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.

Miami

       My assignment yesterday took me to Miami.  I have only been a few times before and never really got to look around.  I spent too much time looking at the new murals for Art Basel, and not enough getting the material that I was suppose to be getting. 
       I got to see the whole city though from the palacial mansions of Coconut Grove to the run down apartments and houses in Little Haiti, I witnessed it.  I only spoke to one person the whole day.  A mexican in Little Havana," ¿Hablas español?"
      "Un Pequito" I replied.
      He told me," You walking around this city with a camera like that you better be two people."
      "Oh I know, believe me I know."
      "Ok" he looked at me and shook his head.
      As I got to my car to get back in I said, "Gracias."
      "Orale." and he kept on walking.

30 November 2012

I spend so much of my time in the car on most days that I am constantly looking for interesting things; I have been known too jump three lanes of traffic, stop in medians, or take multiple u-turns in order to get shots of the things that catch my eye.  These are a couple of things that I ran across on the final day of November.  First was some new graffiti on Palm Beach Blvd the second a Ferris wheel on Pine Island Rd in Cape Coral.  

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

 

world tour part II

another couple of shots of the train

world tour

When you head out of town going east on state road 17 there is a place that they park train cars. I saw this guy last week, and prayed that it would still be there on Saturday.