The Parkways Projects 1934≈2025
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parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
The Parkways Projects 1934≈2025
@parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
630 followers 1.1K following 2K posts
A reconsideration of Appalachia 55 years later in this dedicated project series: Photography, Digital Collage #EastCoastKin #ArtYear

A PhotoEssay, Patreon & Substack by Tom Ogburn on the Great Smoky Mountains NP, Blue Ridge, Skyline Drive & Shenandoah NP
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parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉 Haint in the window pane, #photograph #Stunday

The Walker Sister's cabin in #TheGreatSmokyMountains
#photography #PhotographersOfBluesky #artprompt
#Bluesky🦋 #EastCoastKin #ArtYear
January 11th 2024. My friend Bill Heustess and I decided to wander over to the Smokies and hike the four miles into the Walker Sisters old home place on what turned out to be a very cold Winters day. Who knew? This cabin, built in 1861 from hand-hewn tulip-poplars, is one of the toughest woods to work even when green. A small six panel window reveals nothing on the inside of the cabin, but reflects as a mirror that which is directly across from it, a large tree standing just 20 feet away. And in the lowest left pane the haint form of a very cold photographer trying to diminish himself unsuccessfully. The chimney is mud-daubed hand laid split stone, relatively flat. The width of the fireplace centered in the interior living room is about eight feet. The stillness and beauty of being here on a cold winters day was surreal. Reflections in glass panes are the bane of a photographer. When here are six of hem, each skewed at different angles of placement in the lights of the window frame it feels as though you've fallen into an old-world kaleidoscope.
September 1, 2025 at 3:59 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Years ago, when I was teaching & doing an intro to a class and my work, one student immediately asked "What genre?" I'd forgotten I mentioned I wanted to write a novel. I was not paying attention in class. I had a long pregnant pause, finally answering them.

"Southern Gothic Magical Realism."🌙 ⬇️
This image, a digital collage created to illustrate a very pronounced and prolonged dream sequence I've been having for years now, involves many vibrant assemblages of descriptions, memories and stories shared over generations in the two larger of the eight extended families I emerged from by some random happenstance. It’s packed to the gills with visuals. It’s made to look like an old Brownie photo. They are all interwoven, to look as though projected towards the viewer or that you are diving into them, similar to the original opening sequence of the old "Twilight Zone" television series in 1959. It's hard to describe, but here's a try at it: there are three main elements, a young woman's photo circa 1952, a large face of a man with a goatee receding, disappearing in places. A playing card, an Ace of Hearts with a Southern Nettle tree displayed. The colors are muted tans, bronze to gold browns and blacks. The colors of opthalmic migraine-induced vision, at least as experienced by me. The photograph, to us all, is a bridge to a quiet and deeply spiritual memory which shears away from the science of the image. And the deep memory resides in that maelstrom of a universe of mind which I believe comprises a collective consciousness of all things, a great body of atmosphere in various modes and forms which serves as a stage for its performance within the realm of our own very fluid memory. A relegated space, but always malleable. Then, we imputed once a science of photographing moments and called the resulting images “proof.” An evasive thing. What is visible "proof" to the eye? For eyes need no proof. yes are fleet. Photos are a much more spiritual, essence driven nature of the human spirit made static. The photograph, as Roland Barthes mentioned, just serves to say "We were here." I was so touched by that observation when I read it. It made all the sense in the world to me. Even the photo border is nebulous, emerging from the left as nothing, into die cut edges.
September 1, 2025 at 12:58 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
I'm on a very Large Learning Curve Roller Coaster over at Substack 🏄 at times rather daunting & often Sphinx-like but I'm finding the mystery. Missing #Bluesky🦋 #Stunday

