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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > Down on its luck, Antelope, Oregon, 2008
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17-SEP-2008

Down on its luck, Antelope, Oregon, 2008

A row of lucky horseshoes, now rusted and forgotten, hangs on the façade of this abandoned building, one of several dilapidated structures in the ghost town of Antelope, Oregon. I use a 28mm wideangle lens to move in for detail, yet still retain the dead grasses that carpet the foreground and lead us to those boarded up windows. Nature has taken its toll over the years, and the signage tries to keep vandals at bay. But I kept coming back to the horseshoes, wondering who put them there and why. Whatever luck they may have brought to this place and its occupants, has evidently run its course.

Sigma DP1
1/200s f/9.0 at 16.6mm iso50 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis30-Sep-2008 02:13
Thanks, Rosemary, for such fascinating background info -- with that new context, this structure becomes an iconic plea for bad luck!
sunlightpix29-Sep-2008 21:23
Growing up in the west, I was always taught to hang horsehoes over a door with the tines pointing up; in order to keep the luck within the place. Whoever put these horsehoes up let all their luck run out.
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