Telephonic miscellany
While certainly not the best photographic instrument the world has ever seen, a cell phone camera is almost always handy and ready for action. Here are a few random shots from so far this year...
In search of no place in particular...
Some days, I wake up and feel the need to head out on a highway somewhere, the end destination somehow unimportant. Today was one of those days. I chose to head east into Iowa, ending up as far from Omaha as the wonderfully named (yet quite unimpressive in reality) Defiance, Iowa.
I've been reading William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways off-and-on for the past month or so. It's a great book, one man's travels through rural America in the early 1980's, and Heat-Moon's writing makes me want to take off cross-country even more than usual. Little day trips like this will have to suffice for the moment. School starts up again in less than a month and my wallet is even lighter than usual.
The photographs above and immediately below were both made in the small, small town of Westphalia, Iowa. The last one comes from Woodbine.
Also visited: Carson, Oakland, Hancock, Avoca, Harlan, Earling, Panama and Portsmouth, Iowa.
Nebraska City
In Nebraska City today, an old man stopped his car near where I was photographing the side of an old truck, rolled the window down, and asked me just what the hell I was doing. I told him I was just taking pictures of random things. He said that his wife still used a camera with 110 film. It surprised him when I said that was actually pretty hip at the moment. When I told him about my travels in Nebraska and the little details I like to capture, he made a sort of strange face.
"The world has more than enough pretty landscape pictures," I said. The old man thought about it a second. "I bet you'd have better luck selling them though."
We said goodbye and he drove away.
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Nebraska City is one of those places that is just plain... nice. The town's main street is sort of idyllic with mom 'n pop diners and locally owned shops, and the people are always friendly. It lies nestled in the hills above the Missouri River so the recent flooding hasn't had much effect, outside of what's shown in the photograph above.
I did notice that the business that once held a small showing of Ben Richter and I's work a few years back is no longer there. It's been replaced by yet another attempt at an antique store.
It's still hot in Nebraska, unfortunately. The heat index isn't 115 anymore, but I'm still anxious for fall to get here all the same.
Nebraska City
near Lake Waconda