🪔 Hurricane Junction Bridge #SesquicentennialStatePark #SC
#photography #PhotographersOfBluesky #artprompt
#EastCoastKin #ArtYear
A very industrial-looking silver steel bridge spans a new creek flow in Sesquicentennial State Park in South Carolina. These trees were heavily damaged ten years ago, and now, the verdant pine forest is recovering still, yet again we have a beautiful terrain. River cane has returned, and a promising blue sky covers far behind the trees. This is what we now call the FEMA Bridge, all who frequent the Park. For it represents a bond between the people and a Government Agency which once care for all in need. This is a photograph of when things work, when needs are met and the people of a Nation are visited by relief and repair after such devastation. Here is what for a few years, through a number of tropical storms and hurricanes between January 2015 to January 2021 that through flood and fire, hurricane, tornado and cyclone, deluge of snow, an incredibly large swath of landscape in Sesquicentennial State Park, just outside of Columbia, South Carolina was altered forever. But we all knew that relief would come. In State Parks we are seeing fires and floods decimate the timber, the lands, even the waterways. In 2015 Sesqui was a disaster zone. South Carolina has had flooding now for ten long years, with prolonged seasons of record setting flooding many times. This is climate change, and FEMA was always there to help individuals, communities, counties and states recoup. Until now. Western North Carolina is still reeling from Hurricane Helene, encumbered by lack of bridges and road repair which never came. Even when our Nation had FEMA fully operational, it often was the precursor, as in the case of Sesquicentennial, a tremendous outpouring of funds and volunteers, workers from other states and even some countries who sent help in as a welcome tide of support. When will it return to us?
August 31, 2025 at 11:04 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Yay! 🌙💙🦋 I finally reached 600 followers for what I know is a very esoteric, historically inclined allegorical account 🌙🦉🪔
#GreatSmokyMountains #BlueRidgeParkway #Nature #SkylineDriveParkway #ShenandoahNP #Photography
#History #Appalachia #ArtsYear #EastCoastKin
A scene, a little bit ominous, depending upon your point of view, perhaps. It is the lowlands, just below & adjacent to the remnant white sands of the Carolinas Sandhills region. It is a South Carolina State Park. It is where in many ways, my love of Parks & America's Recreation Areas began, although at the age of three to seven years old, I would never have been allowed to wander into these arenas, for this is a tributary to a swamp. It is the portal some of us adhere to in our reveries, our visualizations. It is to others a threatening place, full of danger & omnipresent latent fears; somewhat founded trepidations, for there are more folks today Nature considers a threat than they do her. They should be the wiser but there is no indication of such at hand. I place my bet on Nature, for our world is trying to shake us off like a dog would rid themself of fleas. When this Earth finally shakes in earnest, we will be gone. At the same time, we will always haunt the Earth's surface, no matter it's configuration & we will be stymied by loss of orientation, for I doubt we will recognize even our own homes & birthplaces. We will be lucky to recognize the wake of our own immediately trailing currents, our passages, our departures. If you were to be standing here on this spot, at the same time of year of this photo being made, you would be seeing an emergence of spring, new grayish-green leaves in the softness of their velvety bloom. A sonorous enclave of otherwise quiet & subdued beauty, until you inch closer to the waters. Then you see & hear the Life teeming beneath the reflection of blue skies above, leaves & sky providing camouflage of faded shades of the brown spectrum & the darkness of the water where the gray bark turns to black, mirroring your face as you wonder at the beauty of such existence. A black mirror indeed. This is a panoramic image of three blackwater tributary streams converging within Poinsett State Park, between Sumter and Santee, SC.
July 30, 2025 at 6:16 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
To all the memories of those who came before us, when things also seemed insurmountable. But during the span of the Vietnam War, the Senate and the House were not at polarized loggerheads 🪔

🌙 "Ninety-nine percent of wisdom is being wise in time."🦉
#TheodoreRoosevelt

For links to my #Substack ⬇️
A portrait meme of AJ Muste, a Dutch-born American clergyman and pacifist who protested against the Vietnam War. A reporter once asked him, "Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?" Muste replied, "Oh I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won' change me."
July 28, 2025 at 9:38 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉 A Bridge Too Far #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn #Photography #Landscape #ArtYear #EastCoastKin
#BlueSkyArtShow #Smooth #Nature

An old bridge, but with a new & shiny guard rail assembly. Nothing like an allegory there, for we are not about that, no, especially not in Carolina Bay territory 🌙
A timeless square shot, of a bridge crossing the Little Pee Dee River in northeastern-most South Carolina. The day is still, white clouds calmly abiding ahead of blue sky. The blackwater mirrors darkly the sky above. Still water, currents only underneath, carrying secrets within its deeper recesses. The underside of this bridge is mirrored, casting a near-black shadow. It seems suspended through ebony reversal. To read the full story: https://theparkwaysprojects.substack.com/p/a-bridge-too-far Just over a year ago, I began to wander my Jeep into the deep Carolina Bays region of the two states as part of 'The Parkways Projects.' Where the two states conjoin. It is not a place of ease, no matter your constitution nor your mindset. It’s an eerie place of separatist belonging, for I felt I belonged there by birthright but was excluded by today's currents. In these Carolina Bays, it is the crows which sound the back and forth of present participles versus past tense. These murders of crows were out in abundance on this trip into the swamp basins of the Carolina Bays crossings between Little Pee Dee State Park (South Carolina) and one of the newest North Carolina State Parks, Lumber River. It's an old bridge but with a new and shiny guard rail assembly. Nothing like an allegory there, for we are not about that, no, especially not in Carolina Bay territory. Lumbees. Witches. Panthers—or paints. Others. Neithers. Amalgams from the in-betweens. Dark, light, good, evil, all exist within these swamps. Along with the fish curiously trying to consider the humans above the surface of their waters. I walked this bridge four times, shooting each time something caught my eye. There’s no stopping the sounds, the caws, the currents and eddies, the blackwater abundance in shallow layers hiding just what we do not wish to know is under there. But things which the hackles tell us are under there. Like today. Then I made my way into the swamp to shoot it from this vantage point.
July 19, 2025 at 4:51 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
A Spectacular Sunday #Stunday to all here at #Bluesky🦋
Here's a post from the edge of post-minimalism ⚪
#EastCoastKin #ArtYear

