Watermelons

WatermelonsAn old Chevy truck advertises watermelons for sale at Monroe's Peach Ranch near Hedley, Texas.

I used to travel through the panhandle of Texas several times a year to visit family in southern Oklahoma. I did this for over 30 years. When you travel the blue highways of America, you get used to seeing scenes of "Americana". Regular folks utilize and re-task items they have on hand for new tasks and purposes. You just don't see these scenes on an interstate.

Such is the case in Hedley, Texas. Monroe's Peach Ranch has re-purposed an old Chevy truck into signage for their fruit stand along US highway 287. I had driven past this scene dozens of times and had always intended to stop and photograph this old truck. On this morning journey, a heavy fog covered the Texas panhandle reducing visibility to a few hundred yards. The fog also removed almost all the color from anything more than a few feet away. The fruit stand was also closed, removing additional cars and people from the scene. This was the day!

I turned around, came back to the stand, and found a place to park so my truck was not in the scene. As I approached the old truck it emerged from the fog and took on a surreal blue glow. It seemed to jump out of the scene. What luck! The fog reduced the color saturation of everything but my subject, helping to isolate the truck from the background.

I made several images from near and far, at several different focal lengths. This wide-angle view centers attention on the truck and diminishes attention to the building and traffic. It was pretty breezy so I had to try multiple shots to get the flag completely unfurled. To me, the flag is a critical portion of the subject. I am a little annoyed by the blurry semi coming through the scene but, at least it was white, and didn't compete too much with my subject. I traded the perfect flag for the blurry truck.  I really didn't notice the truck when I was photographing since there was a lot of traffic coming through the scene. That's typical of US 287. Some of them even honked and waved.

I think I captured a nice bit of "Americana" with "Watermelons". I hope you like it too!