Junk

Efland Junkyard

I don’t know why, but I find myself captivated by junk.  I’ve noted it in this blog before–this blog, actually, is kind of my outlet for the non-people photos, aka, the photos of junk, and other urban, suburban, or rural decay.  There is something that fascinates me–endlessy–about the things people discard and leave behind.  It’s no suprise, then, that I jumped at the opportunity to go explore a gigantic junkyard in Efland, NC (I will map this place when I go back to it–I am having trouble finding it on Googlemaps at the moment).  A friend told me about it, and I waited for the opportunity to go.

Efland Junkyard

What is it that’s so compelling about the things we throw away?  Is it the textures and colors?  Is it the shapes and lines artfully crafted by human hands?  Or is it just the sheer magnitude of things that can be found out in the woods, being slowly overgrown with weeds?  I suspect it is all of these things–in particular, I like the juxtaposition of the organic and the inorganic, the natural and the unnatural.  I enjoy photographing the engine bay full of saplings, and seat springs laid bare under years of sun and rot.  I like the anthropomorphological skeletons of things.

Efland Junkyard

This particular junkyard is fascinating because of its scope and its variety.  The further you go back down the winding, muddy paths, the further back you go in time, finding police cards and muscle cars from the 80s, old church buses, delivery vans, hearses, old file cabinets.  One minute you find yourself in a field of tires–giant tires, pedestrian tires, bicycle tires–the next minute you are in a field of school buses.  A little further down the path, you find yourself surrounded by old rusy engine blocks and construction equipment slowly sinking into the mud, the innumerable mosquitos buzzing around the stagnant pools of water from which they emerged.

Efland Junkyard

I enjoy seeing nature overcome man’s best work, even when man throws everything he has at nature, determined to kill her with old broken metal things that leak poisons.  I enjoy watching nature slowly reclaim the things man has taken from her and shaped into other things.  Mostly I just enjoy the visual spectacle of these things, and the act of exploration.  Explorations like this–driving through the country looking for old barns, or abandoned houses, or wandering through junkyards–these are the things that provide the counterpoints to the portraits of people.

Efland Junkyard

At times I feel my most creative when shooting these textures and forms.  They allow me to explore abstraction, and color, and texture, and light in a way that I can’t always with people.  I like that they are still and contemplative.  I enjoy shooting regular landscapes, but I find that I prefer those that are blighted or marked by something human–preferably something human that has been forgotten, and left to decay.

They say one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and that certainly seems to be the case at this junkyard.  There are signs out front proudly proclaiming “landscaping tools” and “automotive parts.”  The town of Hillsborough has been trying for more than a decade, unsuccessfully, to get Hoyle King, the owner, to clean up the yard.  It takes a single-minded determination to build up a collection of this magnitude, if you ask me.  It’s kind of like Shangri-La, in a way–a strange and unpredictable outlet for a creative person (or a crazy person) with too much time on his hands and the wrong tools with which to create.  Where I take photos, an old tobacco farmer builds miniature houses, over years, until he has a tiny village.  Another man collects cars, hopes to sell them, eventually collects them for their own sake.  Perhaps Mr. King doesn’t even know why he collects these things anymore–who can say?

In spite of its unsightliness and negative environmental impact, I can’t help but be impressed by a spectacle like this.  The recorder and the artist in me is drawn to these sorts of curiosities, these sorts of strange collections of things.  This is no ordinary junkyard–this is a chronicle of a man’s life, and the lives of many others, collected in one place, for some adventurous people to discover and explore.