🧩 "Pan's brief spell of Eternity," a #digitalcollage from the Hybrid series of works #altphotography #abstract
#JuneSea #dream

There's more narrative in the ALTtext! 🎭

⬇️
"Pan's brief eternity" The colors are largely a duotone composition of a slightly reddish sepia & cream color. To finish off the piece with a little more edge to it, a deep golden ocher is introduced as a large translucent pane over the model’s shoulder and a small rectangle, a reflection from underneath her chin. Pan is very pale and ghostlike and stares at you intently from their only visible eye, the other deep within shadows. Their pupil is heavily dilated, as Pan was known for excess, often killing many human trespassers who entered their realm. Pan was neither male nor female, but a shape-shifter. You’re under the gaze of the trickster god of old, one who existed in almost every mythic pantheon of the gods around the world. They are not amused by your presence but highly intrigued in your having the courage to drop in for a visit. You’re likely to never see home again, but to be lured by this feral creature of mists into an eternity all too brief for the gods, but very long and drawn out for humans. I’ve posted many words on this work over the years, largely about the method, mode and manner of the art I do inside Photoshop to create them. Here’s a few more, for there’s a story inside the story of Pan, for all riddlers are such folk. Since 1996, when I started building my first digital collages inside Photoshop by using the more painterly methods of additive/reductive, I started referring to the final images as digital composite builds. I'm also emulating older photographic methods and techniques. Like Ansel Adams employed long ago. After two decades he’d forgotten his method’s complexities, and thanks to not keeping recipes (at times losing those he did record) coupled with the advent of chemical changes in modern photography, Ansel never could return to those former methods he’d hoped to recover. The photos he made and developed were (after that time) less dense in tonalities, the blacks less rich & velvety. This made me realize recipes are good.
June 29, 2025 at 10:13 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
#Photography #TheParkwaysProjects
#EastCoastKin #ArtYear #Nature #scape

The interior of the original Rangers' Cabin Office at Big Ridge State Park, Tennessee.

Never let it be said that the love of a person for what they believe in can not transcend the most grievous of barriers.

🧵 ⬇️4ALT below...
Here is the interior of a very small stone cabin crafted by young men in training as members of the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's. It is a very skilled build, with both the greyish-golden native stone and the deep reddish browns of old wooden rafters, beams and planks hand cut and crafted, the wood probably made of spruce. It's a beautiful remnant of an era fading from view in many parts of America. An old vintage mountain rescue sled, made of steel and oak, hangs horizontally, high above the floor. This is a room steeped in lore. It is in this place of being we may find our anchor beneath the waters which might drown us should we spill over into the deep. We are witnessing the Sun's existence. Between two chairs. I can only consider, what was that difference between the origin of these chairs? One a standard ladderback, the other created by an artisan crafter plying a skilled sense of local aesthetic. Both were most likely crafted by mountain hands. It's of no matter, really, save for just igniting wonder in the mind of the viewer as the entire building, exterior and interior, stem from the old ways. They derive from the past the skills the people of Appalachia knew, and carried in their being all through the course of their lives. That chair on the left, made by hands long ago buried in a grave marked by their surviving family members in hopes that their descendants would remember them. Such is the care some are willing to devote to places where we as visitors might go to reconnoiter, to reclaim our sense of self. It is a certain clarity which has been bequeathed to us by a living being, a young mind who wishes to share an interpretation of just what might have been, oh so long ago. A mighty vote of thanks to Ranger Josh Powell at Big Ridge, for your efforts to maintain, curate and equip this small but well-preserved slice of history.
June 26, 2025 at 9:41 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
There's not much to an angle of view.

