Treasures of Imperfection

One of my favorite places to visit with my camera is Cline's Country Antiques in Mt. Pleasant, NC, affectionately known as "The Junk Farm".  You can find all manner of unusual and interesting items here, many of them in stages of deterioration.  It is the perfect place to photograph textures as rusty items and peeling paint abound. In fact the chair and the old tricycle on pages 122 and 123 of The Creative Photographer were photographed at Cline's Country Antiques.

Why photograph old things? I talk about my feelings about old things on page 122 of The Creative Photographer: 

"Old things seem to hold the energy of all those who held them or beheld them.  They have a story, a history.  They were once useful or meaningful, and now they have been left to disintegrate.  They can remind us of the inevitable journey of the human body.  Keep your eyes open for these hidden treasures of imperfection.  Visit an old junkyard and look at the junk in a new way.  Think about the "life" it had before it was discarded.  Photograph these things in such a way that you focus on the beauty in their degeneration."

And, if you don't have space to collect and store old things in your home, making photographs of them is a fun way to start a collection.  I have a great collection of old chairs which I have made into a Tag Book, and after my last visit to Cline's Country Antiques, I now have enough photographs of rocking horses to start a new collection!  What might you like to start a photograph collection of?

How about a show of hands?  (Also found at Cline's!)