EN ROUTE - #7/8

Chicken Mural. East Magnolia. Knoxville, TN

This week's En Route image is a response to last week's attempt. I wanted to come up with something that bridged a gap between the typography driven images of the past weeks to the last image I have selected (next week). Plus, I am seeing them in my head as a series of shots that sit next to one another (seen that way on the REFUSE! site). Anyway, it's a chicken...on a wall...glancing back at a steak...and announcing that food stamps are accepted inside. I love hand painted signs, and really don't like the trend of vinyl-cut signs made and stuck on by "one hour" sign companies. No offense to those companies (they have their place), but gimme a hand painted chicken anyday. Until next week...enjoy the chicken.

Shrimptych

Shrimptych - A taste delight. Click for larger view. Mmmmm.

EN ROUTE - #6/8

Charles Smith Gutter and Siding Truck (Sam) - Hwy. 70, near Lenoir City, TN

Well, this week's En Route shot was a gamble. I picked it on the fly, and really thought it would be an interesting shot to use. After seeing it printed and with the others in the series I am regretting my choice. It just doesn't fit very well, and it doesn't hold up against the others visually or thematically. But, you can't take it back once it's printed, heh? Oh well. C'est la vie. The reason I liked the shot is that the truck it came from was a "Charles Smith" gutter truck, but the man on the side holding the gutter section has a hat with the name "Sam" on it. Who is Sam? That's the intrigue to me. Is Sam someone who works for Charles Smith? Is he a brother, father, or just a mascot? I dunno. That's why I took the picture, but I suppose I should have kept that one away from the other En Route shots...I'm finding more and more how important the editing process is. Next week will be hard...maybe I can make a bridge between the others and "Sam"...some way to connect these random photos. Hmmm.

Home-Chicken

Middlebrook, VA. June, 2008

I went to my dad's farm for Father's Day and got to hang out with family. While it wasn't the whole family, it sure was a nice time. The older I get the more I appreciate those times, and the more time I spend on that farm the more it feels like a home (I wasn't raised there). It's in the Shenandoah Valley, and is a really ideal spot...lots of wooded land, wildlife, and a view with no manmade objects in sight. Rare these days. The spring that starts above the house feeds not only the main house and springhouse, but also continues down to a fairly large stocked pond. So we fished. I didn't really fish that much, but enough to catch a good sized largemouth bass, and to watch my niece and nephews learn the art of worm-handling and fly-casting. We also went to a community chicken dinner down the road at a local church. They grilled 950-odd chicken halves, and probably sold most of them...people from miles away waited in line for the now-traditional meal, and some even drove up to buy it in takeout boxes and foil to save for later. Delicious (no offense to the above bird). Link below:

More Farm Pictures HERE

EN ROUTE on the web...

EN ROUTE - Metro Pulse, 2008

In addition to seeing the 8 weeks of En Route images in the actual pages of the Metro Pulse and seeing them here...I decided to add a page to the REFUSE! site so they will be there in a more regulated way...in a row...so the relation of the series can be seen. I think the decisions make more sense when you can see them side by side. I dunno. Maybe. Anyhow, I'll add them each week as they appear in the paper. Cheers. Oh, the link follows:

REFUSE!

EN ROUTE - #5/8

Collectible. Corner of 25W & 297.

Number 5/8 in the En Route Series.

EN ROUTE - #4/8

Knoxville One Hour Cleaners. North Broadway.

Number 4/8 for the MetroPulse "En Route" series. This one was taken behind Broadway Shopping Center...and is clearly of the Knoxville One Hour Cleaners. I like the old sign, and how ominous it all looks. It really isn't very scary at all, but the picture makes it look a bit that way. This particular shopping center also hosts K-Mart, Little Caesar's Pizza, and some of the other now-typical stripmall shops...such as discount women's clothing, a Dollar-Store, and what looks to be a "Call Center" at the end of the mall. Maybe it is a bit scary, come to think of it. Well, not scary, just depressing. Those Call-Centers freak me out with the "Smoking Areas" in back that resemble a cage or prison cell.