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The Kindness of Strangers

John Carroll

Blog #15 of 24

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April 17th, 2014 - 08:11 AM

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The Kindness of Strangers

I am sometimes asked where I get the ideas to shoot the photographs I take. Many times I just see something that interests me, and other times I may attend an event that I think might provide me with a photographic opportunity or two. Once in a while though, my motivation to photograph something comes at the suggestion of someone I’ve met. I value these suggestions highly since they allow me the pleasure of looking at the world through the eyes of another.

One such recommendation came from two ladies I’d met at a State of Oklahoma Welcome Center. I had just driven across the border from Texas and had stopped at the Welcome Center to obtain a map in the hope of finding photo opportunities. The two ladies behind the counter were there to assist travelers like me and they were quite helpful. We got to talking about the local area and when I mentioned that I was a photographer looking for interesting things to shoot, one of the ladies recalled a picturesque old barn that she’d been watching for years. She described it and said it had begun to deteriorate many years previously. Each time she and her husband made one of their infrequent road trips past the barn she almost expected to see that it had finally collapsed under its own weight. She found the barn quite interesting and had always wanted to take a picture of it before its ultimate demise but had never had the opportunity to do so.

I was intrigued by her story of the barn and, after asking for directions to it, I decided it might be a worthwhile diversion on my journey. Fortunately her directions were quite good and after only a little searching I was able to find the barn. You will see from the accompanying photograph that its structural integrity was every bit as tenuous as she had described it. But it was a nice, clear morning in rural Oklahoma and, surrounded by gently rolling farmland with the pleasant sound of song birds in the background, I quite enjoyed myself while taking photographs of the barn.

Sometime later on that trip, when I had a chance to review the photos I’d taken, I found a shot of the barn that I particularly liked. Remembering the kindness of the lady who had suggested the barn, I emailed a copy of the shot to her just in case the barn might disintegrate before her next trip past it. She wrote back immediately and thanked me for the shot, asking if she could use it as the background for her computer screen. I was certainly flattered by her request and quickly agreed.

As I travel and talk with people I meet, I’m often surprised by the warmth and congeniality of the complete strangers I encounter in rural areas of our country. They have a wholesome way of living which belies the dreadful headlines we read daily in the news media or the seemingly endless stream of tragic images on TV. For them, the “kindness of strangers” is more than a quote from a well-known literary work and film. It is simply a way of life, as normal as the sun rising over the fields, and as comfortable as the slow, sultry passage of time. Barns and other things we create may come and go, but the kindness of these strangers seems timeless and immutable. I hope that never changes.

Note:
I intend to update this blog each week and I do hope you’ll re-visit it often. Since I thrive on your comments, I’d really love to hear from you. Please feel free to email me using the blue email link near the upper-right corner of the HOME PAGE for this site to send me any questions or comments you might have...or just to say hello. Thank you.

John Carroll

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