Tuesday, September 12, 2006


What the...?

Bill Pierce, photojournalist and author of the immortal column "Nuts 'n Bolts" (it's run since the 1960s in a succession of magazines and now online, so that's pretty near immortal) once told me that when you really boil it down, we all keep making the same two pictures:

1. Somebody Standing In Front of Something.

2. "What the Hell's Going On Here?"

This picture, from Richwood, West Virginia, seems to be firmly in category two. Unless you count the no trespassing sign as "somebody," in which case I guess it's standing in front of something. Hmm.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a strange image. What the hell IS going on there? The more I look at the more confused I get. I love it. E

Unknown said...

Hmmm... reminds me I'm making too few "What the Hell images" and too many "In Front of images"...

Anonymous said...

I LOVE picture puzzles (the "What the Hell's going on here?" type of picture). The featured photograph is a perfect example.

Carl Weese said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Carl Weese said...

OK Michael, you win the (virtual) brass ring. Your reading of the subject matter is right on the money. Of course, thinking about what billwheeler just wrote, now that this is a picture and no longer the actual town of Richwood, everyone is free to interpret the picture as they wish.