Rural Decay en route to Hot Springs, North Carolina

Map from ESRI ArcGIS online. Red dashed line shows the route from Asheville to Hot Springs, North Carolina.

Every year, The Vintage rally for older BMW automobiles is held in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Most participants stay in the Asheville area, so the day of the show sees hundreds of classic BMWs streaming north on I-26 and US25/US70 towards the small hamlet of Hot Springs. Once the group leaves the interstate at Weaverville, US25/US70 winds in and out of the hills, past small towns and farms, and past some occasional bits of rural decay.

This is a streamlined/moderne-style filling station, possibly once a Mobil station, but a gas station archaeologist needs to weigh in and provide an identification. 

Marshall has a number of old garages and filling stations. The main town is out of sight west of US25 and 70.

I also saw old barns or sheds in the Marshall area, slowly being engulfed by trees and vines. I usually think of Mississippi being the place where the jungle takes over, but here in wet western North Carolina, the same happens.

Further north, somewhere in Madison County, I saw a similar vine-engulfed barn during my 2017 trip.

Barn, US25, Madison County, NC.

The second photograph is a former gas station built into a house, or a house built on top of a gas station. You can see the island where the pumps were once located.

Rick's Gro, 10994 US25 (digital photograph from Fujifilm X-E1 camera).

USA Raft at 13490 US70 occupies an unusual stone-clad filling station. You can see where one of the service bays on the left was filled in. Again, I cannot identify the original fuel brand.

The Laurel River Store is a friendly place to stop for an espresso. The lady who runs it is very nice. A number of the BMW drivers stopped to tank up (with coffee, that is, but the coffee might have had enough octane for the carbureted engines).

The remains of a log trailer court cabin were to the right of the Laurel River Store. Some units beyond this building were in better shape. The vines are taking over.

Just before you reach Hot Springs, US70 crosses the French Broad River. There had been almost monsoonal rain in May of 2018, and the river was in flood, with brown water roiling angrily downstream.

Finally, Hot Springs, and the grounds of the Hot Springs Spa. The 2017 show was sunny and warm; 2018 started out dry, but by 2:30, the rain came thundering down. Regardless, a good time was had by all, and it was a good chance to check if your car leaked (mine certainly does).

The 2017 black and white photographs are from Tri-X film and a Hasselblad 501CM camera. The 2018 square frames are from long-expired Fuji NPH400 film, exposed in a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera with 75mm f/3.5 Xenotar lens.

The River Arts District of Asheville - testing B&W Acros film

Former electrical transformer or junction building, BNSF rail yard, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

On my recent trip to North Carolina, I tried a new (to me) film: Fujifilm's black and white Acros. I had read that Acros was a superb emulsion, but Fujifilm was about to discontinue it. I had never tried it before, so I bought 10 rolls from Freestyle in Los Angeles, and by the next day, they were sold out. The frames in this post are from the River Arts District of Asheville, the same area that I photographed with color film in my Rolleiflex (see the previous post). I want to show these monochrome frames by themselves. Often, when color and black and white scenes are compared together, viewers are attracted to the color and consider it superior, regardless of the subject. Therefore, it is best to display each type of picture separately.

Abandoned or long-unused 18-wheeler trailers, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

Here, the monochrome image looks dramatic because of the looming clouds. But the color version shows the purple-gray of the clouds and the color graffiti on the trucks.

Former paper recycling operation, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

I think this old factory works both as a color frame and as monochrome. Monochrome is familiar because much of the documentary photography in the 20th century was black and white. But I cannot say one is superior to the other in this case. Readers, you can decide.

Photographs taken with Fujifilm Arcros film, exposed at EI=80. Camera: Pentax Spotmatic with 55mm and 35mm Super-Takumar lenses. Development: Xtol at Praus Productions, Rochester, NY. Scanning: Plustek 7600i film scanner operated with Silverfast Ai software. The Silverfast does not have an Acros profile, so I used the Kodax Tri-X 400 new profile.

The River Arts District of Asheville - expired Fuji film test

Foundy Street, River Arts District, Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina. The site was first settled in 1784, and the town has a long pioneer and minor Civil War history. Being in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the beautiful setting attracted wealthy tourists during the Gilded Age of the 1880s. George Washington Vanderbilt II, youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, fell in love with the mountains and began construction of his monumental mansion, the Biltmore House, on the Biltmore Estate in 1889. Many visitors associate Asheville with the Biltmore, but the town also has an industrial past and some magnificent Art Deco architecture. Many of the warehouses and factories (including a tannery) were concentrated along the railroad line and the French Broad River.

Foundy Street, River Arts District, Asheville, North Carolina.

Today, the old warehouses have become the nexus of the River Arts District. From the official web page:

"The River Arts District consists of a vast array of artists and working studios in 22 former industrial and historical buildings spread out along a one mile stretch of the French Broad River. This eclectic area is an exciting exploration of arts, food and exercise.  Plan on spending a day or more visiting artists working in their studios, grabbing a bite of local cuisine or a brew and taking time to find art that's perfect for your world. "

I spent a few days in Asheville while attending The Vintage car rally and show. The weather had been variable, with some terrific downpours. One afternoon, a scavenger hunt was scheduled to start and end in the River Arts District, whose existence was totally new to me. I was too late to participate on the hunt, but the old warehouses and studios were too tempting to resist.

 

Normally, I prefer black and white when I am around old industrial infrastructure, but the brilliant paint work on the walls, the darkening skies, and pockets of sunlight spoke to me in color. I tested another roll of long-expired film that had been in my freezer, this time Fujicolor NPS160. It must have been in my film box 20 years but had been frozen all these years. I used my Rolleiflex 3.5E with 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens, tripod-mounted, and added a polarizer for many frames. I exposed at EI = 120 and scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.

Electrical junction building, Old Lyman Street, Asheville. 

Norfolk Southern runs freight trains regularly along the tracks and shunts cars in the rail yard. The active lines are fenced off from the art district.

There was once a paper recycling operation on Old Lyman Street. All I saw was wet bales of paper and cardboard.

Numerous 18-wheeler trailers were parked at a warehouse near the paper bales. The artists had been at work, so it looks like there trailers had not moved in a long time. 

This old factory building was at one time used by the paper recycling operation, but I do not know its original industrial purpose.

Too late for the scavenger hunt. Photograph from a Moto G5 phone.

Checking out the scene. Moto G5 photograph.