Or is there?

For here we see daylight as so many of he mountain dwellers would love to have seen more often. Yet here they be windows, affordable, less than dragons at the boundaries of maps of ancient antiquity.
It is in this place of being we may find our anchor beneath the waters which might drown us should we spill over into the deep./ We are witnessing the Sun's existence. Between two chairs. I can only consider, what is that difference between these chairs? One a standard ladderback, one crafted by mountain hands. The latter may be made by a person only 45 years old today; perhaps 30 years of age. It's of no matter as they stem from the old, they derive from the past the skills they have learned. Then again, that chair on the left may just be made by hands long ago buried and marked for their descendants. Such is the care some are willing to give to places where we might go to reconnoiter, to reclaim our sense of self. It is a certain clarity which has been bequeathed to us by a living being, a young mind who wishes to share an interpretation of just what might have been, oh so long ago. A mighty vote of thanks to Ranger Josh Powell at Big Ridge.
June 9, 2025 at 5:10 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
#Stunday #Photography #Nature #TheParkwaysProjects

The interior of the Rangers' Cabin Office at Big Ridge State Park, Tennessee, scene #1.

Never let it be said that the love of a person for what they believe in can not transcend the most grievous of barriers.
Ranger Josh Powell is a unique person. He has a vision. He has a grasp of the past. You are viewing his art, his vision, both into the Past and onto our Futures in these lean years to come. We are born from memories, all of us. Some of us know from where our memories come; we are the lucky ones, for we have a heritage of words from those who came before us. Josh has prepared this cabin, which rests to this day in the same place it always resided, at the entry to Big Ridge State park in Tennessee. The only anomalies are due to the vagaries of time, for they are brochures, maps and promotionals from years past, angling up from the depths of their own history, and they are then perfectly placed for all to see, to feel, to observe. We are witnessing Time's passage. There is power in this little cabin. In this little cabin resides love for one's profession, and for all those whose professions preceded you. Look closely at the lay of these stones. Realize they stem from the tired fingers and sore forearms of 20 year old men soon to be called to service on December 8th, 1941. You are standing upon history. You are hovering above souls long buried. You are in a finger's grasp of knowing those who came before you and gave their lives for the freedoms you once had.
June 9, 2025 at 4:48 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
You saw Brigadoon #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn #Photography #Landscape #Minimalism #ArtYear #EastCoastKin

1989 in Seattle—shooting an album cover, when I saw this incredible bridge wall across from us. Shot with an old Minolta, my negative today is lean.

You saw the Whole of the Moon 💙🦉🌙

4️⃣ALT⬇️
There is a wall, I presume it is still standing in Seattle. I struggle still to this day to remember which bridge it was; more a viaduct structure, a wall made beautiful by human hands who has clearly evidenced by their touch so many years go the love they held for their craft. This bridge, this abutment, this wall was a place she chose to have her photographs made that year for her first solo album, which would be a CD, not an LP. There was a huge tree across from it that she leaned against as I photographed her, in a simple sheer black dress & leather boots. She laughed & the sky listened. We had gone to the tree first, for this was her first idea. I kept looking at this wall. When done we walked to the wall & I shot a sequence of her looking directly into the lens, then to the left, to the right. I loved her profile. We'd joked & tossed around ideas for the World to come in the next few years. This was 1988 & 89. I'd flown out on tickets bumped on each trip back to Seattle from South Carolina, always scheduling my trips alongside holidays so that I could volunteer my seat to those who had family to see, dates to make. On one 3 week trip, I landed 9 cross country flights from Charlotte NC to Seattle WA. And in this way we began our friendship, me with a place I could crash at anytime when in Seattle, on Whitman. Her with a wish to just walk, talk & listen, to swap & exchange ideas & dreams & art. A few years later it suddenly ceased. Every 100 years it awakens & allows an entrance. Only of you love someone dearly are you allowed to stay, for if one person leaves, then all would dissipate. Brigadoon. "Just off I-25 is an exit to Rowe and Pecos. Rowe seems to me a high desert Brigadoon. There is age there; there is living in an amorphous act of Time." "So I stayed a third night, considering that this town hidden in sort if a high vale alongside the Arkansas River was beginning to feel as though I'd wandered into Brigadoon in the Rockies."
June 9, 2025 at 3:29 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉A Victorian sunset #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn #Photography #Landscape #ArtYear #EastCoastKin
#BlueSkyArtShow #Vibrant

