Outside Cabarrus County Convention Center, Hwy 49I 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, NCIt'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.
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.
1 comment:
The convention center is where Kenny works. The lumber I'm betting is from the lumber yard in Mt. Pleasant (just north of the convention center on 49). The junkyard is the one on the four lane part of 49 where Ash got her ticket recently.
I love this game!
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