you can see how the savings are just adding up.
East Broadway
Lubbock, Texas
photographed 12.1.2012
