Nirvana Or Bust #13743

The Story

A rusty and abandoned junk Chrysler car sits in the winter weeds of an unused rural barnyard. It’s the kind of junk collection that springs up anywhere simply because someone doesn’t like to throw things away, ever.

This is one of those places. Owned by a retired farmer in his nineties, the place is entirely grown up in weeds and small trees. Junk cars and trucks sit around a few collapsing sheds and stray piles of tires and such. A companion forties Chevy in faded denim blue sits in the dead line behind this Chrylser car.

I was attracted to the beautiful even patina of brown rust across the surface of this car. It’s the perfect finish to make a relic rat rod, just clear coat it!  A little bit of the original baby blue shows along the fender and the chrome is perfectly ruined too. Only time and the junkyard gypsy can do those things.

Better yet was the curving drape of faded tall grass around the empty headlight socket, the sure sign of another summer season done. A single curl leftover from the heat of summer decorates an unblinking blind eye…staring down the road to nowhere.

Just for the heckuvit, I processed this digital picture as a hand-tinted half black and white photograph. I wanted the colors muted if they were to remain at all, and the rest could just go to black and white. Rust and chrome, and dead leaves in black and white. Working with digital gives the chance for it to happen as an extension of your creativity. Overall, things just looked better this way with the story better told.

If you would like to look around more, I created a few more pictures in this out-of-the-way junkyard such as Queen Of The Junkyard #13747. About a dozen steps behind this well-weathered Chrysler car sat a done-in Ford pickup and a 64 Chevy. That made a popular picture I called Wishful Thinking #13741.

Location: a barnyard in rural Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Picture and story © Andrew Dierks.