Maverick, Tennessee Highway 100, Marion County
Although I've written several times that I prefer to work on photographic projects, the truth is that many of my favorite photos have been the result of just being out-and-about with a camera. Since 1968, I've carried a camera with me wherever I've gone and have developed the habit of just "noticing things." As Elliott Erwitt, one of the all-time great photographers once said, "Photography is simply a function of noticing things. Nothing more. . .All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice."
Every now and then I just take a day, load a camera and a few lenses in my car, and go wherever my whim takes me. On this particular day I was on Cumberland Mountain, prowling the backroads of Marion County, Tennessee, when I saw this abandoned Ford Maverick, a car from the 1960s, parked next to an abandoned trailer. The color tones, the fallen leaves, the partial overcast -- all wrote a sombre symphony of sadness, of abandonment.
I made the picture with my Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex camera on Fujichrome 100 transparency (slide) film. I love that camera, and would be a better photographer if I used it more often. Unfortunately, film and processing are expensive and digital photography is cheap.
Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
Soli Gloria Deo
For the glory of God alone
My most recent book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is a 304-page soft-cover with more than 200 color photographs. Published by Countryman Press, it is priced at $22.95. Signed and inscribed copies are available directly from me at (423) 240-2324 or djphoto@vol.com.
Nice photo Dave! It looks like the car was last plated in 1996. I like to wonder why people just abandon homes, And vehicles. Is it simply financial, or did someone just get old and go into a nursing facility?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Greg. I think it's both. I find quite a few abandoned homes in the countryside where people have most likely died or gone to a care facility with no one to take over the place, or maybe no one who cares to. Some are probably tied up in legal complications, so they just sit until they fall down.
DeleteGreat photograph. But yuck, those Mavericks were awful cars.
ReplyDelete