Retro Texas Style | Johnson City

The smaller towns in the rural areas of Texas are definitely not lacking in character, history and personality. They're kind of the antithesis of the urban sprawl taking place outside the larger metro areas such as DFW, Houston and San Antonio. Most seem lost in time with storefronts and town squares straight-out of a 1950's black and white sitcom.

In the Texas Hill Country these little towns veer over toward the eclectic, in large part due to the more artistic influence of nearby Austin. They are fun to explore and photograph. The following is some of the retro architecture discovered in Johnson City, Texas.

Broken and Weathered | Character Remains

It's interesting how visual artists gravitate toward certain subjects and how that attraction and subject matter can change over the years. This is why original work is more than just pictures on a wall or a computer screen. Once you follow a photographer or painter for a while their works become more of a dynamic connection between artist, viewer and story. You begin to see much more than what meets the eye. That's also why I've always thought it to be a bit off-putting to group all artists as unsocial introverts. Those who have an honest commitment to their work are actually quite the opposite. They're constantly reaching out to connect.

Nature subjects and landscapes represent the foundation from which I've built my love of photography. I always return to that foundation even while pursuing other subjects such as commercial assignments, product, portraits, etc.

However, over the last three years or so there's been a certain subject area that is more and more represented in my stock library of images -  man-made subjects found in rural locations that are weathered and worn, particularly abandoned homes, signs, cars and other items often overlooked as eye sores and "junk." With each of these finds are multifaceted stories - stories of a life or a family; of personal history that seeps into the very ground the dramas played out upon. The echoes in shadows and dimming light at sunset that retain witness to the trials and tales of generations.

There's a certain beauty to all that rust and peeling paint. Objects exposed to years and seasons, the elements revealing an aged "essence." Character evident in the bare brokenness.

Recently I came upon a wealth of these subjects during a road trip from Dallas to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Southwest Oklahoma, near Vernon, Texas and in Snyder, Oklahoma. I had traveled up that way to photograph wildlife and landscapes in the Refuge, which I was able to accomplish. However (as is often the case) it was what I didn't have in mind that became the primary focus of my trip.

Mostly flat and rural, the landscape in that area is subject to dramatic shifts in the weather and almost constant wind. There's a subtle feeling of being almost lost in time - of being left behind - to the old farms and homesteads, of people who stopped for a while and then passed on to other more populous places further west. It's as if the 1930's made an indelible impression up and down every rural route that crisscrosses this section of Oklahoma.

Old, weathered cars and buildings are often used as props and backdrops for outdoor portraits, especially high school seniors. It's the contrast of youth with the aged objects that makes so many of these portraits work so well.

Why these subjects hold more appeal for me today than perhaps say 20 or even 10 years ago isn't due so much to me feeling old. I like to think it has more to do with going through certain experiences in life, maybe being slightly broken and exposed to the elements. A peeling away to an essence, a truth that's more lasting. Maybe not as fast and shiny but a wisdom of character that prevails.

It was just last night that I had a conversation with a good friend from high school. We talked about brokenness and the building of character and courage. It's one of those universal laws that applies to nature, life and faith. He mentioned how it also applies to sports teams too, particularly how the big name college football teams that go undefeated for more than a season or two eventually are much more likely to fold and collapse once they face serious opposition. They go too long without being humbled.

You've got to put yourself out there to be broken, weathered and worn. Maybe to be initially pushed aside and overlooked. But with patience and hope something so much more begins to shine through. That's what I look for. That's what catches my eye.

Scattered Pieces | The Temporal Gives Way

Last week's meteor that blasted through the sky over Russia served as a timely metaphor to how a life is often lived. The blinding flash, thundering boom and what was once solid space rock is splintered to pieces that fall to the ground. It made me think also of what I've experienced recently on a personal level, once again picking-up and moving to another part of the country, with pieces of stuff from here and pieces from there, gathering them back up to put together again a 1,000 miles away.

So many of us live our lives as the sum of our pieces, and when you move a lot - as has been the case with me - you make friends with many who only see or know of a few of your pieces. They themselves become additional pieces of your puzzle but very few see what had come before, forming the underlying layer of your complex mosaic. This is why we tend to struggle with patience when friends and social connections are quick to draw quick conclusions and assumptions without regard to all the pieces that came before - the trials, the pains, the blood, the sweat. It's the big, dark downside of this age of immediate gratification and social media entertainment. The quick assumptions based on what's posted and patterns observed across the cold distances between computer monitors.

But to think this small frustration one step further is to begin to see what all those pieces - and what we want people to think of the sum or our parts - truly is. The ego. The soft shell of pride, worn as protective disguise. Our act. Our "schtick." The self-adopted persona that gets us through the day and the years.

Perhaps it is meant to be that our shells crack and fall apart in a brilliant flash and thundering boom across the stratosphere every once in a while. Maybe there is something so much more than what was once the sum of assorted pieces, and as cycles of bringing together and then falling apart continue through life the core essence of what our vessels hold - and for so long concealed - begins to be revealed.

In falling our pieces are scattered. In growing and changing and turning to the truth of who we really are and what we can become, a higher purpose responds to a higher calling. The spirit finally breaks free.

Vessels broken across the sky and in a brilliant flash of light. Too often we see only what falls to the ground. What really matters is what rises back to the sky.

There is so much more than mere pieces. We are so much more.

January Sunset and Moonrise | Hilton Head Island

January Sunset and Moonrise | Hilton Head Islad, a set on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
The rising of the full 'Wolf Moon" on the evening of January 26 2013 from Burke's Beach Park on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. This is my favorite public beach access on the Island. I shot a lot of family beach portraits during the summer tourist season at this location. It was fun going back this past Saturday night. Relatively warm out with beautiful sunset and moonrise.