Our Town - A vanishing America
My Travel Story
Our Town - A Vanishing America
This project started about 14 years ago in New Orleans as I traveled about the state photographing with a friend. I was inspired by the photographers of the Farm Security Administration of the 1930’s and their wonderful work as well as the work and travels of Walker Evans, Eugene Atget, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams to name a few.About ten years ago I purchased and built out a Honda Accord station wagon which allowed me to spend several days camping as I traveled around an area. Once I moved to Texas I quickly realized that my weekend outings were too short. It was taking most of a weekend to get to new areas and an equal amount of time to get back leaving little time for photography.
Four years ago I expanded my vision to do this full time with the purchase of a used class A RV, I drive to an area, park, work the surrounding area in the Honda then move on to the next. Surprisingly it took me over three years to outfit the RV for full time living, a much different process than a lake weekend. $20,000 later I was finally on the road full time. However, one planning consideration that just did not occur to me was the extreme travel and cost of living increases that have resulted from the pandemic. Still I am on the road and determined to soldier on with the project as best I can. However, I have come to “Fund My Travel” as these formidable costs increases compel me to seek outside funding so that I might better continue to make my contribution to this important work.
The Project/Portfolio is “Our Town” A Vanishing America.
My mission, my passion is to seek out, capture, and share the simple beauty of the unexpected and perhaps stir a memory of a place you have never been.This portfolio is divided into sections by state. Currently I have extensive work from the states of Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. For the winter I am working south and west in Texas with the intention of continuing westward until spring when I will move north into Kansas, Colorado, etc.
As I mentioned my intent is to share my work! Perhaps vain but I love my work and would like to share it with others that might also love it. I print all my photographs as museum quality limited edition archival prints. As an incentive I wish to share different size prints at different levels of participation. These will be first order images only! I will also stay in touch via updates of my travels in blogs and newsletters.
Thank you for your consideration in this venture.
Please contact me with any questions here or at:
OldTownRoadGallery.com
Appreciation & Incentives
$50 - My sincerest thanks and a shoutout to the world. Monthly travel newsletter. $75 - 5X7 Signed Museum Quality Limited Edition Print. Monthly travel newsletter.
$100 - 8.5X11 Signed Museum Quality Limited Edition Print. Monthly travel newsletter.
$150 - 11X14 Signed Museum Quality Limited Edition Print. Monthly travel newsletter.
Budget/Expenses
Perspective -I am single and traveling solo so my cost of living doesn’t vary much month to month. That said, we have all experienced this extreme cost of living but here is what has most impacted my situation.Travel costs - I average about 1200 miles a month in the Honda and about 300 a month in the RV. The Honda gets 26 to 27 MPG, the RV logs in at a whopping 6 MPG. While gas is currently down this category has had a huge impact on my budget and travels especially when gas was so much higher. I have no reason to suspect that it is going to stay low for long.
Vehicle maintenance – I worked really hard to stay ahead of all maintenance and possible problems on both vehicles. I do 99% of the work myself, still the cost of parts and supplies has more than tripled over the last several years.
Food - Food costs have doubled. I don’t eat out, my diet is boring and consistent so to see it double has been alarming.
Insurance – I have older vehicles, no tickets, no accidents and still my insurance has increased by more than 10% just this year.
Printing & supplies – My Epson printer uses 9 ink cartridges which have increased from $65 to about $85 each. Printing paper has risen by about 75%.
Thank You!
I am honored and so thankful for your consideration in helping me pursue my dream!Sincerely,
John Bostwick
Updates
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Didn't See This Coming
Didn’t see this coming!
7/23/24
Since February I have been telling myself it was all under control but after almost six months of constant struggle I now realize what a mess I am dealing with!
No gory details but this all started with my photo processing computer. I read someplace that the mechanical hard drives were prone to short lives so I decided to upgrade my hard drive to the “more reliable” SSD. In February this new SSD drive started giving out.
Now for the fun! No complaints with the computer shop but for some reason they went on line with my computer, something I never do with this computer to avoid possible viruses, hacks, etc. When on line Adobe jumped in and disabled my Lightroom program saying the license was out of date. I contacted them with my “lifetime” license ID only to be told that I did have a lifetime license but they don’t support this version so disabled my perfectly good Lightroom program. Take that!
In my opinion Adobe has now so jacked up their products that I refuse to use them so now I was needing a new processing program. Multiple attempts, programs, and six months of non-stop computer glitches later I hope I have finally fixed the computer and found a comparable program. Great except the new file types and information are not compatible requiring me to go back to reload over thirty plus years of original source photos, learn a completely new program, and develop the images.
When this mess started I thought I had things lined up and was excited to be documenting and sharing my travel adventures. My newsletter was ready with a good number of articles and all I thought I lacked was pulling out the images the newsletter was intended to highlight.
I am deflated by this setback but determined to carry on! This is my final chapter in this life and I am simply not willing to give up.
Through all of this I have continued to work in the field as I travel and have captured a substantial backlog of work I am excited to present. Moving forward I think it is going to take about a month or so to learn my new program and start turning out images.
I am sorry for this delay and not having delivered my promised newsletters and images. Thank you for your support and understanding while I get this corrected. I am getting close!
Sincerely,
John Bostwick
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Calendars
I just loved that in “Blue Highways” William Least-heat Moon’s travel log he rated the cafes by the number of calendars on the wall. I love that symmetry of thought and my own similar experiences and memories.
I recently spent some time in Palestine, Tx; really a lovely area! One of the things that has become pronounced is the pandemic era demise of the small town café. I traveled a lot during the pandemic and saw this first hand. The small town cafés are all but gone! (Pleased to report that “Big Bertha’s” and “Mary’s Café” have survived.). --photo here--
It was in the Palestine area that I first noticed and realized that what has replaced these hallmarks of the community is the corporate food chain. It used to be such a treat to have breakfast in these towns while watching the community say good morning over coffee. Now another vacant store front in town is replaced by an ugly new metal building out on the highway bypass. Given that the very design of the corporate store is to get you in and out as quickly as possible it is not surprising it is not conducive as a gathering place. Now people impatiently scroll on the phone while waiting on that ‘fast food’ so they can get on with the day. No smiles, no laughter, no small talk. Seems that it has been turned into an unpleasant experience.
It feels like such a blow to our small town community social fabric! Lost is the morning coffee gathering that was the café routine. That opportunity to strengthen the sense of community by saying hello to your neighbor. Everything is now out on the bypass with the Dollar General. No longer do they seem to have that informal gathering place to be part of the community. The corporations just don’t seem to like calendars!
More Travel Information
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Campaign Ended
$ 75 USD
Total Donation Received-
4%
Funded -
$ 1,650 USD
Goal Amount -
0
Days Left
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Cost Calculator
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Gas and Travel Expenses/Month
$ 350
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Accommodations: RV Parks and Electric/Month
$ 450
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Food/Month
$ 350
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Insurances/Month
$ 350
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Photography & printing Supplies/Month
$ 150
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Donor Rewards
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50 USD
Appreciation & Incentives $50 - My sincerest thanks and a shoutout to the world. Monthly travel newsletter.
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In Partnership with:
Barcelona SAE
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Funders
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Suzanne Graham Thurman Funded $ 75 USD
May 18, 2024
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