Four Frames Outside Hinton, Oklahoma

For a spot jammed between three highways our camp outside Hinton was remarkably quiet.

You could tell it was beautiful in its day; the old pavilions and tables. I suppose it still carries a benign appeal.

This little diamond of grass was once a picnic area along Route 66. Now, it’s just a place for a dirtbag photographer to soak in a nights sleep off I-40 on the way back east; a stop over for wayward travelers and a roost for low-key rendezvous.

Steinbeck called this stretch of highway “the Mother Road” and who am I to argue. I even did a book on it myself once upon a time. Still, on this frigid morning in Oklahoma, it’s difficult to absorb the former glory of this portion of Old 66 without a measure of sadness — and wonderment. The cracked and broken slates of ancient concrete that once carried untold tires west and east. The broken farms and boarded up stores standing as soggy echos of a once great wave.

The camera for the morning was the Imperial XII Flash; an all-plastic 6x6 beauty that, ironically, was manufactured in the late 1950’s around the same time Route 66 was beginning its death march into dilapidated beshamblement.

An unconscious embodiment of the once was; that which will never be and that slow, grinding slope to an inevitable terminus of half-remembered thought.

It was good to be back.

Technical considerations: Film is Fomapan 200 loaded by hand onto original 620 spools. All photographs were shot at the single speed of 1/40th second with an assumed aperture of F/16. Development was performed from the back of my car in self-made caffenol developer. The “unique” character is brought about by the incomplete solutional render of the ascorbic acid and sodium carbonate components due to the low ambient water temperature. This is an effect I have come to love more and more in my work; especially from my more ancient film cameras.

All text and images copyright 2023 by Adam Welch unless otherwise indicated.

Buying through these links helps keep this site running. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.