From Jan 26th 2019, the golden light you see is above Santee State Park, hearkening back to a Colonial era event in which a large earthwork still exists. I'm 1.3 miles away.
Ahhh, South Carolina. Exhales. Here indeed is a very vibrant sunset cascading across Interstate 95 at that perfect point just in between New York City, New York and Miami, Florida. The 2.4 mile long causeway is a source of constant traffic twenty-four seven, 365 days a year. Imagine that. Except around mealtimes. There is a brilliant orange-gold sunset lying flat, just above the two and one half-mile causeway, casting its dying breath of light upwards while issuing a deafening deep blue roar downwards to the waters' surface. In just three minutes, all will be dark save for the headlights of travelers. Lake Marion, a lake my Grandfather helped build for six years far below the levels of these waters today, sprawls across a low horizon, the deep midnight blue sky pressing down upon the last glower of the Sun as he drops into darkness just before the gloaming. He already knows he has lost to Nightfall. The Sun is a creature of Habit, as we are to him. I call this a Victorian sunset due to just the abject beauty of it, predating the hubbub of the sounds I heard as I shot this image. Yet quiet enough to qualify as the Victorians did love to glom about and inebriate themselves quietly while watching such events occur. Just 350 miles from here, there will be 20 to 50 hardy Americans sitting in their lawn chairs where the Blue Ridge Parkway meets the Skyline Drive, at one of the finest vistas to the West in America, no matter the season. In the summer, you will not find parking, so, you may as well be traveling south to Miami, crossing his causeway. This is the Victorian view. Just six days before, I shot the postmodernist sunset from this same location, give or take a thousand yards. I'm about to pass that one around 11:15pm, just 25 minutes away from now. A sunset with teeth. I've launched "The Parkways Projects' Substack just last week, a newsletter/blog with various modes of writing and visual art. I hope y'all will visit every so often!
June 8, 2025 at 2:55 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉 Station's Breach #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn #Photography #Landscape #Travel #Mountains
#RockinTuesday #ArtYear #EastCoastKin

"Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. ≈ Annie Leibovitz

⬇️4ALT
Water laden gray clouds scroll over a pale and overcast silver sky. It had been 50 years since my family had embarked on the third year of traveling up both parkways. In 1969, we were pulling a new Coleman Pop-up camper towed by our aging 1963 Chevrolet Impala, with no air conditioning. That was the reason for the Coleman, for in 1968 we discovered just what brakes could not withstand barreling down the mountain grades with too much weight behind us. During both years, my Mom, who was ostensibly the navigator on such trips, was busy journaling. I'm thankful she wrote in longhand, for she was an excellent shorthand stenographer. That would have been nearly criminal as I doubt I could find a shorthand reader these days. Due to those journals in 1968 and 1969, I was able to follow the exact same route, stop in the same National Park campgrounds, for both Parkways were the first two such National Parks in America, and even in seven cases she wrote down the campsite number as well. I stayed overnight in five of them in August 2019. I do have a thing for ritual, revisiting that which can never really be regained, or even really be understood. But we can try. For the Appalachians were my havens. It was the days when even on faraway junkets, we were allowed to run free, explore thickets of mountain laurel, follow bears, wander about while the parentals were doing siesta time, for after all, the purpose was to do as we all pleased. There's far more to this story, and that's going to be the challenge as it progresses, for I have many folders of shots I never intended to take. Then images I had planned but turned out to become something else, for 50 years is a short time for trees, while a long time for us. The first thing I noticed was the old vistas had often disappeared. Although it's a National scenic parkway and modern practices of allowing the flora to do as Nature intended has resulted in a lot of 40 to 50 year growth at overlooks built between 1933 to 1948.
May 27, 2025 at 4:50 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Standard Issue Heavy Metal #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn #Photography #Landscape #Camping
#MinimalistMonday #ArtYear #EastCoastKin

A classic Campground Grill, the utmost of minimal but functional design.

