Road Trip Days 3 & 4: Antiques and the Confederacy

A few years ago, wandering around Savannah with my friend Sydney, we happened up on the now-closed gallery of Jack Leigh, a marvelous photographer who has passed away. He is most famous for his shot of this statue from the Savannah cemetary, immortalized on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The woman who ran the gallery told us that they had to move the statue because people would, like, picnic on it, and of course it was someone's grave marker. Anyway, Jack Leigh is marvelous, became a photographer idol that day. She suggested we buy The Land I'm Bound To to choose what prints we would like to buy. I bought the book, and one day I would love to own this one photo of a room, bed, mirror. Maybe one day when I have a spare 1000 gs.

That photo above is my attempt to channel the wonder that is Jack Leigh. I don't believe I came anywhere close, but I do like the idea of playing with light and dof in the way he mastered. The room at the Sheraton downtown Chattanooga was such a contrast to America's Best Inn, I considered canceling the rest of the journey and staying put right there. Instead, I wandered around Chattanooga in the rain, had brunch at the Blue Plate

and rode a free electric shuttle back to the Sheraton, where I reluctantly checked out. Chattanooga, despite the Riverfront area which is quite revitalized with the right kind of things to bring families (childrens' museum, aquarium, the shuttle), suffers from the same problem of so many cities of its size and vintage - empty large buildings and a semi-depressed downtown. I try to imagine what these cities must have been like in their heyday, and I wonder things about how important it is to preserve a downtown when the exodus to the suburbs all but makes its necessity obsolete but for select occassions like weddings at the hotels, and visits to the more flashy and pristine Riverfront. There were a handful of indie bookstores, though, which I heartily support.

Good things were in my future: Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, which is just like you'd expect, and someone will sell you this saggy offensive bikini:

and antiques, of course . . . so many antiques. From there to Mt. Airy, the way is lousy with antiques stores and flea markets, along with great piles of rusty crap outside falling-down buildings. I got to wondering about why we love old things, especially rusty old signs, chipping paint, semi-broken furniture. I believe that, among other reasons, we like things with interesting textures and colors, we like anthropomorphizing the object and imagining how many people before us have been involved with it, and we like things which are the predecessor for new, shinier things we can buy at Wal-Mart. We like the idea that a Coke cooler was once an interesting and unique object that was manufactured in the USA by our grandpa's friend, taken on a picnic with Coke bottles and potato salad inside, and that it has lasted who knows how many years languishing in someone's barn until it was rescued by the proprieter of Treasure Potts in Fancy Gap to be sold at an arbitrarly high price to a Yankee on his way to the beach.

I feel that way about old buildings, especially, which is why I am tempted to take photos of every bit of chipping paint and rusty metal I can see.



Also, I am pretty sure I found Mater


and I love Mountain Dew, but seriously


Once the roads turned NC shoddy bumpy and the end was near, I passed the Star Lite Motel in Mt. Airy

and whammo, I was taken back to a summer between 4th and 5th grade when I went on a little nature expedition of some kind in Middle Utah called Summer Science, on a school bus with Mr. Shaw. When he announced we would be stopping at the Starlite Motel for a bathroom break, the veterans started snickering knowingly, as you do when you're 10 and you know the secret an extra year teaches you. Turns out it was a grove of juniper trees, pick one for your private moment, and join us back on the bus. It's so weird, it's hard to believe I'm remembering it accurately, but I don't have a fact-checker I can remember. Was Shannan there? It seems likely, as we were inseparable. I must say that, despite the cool retro sign, the Star Lite might not have been much of an improvement over a juniper in the desert.

The rest of the photos on Flickr and FB.

Road Trip Days 1 & 2: A study in extremes

Outside Cabarrus County Convention Center, Hwy 49

I recently watched Pride & Prejudice with the director's commentary turned on, and the running idea is the quest for perfect shooting light. It's sort of vital in a movie like that, because it's all about making you fall in love with England along with Mr. Darcy, and illuminating your actors' faces at the swelling romantic moments. I think the film is quite successful, but I take his point about being obsessed with natural light. Since taking up my new hobby, I am also a little obsessed. I planned this weekend for good lighting; the weather is not cooperating and it is mostly overcast and rainy, so it's hard not to feel like I'm missing every fantastic shot.

It has, nonetheless, been a nice two days of roadtripping so far. Yesterday I took a long route to Athens after work, via 64 & 49 to avoid traffic and see what the waning evening light had to offer.

Junkyard near Badin Lake, NC

It's hard to take good photos at junkyards, I think, especially from behind a fence. There are so many interesting objects but they blend together and muddle the background. The front row of cars is incredibly rusty and waiting for someone to make them come back to life.

Also there was lumber.


When I got to Athens, I learned that what $32 per night buys you is not the funky and retro Bulldog Inn . . .

(fun with Crosshatch filter)

. . . but something else altogether - the kind of place where people end up with their heads bashed in by the lamp on Law & Order. The less said about America's Best Inn the better; I was awakened all night by mysterious noises from left and right. I left gray Athens early without fully appreciating its certain myriad charms just to wipe that night away and get on the road to Milledgeville, where Flannery O'Connor spent her last, lupus-filled days.

It was her most prolific time, writing-wise, even as her health declined. With her mother and her birds for company, she wrote for 3 hours each morning in parlor at Andalusia, a room that also contained her bed and bookcases.

Today, the preservation society lets the house sag a little, lets the paint chip, and the plaster crack, and they've preserved a lot of the furniture, the kitchen sink, a collection of her childhood books.

Unlike Flannery, I lack the prose to say how much I loved being there, imagining her walking slowly with her crutches, tending to the four dozen peacocks wandering around the farm. I went to her grave after; there was a little burst of rain that subsided as I drove to the cemetery. Her plot is unassuming, and she's buried next to her parents. Each of her family's stones has that symbol at the top: IHS, which evokes their devout Catholicism. It stands for the first three letters of Christ's name in Greek, meaning something like "in this sign you will conquer."

Someone had left a note on a hastily torn-out planner page under a rock on her stone. I was nosy and opened it up but the rain had long-since washed away the ink. I suspect that whatever they wrote wouldn't have adequately expressed what they meant. Admiration and respect for someone long gone are difficult to say out loud.

More photos on Flickr & Facebook.