Kathy & I traveled to Belhaven, NC this past weekend to celebrate the 4th of July with our friends there. While in the area we spent some time photographing for my SoFoBoMo book project that I decided to call “Road Ends.” You’ll have to wait for the finished product for all the details but it’s basically about discovering what is at the end of all these dead-end roads that we frequently pass by but never take because, after all, they are dead ends.

The thing that I found most interesting is that we so often pass these roads by because we see them as detours or distractions from our primary journey. Making them the actual destination changes the approach considerably, as all of a sudden by giving ourselves “permission” to stop and see what’s there we no longer pass them by. Every time we saw a “Dead End” sign we drove down the road to see if anything was there. Many times there was nothing there. A few times we thought we heard Banjo Music, but frequently we found something interesting.

It’s easy to just drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway or down some main road and just look at whatever you pass by, but just like the idea that ones photography can be improved by spending time with interesting subjects, it’s really beneficial to look for subjects in different or unusual places. By “forcing myself” to explore the ends of the dead end roads I not only found some interesting and unexpected subjects but perhaps a new way of looking that will hopefully improve the way I see.