US 59

Sunday I had a PR assignment in Houston.  I am always in a hurry when I am driving there or back, but this time I told myself I was going to stop and take some pictures.  I had my oldest step-son with me helping me drive so I got to sit and look out for shots.

The top image is a closed down drive-in south of Nacogdoches on US 59, which the state of Texas is turning into interstate 69, and will be soon demolishing the old structure.  So, I had to make sure that I stopped and documented it before it was no longer there.  I don't know if I will get a chance, but it faces west and I would really like a shot of the sun coming up right next to it. 

The middle image is from downtown Houston, the sugar skull I saw on a junction box right in front a cemetery and  thought it was too perfect to pass up the shot. 

Finally, the bottom image is one that I have been dying to get since the first trip I took down 59 last January.  I have also seen the tag in Dallas and out on I-20 on a railroad bridge so I am guessing that it was the same person cruising around Texas throwing up the Bob Omb tag for us.  I just think it is excellent that this guy is just hanging out in the middle of the Big Thicket in between Moscow and Corrigan Texas it's too perfect.

Morning on Montgomery St.

This morning I took the wife to work since we are down to one car at the moment, and I need to run an errand today.  I took these on the way back from the high school on Montgomery St, right outside of Gilmer, with just the 5D and my phone this time; I have to change the film in the Lomo.  I had to stop and get this great light especially since I have to send the 5D back to the rental place, mine had to be sent in for repair, and we are stretched too tight right now for me to send in the repair fee, so I don't know when I will be able to take pictures like this again.  I rent so I can do paying work, but my art doesn't pay the bills.  Such is life. 

Sunset and Rust

I have been living here in Upshur county Texas now for two months.  I have yet to make it to all points on the compass throughout, but I have made it to a few places, and I found a nice one yesterday.  A back road bridge that is obviously frequented by the younger members of the community (hence the stencil) but I got to shoot the sunset on the bridge over the Sabine River.  I took these shots with a Canon 5D Mark II, but I also shot the same ones with my Iphone for Instagram (@utsanati) and a twin reflex Lomo that I bought off e-bay and have loaded with some black and white film (we'll see how those turn out). 

The hubcap with the bullet hole was on a gate right off the bridge that I hadn't noticed until I was pulling out from where I dropped the car.  The old gas pump; that I had to race back to catch, before the sun got too low, is back in town and 20 miles north of the river.

There is a singer/songwriter that I follow named Adam Carroll, his first couple of records are a lot about this part of Texas, so at least I have a soundtrack that fits the rust, the muddy Sabine and the sunset low in the pines of my new home.

Magic Beans

Saturday evening in Tampa. 
"Hello my name is Jack and I have a problem with magic beans."

I went to go look for something to eat, it was coming up on dusk and the sun was trying to break out from behind a cloud bank, this is my favorite time of day, and behold!  I saw this bridge from interstate 275, immediately exited and waited for that perfect light from the sunset to shine onto this old drawbridge.  I shot these and never found anything to eat. 

By way of explanation

              I had an assignment in Orlando and I decided to take a new route through Central Florida to get there.  I am going to go back and shoot it at night someday soon, but on my way back I stopped and shot somethings that I thought were interesting... It was a little overcast so the contrast isn't there but it's more of a chronicle of places been.  This is "Old Florida," Route 17 is one of the oldest north-south two lane highways through Florida and you can tell.
               I have come up with a way to describe the things that I shoot, especially the "on the road" stuff.  This is the best way that I can describe it:

 I highlight the mundane, the taken for granted, and the forgotten.  Sometimes from the point-of-view of an outsider seeing it for the first time; but more often than not, as someone that finds the interesting in something, everyone sees everyday.  I try to focus the viewers attention on a singular moment, creating a nostalgia for the never seen, or a reminder of things long dismissed.  I want to take the ordinary and make it art, I want you to feel the passage of time in a single instant, I want you to remember that you love something that you haven't seen in forever.  Feel the rust, smell the dust, and watch it dance in the molten sun beaming through the boards of an old barn, walk the railroad tracks behind your house, or just the way the green glows off the leaves on a summer evening driving down the interstate.  

This is the Rattlesnake's Art

 

Fireproof

old warehouse in Sarasota

Legacy Trail Continues

Rusty goodness from Sunday.

Legacy Trail

Took one of the boys to Venice yesterday and walked part of the Legacy Trail park, an old rail line that Sarasota county bought, he shot the wild life, I was looking for rust... He got better stuff

Fallow Fire Engine

Old Charlotte County fire engine, Ft. Myers FL (Lee County)

American Rust

Retired Chevy

This old work horse was at the same place as the bus.

Double Decker Goodness

On Bayshore Rd, in North Ft Myers Florida, there is a Double Decker bus just hanging out. I have wanted to get in there and shoot it forever and yesterday I stopped and finally did it.