Old schoolhouse in Smithville, TN
My friend Elaine calls it "peaceful decay" when barns like the two pictured above fade and dilapidate from unuse and neglect. I call it beautiful. For some reason, I've always been unreasonably attracted to these idyllic crumbling remnants. They're untouched, left alone to communicate their past. I'm led time and time again to capture their roadside statements. I will forever regret my failure to photograph the lean-to on the corner of Buice and Old Alabama roads near my childhood home. For years, I drove past it, the sun setting behind it's worn-wood walls. It is a picture I will have to preserve in my memory, for I wasn't able to get there with my lens before it was bulldozed to make way for the un-neccessary, over-priced, over-sized, too-close homes that now sit on it's foundation. Why are we obsessed with ripping down memories so that we can replace them with shiny, clean-lined newness? There is untold beauty in the used, the formerly-loved.
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