Roadside Observations

Forgotten Spaces and the Quiet Return of Nature

It’s amazing what you can find when you pull over at an old, closed access road. Once, possibly a county route or parking area, then maybe a teenage hangout, later a dumping ground or a place to strip cars, finally shut and left to fade. Now weeds push through cracks in the asphalt, brush stands where cars once parked, and the wind carries only the distant sounds of the main highway.

I used to tell people I stopped to capture these places out of curiosity. That was true, but incomplete. Years of photographing these strange, unsightly, overlooked spaces have given me a better answer.

I’m drawn to the mystery of change. The way a place’s purpose evolves, the way human traces erode. When left alone, nature reclaims it all on its own timeline and terms. Faded signage, crumbling asphalt, and reclaimed infrastructure tell a slow story of undoing and renewal.

I feel fortunate to have carved out the space in my life and my mind to notice these quiet transitions. They remind me that nothing stays the same, that what seems abandoned isn’t dead but changing, and that the passage of time offers its own strange grace to forgotten places.