“To me photography functions as a fossilization of time.”
Hiroshi Sugimoto

⬇️4ALT
"What you need, above all else, is a love for your subject, whatever it is. You've got to be so deeply in love with your subject that when curve balls are thrown, when hurdles are put in place, you've got the energy to overcome them." ≈ Neil DeGrasse Tyson The simplest palette of natural colors explodes at your feet. Orange clay, pale grayish-yellow spagnum mosses, silver gray twigs, deep charcoal grays and blacks, vestiges of a fire sprinkled with various tones of winter's leaves. This grill has not been used in some time. "Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy - your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself." ≈ Annie Leibovitz
May 27, 2025 at 4:05 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Indefinitely Tabled #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn
#Photography #Landscape #ArtYear #EastCoastKin
#MountainMonday

A Skyline Drive Parkway picnic area lost to Time in a deep Appalachian Mountains fog.
A misty mountain scene of an unpeopled picnic ground in a late August day in 2019. Cold, damp, and foggy up on the Skyline Drive Parkway in Northern Virginia. The colors echo the environment, brilliant green mosses reflecting their color onto the soaked bark of the trees, with the moisture darkened 1940's vintage Civilian Conservation Corps Picnic tables and the ubiquitous heavy 1943 vintage Campground Grills installed during the WPA era. Mists abound with ghosts...
May 27, 2025 at 3:51 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Dreher Island Sunfall #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn
#Photography #Landscape #ArtYear #EastCoastKin
#BlueSkyArtShow #LightAndShadow

A fisherman's day in the Sun. #DreherIslandStatePark #SC
Two stately trees recede into shadows as the Sun outlines a fisherman in the distance. An orange to gold to turquoise sky in the far distance across the placid waters.
May 25, 2025 at 4:01 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Peace is a ladder #TheParkwaysProjects #TomOgburn
#Photography #Landscape #ArtYear #EastCoastKin
#BlueSkyArtShow #LightAndShadow

The Walker Sisters' cabin. #GreatSmokyMountainsNationalPark
A cabin built circa 1855 by the Walker family. The walls of hewn logs and hand-planed wooden planks are aged, warm dove-gray and faded golden tans. The colors of the past, tints of the ages. "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." ≈ Robert Frost It's been very different this week, working on 'The Parkways Projects.' I keep stopping to write thoughts down. But today my iPhone is blinking in and out a lot and seems not able to hold to a signal. So I decided to add the most relevant two sentences in Robert Frost's poem, "Mending Wall," for these are the key words that most never remember these days. It seems the peaceful thing to do, to offer peace and care to all remaining in Helene's wake.
May 25, 2025 at 3:47 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
“Why is patience so important?"
"Because it makes us pay attention.”
≈ Paulo Coelho

The standing stone, Mount Mitchell, North Carolina #Photography #ArtYear #Landscapes #TomOgburn #TheParkwaysProjects
A rather large flat-topped boulder stands on a promontory point near the top of Mount Mitchell. It's about 14 feet wide and around 9 feet deep. Mostly darker brown and dark gray tones with a section of pale tan and reddish ochre hues. It's about 4 feet above the ground to the top of the boulder. And over the years, it's probably hosted over about 11 million persons standing atop it since 1933. Simply to have their photo made. From Wkipedia, for this is interesting: “Appalachian Mountains and the highest peak in mainland North America east of the Mississippi River. It is located in Yancey County, North Carolina in the Black Mountain subrange of the Appalachians about 19 miles northeast of Asheville. It’s within Mount Mitchell State Park and surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest. Mount Mitchell's elevation is 6,684 feet above sea level.  The peak is the highest mountain in the United States east of the Mississippi River and the highest in all of eastern North America. The Cherokee people, who long occupied this area as part of their homeland, called the mountain Attakulla. It was later named after Elisha Mitchell, a professor at the University of North Carolina, who first explored the Black Mountain region in 1835. He determined that the height of the range exceeded by several hundred feet that of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. Elisha Mitchell fell to his death at nearby Mitchell Falls in 1857, having returned to verify his earlier measurements, which had been challenged by state senator Thomas Clingman, a former student of Mitchell's. Clingman's favorite for the highest peak was "Smoky Dome," now Kuwohi. Mitchell was originally buried in Asheville, but was reinterred in a tomb on the mountain in 1858. In 1881–82 the U.S. Geological Survey upheld Mitchell's measurements and officially named his peak Mt. Mitchell. At 6,684 feet high, Mt. Mitchell is the highest point east of the Mississippi River.”
May 16, 2025 at 3:22 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🌲🦉🌙 As soon as I laid eyes upon this image, I saw the moss enveloping all of the tree trunks, even the smaller ones in the foreground. It was then I noticed the curve of the trail, the pitch, then the limbs, all relatively close to each other & that nearly 90º angle as they sprout from the trunk ☁️🪲
🦞 This is the high resolution image scan on file at Clemson University's Open Park Networks. It's a black & white image of a relatively fresh cutting back of forest understory brush near the pinnacle of Mount Mitchell. The understory is even more broad trimmed back today as I'm almost certain this is the trailhead for four of the most popular, and steep, highest cited points on the Appalachian Trail. Today, at least 30 years sense I think this photograph was made, possibly as much as 50 years ago, much of the topsoil has worn away down to rocky & shallow six inch to 14 inch deep trail. The Blacks Beyond 6000, billed these days as "Six Summits in Seven Miles," Black Mountain Crest, South Toe, Deep Gap Trail, Balsam Nature Trail, etc... are all part of the Pisgah National Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Mount Mitchell State Park convergence. I'm adding a link in the next comment to the Mount Mitchell State Park website, which sadly all trails are still closed as of May10th due to North Carolina not receiving the necessary funds to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene, as North Carolina's families, businesses, National & State Forests and many State Roads are still impassable; bridges still being out in many locations as well. When you get to the bottom you can go back to the top, or start from the top to go helter skelter down down down down...Rock Lobster 🦞 Original Photograph Info: Open Parks Network (OPN) Clemson University ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPH: Photographer Unknown TITLE: Trail worn by use COLLECTIONS: Negatives of Great Smoky Mountains National Park TOPICS: Trails
May 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉🪔Trail worn by use; burnished in time #photography #nature #landscapes #TomOgburn #TheParkwayProjects #BlueSkyArtShow #Lines #ArtYear #EastCoastKin 🌲

