February 10, 2018
The image for this week’s blog post was captured 13 years ago, Thanksgiving 2005 at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. The elderly looking farmer in his pressed jeans and pearl snap shirt is Lewis Hales my father. As was the custom back then, my son, wife and I would make the yearly pilgrimage from our home in Dallas to Amarillo to spend the holiday with our families.
I had just purchased the new Canon 5D full frame camera and was anxious to get out and photograph a few landscape images of the big sky and FLAT horizon that is the norm in the Texas Panhandle.
My dad had long since retired from farming. He always liked to go with me when I would head out of town to shoot photographs, he enjoyed the drive, looking at the farmland that he loved and the memories that it brought back. I didn’t find much that I wanted to photograph so we were headed back in to town. We happened to drive by the Cadillac Ranch, I pulled the car over and my dad and I walked out and looked at the old Cadillacs buried in the ground. I took a few photos but, didn’t really find any images that I liked, as I turned to tell my dad that I was ready to go. I stopped and looked at my dad as he surveyed the old cars in the middle of this beautiful flat farmland and took the picture you see in in this blog post. Sometimes the best photos are the ones you aren’t looking for, you must be willing to see all things in front of you, not just the things you want to see.
Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.” … Ansel Adams