2016
Abandoned automobiles spoil our forest. I have seen more than a dozen while hiking on the many trails. The cars look like they were left in the sixties and seventies. I am guessing it was an era when young men were making lots of money logging or working in the sawmills or the paper mill or the plywood plant. Because beat up old cars had little value, it was common practice to dump them in the bush, perhaps after one last joy ride. This was when no one had heard of tree-huggers. A few of the cars are quite mangled. It looks like a bulldozer has had to push them out of the way. Some have bullet holes.
Some can’t be seen when the leaves are on the trees. Even when the leaves are gone, they might only be visible when the light is just right. On Sunday I went for a stroll on a trail I had only been on once years ago. It was not until I was returning along the same path that I noticed a door and bumper. They turned out to be part of a cluster of three cars concealed by leaves, branches and shrubs.
I took a black and white photograph of a wreck upside down at the edge of a stream, nice and sharp with excellent shadow detail. I liked it but after a couple of months it appeared to be just another example from the old-car-in-the-woods genre. Two years later I tried again with black and white film, this time with a different camera. Thinking a human presence would make things more interesting, I put myself in the frame. I didn’t want self-portraits, so I added motion to make me less recognizable and maybe add a ghostly effect. Unfortunately, the very muted light and the blur made it hard to tell what you were looking at. Jacking up the contrast didn’t solve the problem. Then I had a brilliant idea! Why not try colour? With my digital camera I finally got what I was after. The red jacket contrasts nicely with the greenery and the red has symbolic weight. The moving man could almost be a spirit, a shape-shifter or some sort of Phoenix.
I have thought I should pester the city or the regional district to haul away these rusting remains. But I would miss them.
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