Walk A Crooked Mile #09039

The Story

This back road with the dipsy-doodle yellow line down the middle is out through the south-central Pennsylvania farmland and is probably lucky to have been paved, but it was certainly never straightened or leveled. I’m thinking this is the original wagon road simply widened and paved.

While cruising the countryside to find out just why the chicken crossed the road, I spotted the funky center line in the side mirror. Being out in the middle of the Big PA Nowhere, I stopped the truck right in the middle of the road and got out to shoot while leaving the door hanging open. I did so for twenty minutes solid and saw no one…even laid down in the road and took a few!

This was taken as a color digital photograph then converted to black and white. People have been tinting black and white photographs by hand since the 1880s using pens, markers, and pencils, but this was done by hand digitally on the computer. You could call it a modern hybrid. The only colors borrowed back from the original were the yellow and a little red for the distant barn, neither at full strength. Just a touch is all it takes. I love the countryside. This one’s an old favorite of mine, a memory of a fun time shooting, and titled with an obvious reason.

Location: the countryside near Mercersburg, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.