Motion and Stillness

Selections tonight are form and function, ying and yang, study in contrasts. There is a selection of photos of traffic on Peachtree Road , taken at night. As a compliment, there is a selection of pictures of a cemetary in Norcross GA.
The nature of traffic photography at night is that of blurred red and white lines. The headlights and taillights rush by in an assortment of zigs and zags. Who is to say that this is not the way these cars really look, and that the still images we are familiar with is the illusion?



Technically, there were two sessions here. One involved the retaining wall on the North Side of Peachtree, at the bottom of the Peachtree Country Club. When the Marta Line was going through, the word was that the Country Club was deeded to the Catholic Church in perpetuity, and that the land could not be used for the transformation of the area. As it turned out, the "dip down" on peachtree did use a few feet of the country club land.
The second session was shot from under the railroad bridge. I thought that this would block out the street lights, and thus yield more interesting images. Alas, it had the effect of shortening the space where traffic could be photographed, and produced fewer interesting images.


Improvement to the quality of life by the underpass was immense. For years there was a grade level train crossing here, and when a freight train came through there was little to do but wait. There is an underpass in Doraville which has had an even more dramatic impact, as has the "wonderful bridge" connecting Clairmont Road to Peachtree Industrial.




Cemetary Street is largely the same as ever, at least the older graveyard. There are two "underground" facilities here, an older one on the north side and a younger, apparently private, place on the south side.
A "Garden of Stone" is a contrast to Peachtree Road. The gravestones go nowhere, while Peachtree Road goes to Buckhead. One is quiet , one is noisy. One rests in the sun, grateful for any visitors, while the other never stops.
The Confederacy has influenced the south in many ways. It is not going to far to say that it casts a shadow over the country, as the flag does in this image.





Infant mortality is a plague of mankind. The first year of life has always been treacherous, and more so in the past than today.
The lambs and angels on these markers are an attempt by the living to bear some of the families burden from this tragedy







Likewise, War is a recruiter for this field. Here we have a young man who perished four days after the armistace was signed.
It was then the only world war, the war to end all wars.



Diefferent cultures flourish in a corner of the newer cemetary.

Sometimes, the markers have a lesson the living would do well to remember.