In those mythic days of yesteryear I owned two 2,000 watt second Norman Strobe boxes and four flash heads. All of this stuff, a ton of light stands, a giant tripod, and enough film to last for a week and a half got stuffed into the bed of my Chevrolet three quarter ton pick-up truck. This was a truck with at least 150,000 miles on it's 350 cubic inch engine. It had a three speed transmission with a shifter on the steering column. No air conditioning. I had a "cap", not a camper, on the back. The truck got something like negative nine miles to the gallon but what did we care back then? It was Texas and they gave away gasoline instead of Green stamps at the time. The truck was oxidized baby blue with white trim.
When I picked up my art director at the Austin airport she was "enchanted" with my "rustic" truck and always excited when I backed out of parking places. In Texas people stop and wave you out if your vehicle has limited visibility. Apparently, if you are from Philadelphia, backing out without looking is considered heinous enough to start gun battles.
We made it through torrential rains and flooded highways (thank you, Truck) and we visited many interesting people who, having made fortunes in one industry or another, felt compelled to flee to rural Louisiana and throw their life savings into crumbling monuments to a dark time in our country's past.
I took a lot of photographs but the one that stays with me from the trip is one I took outside with my old, twin lens Rolleiflex. It's a clump of flowers. I found them and liked them so I shot them. In my memory my trip through the backroads of Louisiana will always be marked by this image.
It's quiet, serene and captured just before the last light rinsed out in a muggy sky and the darkness crept in.
Loved that truck. We used to sleep in the back when I travelled through west Texas. It was always more fun than the hotels....
