The area around Big Break Regional Shoreline, just east of Antioch on the San Joaquin River, looks to have been a very busy place in the past — rusted machine parts and abandoned boats lie scattered about, faint reminders of days gone by. Nowadays, this part of the shore has been dedicated to restoration and preservation of habitat that welcomes […]
I have one final entry for my rusty metal series! These images were shot in June and July 2021 at a variety of locations in Amador, El Dorado, and Calaveras counties. The Argonaut Mine, located within the small town of Jackson (Amador County) was in operation from 1850 until 1942. In 1922 the state’s “deadliest recorded mining disaster” occurred there, […]
I’m not sure exactly what this machine was used for; it was part of the outdoor collection at the Angels Camp Museum. There was no sign (and no one nearby to ask), and by the time I had finished shooting these pictures, I just had to get away and go find some shade on this very warm day.
I was fooling around with an add-on macro lens for my phone; and the rusted metal coils of this old car seat (from a 1969 Pontiac Firebird) drew my attention. A few days later the same old seat looked much better after a bit of cleaning up and some black paint.
All my life I’ve heard the expression of putting someone “through the wringer,” and while I knew what it meant and where it originated, I’ve never actually seen a clothes wringer in action. For several decades, wringers were standard equipment on washing machines, but the only place I had ever seen one was on the miniature red plastic washing machine […]
I must have walked past this old backstop dozens of times without even noticing. It sits in a back corner behind the local elementary school, looking like a forgotten relic of another age. On this day, I was coming back from my morning hike, feeling rather tired and discouraged. Suddenly, there it was: broken, rusted, tilted askew, its small wheels […]
You don’t have to look very far from where I live to find forgotten bits and pieces of the area’s local industry. There’s plenty of old rusted pipeline in abandoned orchards and building foundations with iron bolts sticking out. But it’s not always so easy to learn the stories behind these small fragments. Sometimes it seems to me that most […]
