Dump truck photobomb

Build for the future. Nod to the past.
Parkhill, ON
August 2021
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Strange composition, isn't it? A dump truck parked in front of an historic stretch of buildings on #Parkhill's main street.

I probably could have waited for the truck to leave the area. In fact, a few minutes after I took this, it slowly drove off to wherever it is that dump trucks go.

I probably could have taken another picture then, this time without the annoying truck belching diesel fumes into the brilliant summer afternoon sky.

But for some reason, this is the only photo I got, and I think it tells the better story. Of activity in a normally quiet little town nestled in the middle of similarly quiet farm country. Of life in a place that sometimes forces you to look in the margins to find it.

While composing scenes through the lens, I often wrestle with whether I should wait for things to change. For a car or truck to move. Or a pedestrian to walk away. Or a cloud to dissipate. Or move into position.

And I always fret after the fact, because I'm never sure if I shot at the right moment. Or if I was too early. Or too late.

This dump truck serves as my personal reminder that I should stop fretting. Because while timing will always be one of the little tools a photographer keeps in the toolkit, it's hardly the only one.

And far be it for me to be so arrogant as to assume that my sense of timing - or composition, or right and wrong - should be the metric by which others measure the worth of a scene.

Or anything else, frankly.

I should just tell the stories as they play out in front of me. Besides, the dump truck is a lovely shade of blue. And it offsets the ancient facade rather nicely. And the scene makes me smile.

Which in the end is all I'm trying to accomplish.

#north #middlesex #county #ontario #canada #cycling #cyclist #cycle #bicycle #bike #cyclinglife #bikelife #instabike #orange #devinci #hatchet #gravelbike #random #roadside #photography #apple #iphone #iphone11 #shotoniphone #photooftheday #instagood #nofilter #nofilterneeded