I'll add the original image below in the comment thread.
🧵⬇️4ALT
Black balsam firs are very odd looking trees, because they are ancient, evolving at higher altitudes. A very dense bark, often covered in green moss & lichen create a display of dark needles & bark set off by brilliant electric green moss, yet this image in black & white & toned sepia by me. Archival Librarians working very much in their own high tech universe derived from our own past the incremental moments when those who have come & gone long before us in their race to record a world lost to Time, now being recovered by a very skilled & dedicated team of very creative folk. As soon as I saw this image I noticed first the moss. It looks like it envelopes all of the tree trunks, even the smaller foreground ones. It was then I noticed the curve of the trail, the pitch—then the limbs, all close to each other & the 90º angle as they grow out from the trunk. I'm pretty sure I know where this trail lies. It's likely near the pinnacle of Mount Mitchell just off the main asphalt trail to the observation structure. I'll hike down it again soon & see it I can get a read on which part of that trail it is. The info listed by the NPS assigns it within The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mount Mitchell & the Parkway overlap at the place I'm almost certain is this location. In titling this work, I used the NPS title at front, then "burnished in time" to align or pair with another image soon to be worked up & titled in an inverted way. The other clue that's evident here seems to be the work of a motorized chopper or trimmer. Not the slingblades, machetes or bush axes of earlier years, which left a more controlled looking cut—but rather the the mangled cuts so indicative of motorized trimmers. Based on that observation I think this to be no earlier than from the late 1960s; more likely 1985 to 1995. If it is a later photo, then the odds are even better I'm correct on where this original image was made. The mysteries of the Clemson OPN system are just mind-boggling.
May 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
Words between the lines of age #photography #TomOgburn #TheParkwayProjects #BlueSkyArtShow #Lines #ArtYear #EastCoastKin ≈ a nod to Neil Young for the title 🪔

“Myth is much more important and true than history. History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.” ≈ #JosephCampbell 🌙🦉
A picnic table my family ate at on August 9th 1969, 50 years to the day before this photo was made. It's a 1940 vintage steel tubular legged frame with poplar top & benches. A small leaf, spotted green, yellow & brown on one plank, a red rock from Moab, Utah on another. "Someone & someone were down by the pond Looking for something to plant in the lawn Out in the fields they were turning the soil I'm sitting here hoping this water will boil When I look through the window & out on the road They're bringing me presents & saying hello Singing words, words between the lines of age Words, words between the lines of age If I was a junkman selling you cars Washing your windows & shining your stars Thinking your mind was my own in a dream What would you wonder & how would it seem? Living in castles a bit at a time The king started laughing & talking in rhyme Singing words, words between the lines of age Words, words between the lines of age" ≈ Neil Young From posts I made along the way while tracing the journey my family made in 1969, as Neil Young's star was rising. The trace based on Mom's journals she always kept along the way. The images will be divided into 11 correlated sequences of works, each addressing a different facet of the changes I've observed. There are some very different scenarios up there these days & places, almost haunted, brought forward by the entropy & abandoned areas—once large & resplendent picnic grounds. The thing is, the 5 or 6 interwoven narratives that are still extant, are winnowing away pretty fast along the parkways due to all the funding & infrastructure cuts. These old picnic tables being pushed up out of the earth are just plain eerie, considering the number of instances this is occurring. I finally learned what’s causing it, after drilling down on it for a week or so last year. Permafrost changes. Not like in the arctic of course but still around to enough of a degree to do what it’s doing to memories & concrete up there.
May 10, 2025 at 4:15 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🍂 Silver Plume in passing#photography #TomOgburn #TheParkwayProjects #Landscapes #BlueSkyArtShow #Lines #ArtYear #EastCoastKin #Aspens #Nature #Colorado
May 10, 2025 at 2:54 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🌙 CCC 1933 TVA worker's cabin #photography #TomOgburn #TheParkwayProjects #Landscapes #BlueSkyArtShow #Lines #ArtYear #EastCoastKin #GreatSmokyMountainsStatePark #Nature

