"American Analog" is the title of this work. A digital photograph made at Craggy Gardens Picnic Grounds between Mount Mitchell and Doughton Park on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, August 2023. It’s one of many of the original Civilian Conservation Corps hand-poured aggregate concrete picnic tables. These tables are mostly at odd angles today, being ejected from the earth they were placed well within, back in 1936-1938. Why? Permafrost. Which is possibly the strangest so far of all I’ve learned of the agency, the structure of these four sections, the system within our National Parks System. The greens are deep emerald and celadon, almost the color of absinthe in places, the early leaves fallen upon the ground in a carpet of varied browns and golds, with dense fog approaching, enveloping the sister tables from view as you look into the distance. I have come to think of the Picnic Grounds, mostly now used for some holiday weekends, as this complex’s ghostlands. Each table seems to hold a wealth of memory of souls long gone from the surface of our Earth. There are some features I noted at Crabtree Falls Picnic and Campgrounds. There’s something missing from each and every picnic site. Something I decided to record by camera, just in case the last remnant is finally removed from the sites.
"American Analog,” #DigitalPhoto on #BlueRidgeParkway
at Craggy Gardens from the #TheParkwaysProjects #Nature
#TreeTuesday #TheParkwaysProjects #ShotOniPhone
#MobilePhotography #Woodland #Nature #Bluesky #BlueSkyArt #NaturePhotography #LandscapePhotography
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