Light bright
Deerfield Beach, FL, December 2011
About this photo: Thematic. After Dark. Here. All are welcome.Three hungry kids. A roadside, drive-through restaurant that we've driven past hundreds of times but never thought to visit because it seemed so forgettable. A warm evening in a place where we nevertheless wish we could linger a little longer.
As we waited for our food, I pulled out my camera and started exploring the architecture of the place. On the surface, it was a nondescript white concrete building with garish lighting, an exhaust-filled outdoor seating area and a walk-up window staffed by employees who seemed to wish they could be anyplace else. Fluorescent light spilled out the service window and onto the time-worn sidewalk below. A forgettable oasis of cookie-cutter mediocrity in a place that doesn't seem to care one way or the other.
But the details told a different story. A place where light rewrites the nighttime landscape, and where color beats back the sun during the day. And when the two intersect, even this place can offer up the kind of sight that just doesn't happen back home. Because we would have missed this neon light show had we simply let our first impressions guide us elsewhere.
Your turn: The first three words that come to mind when you see this photo are...?
I could just sit and stare at this photo. It has so much motion in the loops of light.
ReplyDelete"Light rewrites the night. . . "
ReplyDeleteYou a poet, Carm
Aloha from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral
> < } } ( ° >
><}}(°>
Love clear shots!
ReplyDeleteYou did an awesome job of capturing this neon. I not only love how clear your shot is, I love your writing.
Nice piece of writing Carmi. You are a poet. Sentences flow with the rhythm of a summer night.
ReplyDeleteA 1950's outdoor, drive-up, diner, a warm evening, cars and motorcycles everywhere, kids going from car to car, cokes and fries in hand... perhaps it has seen those days
ReplyDelete