🦉"Ninety-nine percent of wisdom is being wise in time." ≈ #TheodoreRoosevelt 💙 ⬇️4ALT
"In a world where vows are worthless. Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power." ≈ Chuck Palahniuk At Norris Dam State Park in Eastern Tennessee, a number of 1933 CCC built small wooden cabins are in the second cabin vacation area. All of them were relocated to the park years ago from one of the TVA project towns about 20 miles away, thus becoming some of the oldest CCC constructed homes in the state. On this visit (2023, 90 years from the date they were built) I learned that these little cabins are all about to go through major renovations this winter. This was the only one I could see undergoing work on that day, so I made this image through an older window, four-paned like the window here on the left. I'll be stopping by to see if I can visit and photograph the interior renovations this spring, 2025. The original use for these small homes was for housing TVA workers, actual location unknown to me at the moment but I'm guessing they were probably moved from the dam site area workers' camp up the mountain to the State Park, just on the eastern side of the road over the dam. "CCC 1933 TVA worker's cabin," Norris State Park, Tennessee. It's become the norm for me to flatten out and down into the State Parks surrounding my main four subjects. It's also looking more and more like another Parkway is about to be added to my Parkways Project. The Tennessee Foothills Parkway. As for this parkway? It's construction is still happening, in sections, in real time...and, it dates all the way back to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway. There is a story as to why the origination dates are so aligned to the beginning start dates of the Blue Ridge and Skyline Drive parkways. It has to do with politics, prestige and power. Imagine. That story will be unveiled in my Substack newsletter and blogs, whch I've not quite started myself.
May 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉 The Ides of April #TheParkwaysProjects #photography #TomOgburn #scapes #EastCoastKin #ArtYear

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ≈ William Butler Yeats 🌙
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ≈ William Butler Yeats A very Spartan composition of two leaves of different trees, both violently whipped and buffeted by high winds until they detached from their respective limbs to fall beside each other to the asphalt streets of Melrose Heights. A small sprig of deep emerald green weed is tenaciously clinging to the earth inside a crack in the asphalt. The larger leaf is a pale green, the smaller upper one a pale golden brown. Both were run over by tire treads, both thoroughly flattened and pierced by the smaller, sharper rocks embedded by the long-cured tar. Life is hard on the streets.
May 9, 2025 at 4:27 AM
parkwaysprojects.bsky.social
🦉 Full Stop #photography #TomOgburn #EastCoastKin #ArtYear #Landscapes
A photograph of a parking lot, with an odd staggered usage of very old hand cast-poured concrete wheel stops. Circa 1936-45. I need to do some research on these. The tarmac is an aggregate concrete blend to match the color of the natural gravel and stone on the area. It seems to be rivaling the ancient recipe for Roman concrete, in terms of longevity, if I'm right about the dates of creation. The two predominate colors are a brilliant chartreuse green and light gray, with some dark charcoal brown pines intermingled with silver barked, lichen festooned oaks. This is the entry to Big Creek Campground and Picnic Grounds, located on the north end of The Great Smoky Mountains on the Tennessee side of things. The nearest town is Cosby, Tennessee. I'm not sure if these poured stops are CCC or WPA builds, but they're intriguing for what they represent. I'm writing a number of substack pieces (whether blog or newsletter isn't certain on this image) and will be starting to publish a variety of views into The Parkways Projects. This image, and a few others made around this view, will be illustrating what I hope to find as to who actually chose to make these particular style of stops. Until then, here's to a very subtle minimalist area of the Smokies, and the memory of workers who gave us a little more than the norm to rest our weary tires upon. Photographs from September 2023.
May 9, 2025 at 1:25 AM