Ain't that America?

Scene from a parking lot
Caryville, TN
January 2018
This photo originally shared on Instagram

This somewhat dreary throwback view out a hotel room window in the middle of a long road trip home doesn't elicit the kind of "wow" moment I envisioned when I first got into photography.

But it tells a story all the same. And the more time I spend behind the lens, the more I come to appreciate the power of photography to tell the story of the everyday, or otherwise echo life that we wouldn't normally bother to record.

This scene feels like middle-of-the-road America to me, where regular folks driving regular vehicles - including old Dodge pickups and Oldsmobiles, as well as the occasional semi - drive past pawn shops and fireworks stores on their way to wherever it is that they're headed. It won't grab headlines and it won't look particularly pretty, but that's not why we choose to remember the ordinary.

Because when all the hype is stripped away, what's left often looks a lot like this. And it's just as worthy of having its moment in the spotlight as any other scene, from any other place.

I hope you'll linger over this scene as I did. Eventually, I'm reasonably sure you'll come to appreciate it, too.

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