A Weathered Walk

Wonderfully three-dimensional old paint on a car with some help from the damp patches of yesterday's rain - the very element that caused much of the weathering.

I like having a purpose to my rambles beyond the benefit of exercise and the unexpected sights that might come my way. This morning I decided I would go for a wander around town (Petchaburi, Thailand) looking for any old stuff that had been attractively weathered. This is already a hobby of mine but in all the busyness of the local town centre I usually get distracted by the activity and fail to notice the details of weathered patterns that stay quietly hidden in the corners.

I need to have a search image of what I'm looking for welded into my mind. The downside is that once I do, I find it hard to widen my gaze, so I might well have walked passed many other fantastic photo-opportunities of characterful faces, beautiful buildings or funny street dogs, I just don't know as I wasn't looking for that.

On the plus side, wearing these selective blinkers means I do see so much more of the one thing that holds my focus. In this case the rust and cracked paintwork jumped out of the background to the extent that I couldn't understand why everybody else wasn't looking at it! And, I hope you agree, I did find some lovely weathering.

Vehicles

Really old cars or trucks can have some beautiful weathering over their paintwork but I am always a bit cautious about taking photos in case the owner sees me and misinterprets my interest somehow. These two were parked together in a back street and I could hear two ladies in the house opposite saying something about the "foreigner taking photographs" but their tone sounded like they found the idea funny.

Two vehicles, that don't look like they've been driven for a while, left outside for the elements to work on.

A close up detail from the first photo above.

An elephant's hide covering a car! It's unusual to find weathering with quite so much physical depth but that seems to happen sometimes with old vehicles thanks to their thick layers of paint. I wanted to run my fingers over it but was afraid it might all flake off.

A great contrast between the texture, pattern and colour of the paint layer and the rusty metal underneath.

Possibly a fiery sunset over wild, green hills beside the still waters of a remote lake.

Road Signs

Road signs were perhaps the surprise of the walk. Around the old market area there were a lot of very well weathered signs. Sometimes this made them hard to read and I suspect they will all get re-done at some point...I wonder if I could get my hands on some of the old ones to decorate our garden.

Cracks in the white reveal the blue, cracks in the blue reveal the rusty metal. At least the direction of the arrow is still fairly clear in this sign.

"Stop!" I love the way the cracking pattern on the red part shares some cracks with the rest but has added a lot more fine detail. Very intricate and subtle, and the colouring is just lovely.

One way only - and that way is to age with character.

Hard to believe this wasn't actually designed like this it's so beautifully done. The cracks on the white circle even all radiate towards the centre.

Lovely clean, thick lines on this cracking pattern that make it look just like a street map.

Has the weathering decided that cars should be allowed?

Other Stuff

A few other lovely examples of urban decay that turned up during this morning's hour-long walk. As ever, for me the sad part is that I doubt anybody else appreciates them, which means they are in danger of being lost.

Carrying on the car theme but on an advertisement proving that Toyota is a very old company. I love the way the blue (almost) only shows where the paint has curled enough to reveal its underside.

I think the heat and oil from this roadside cooking stall has produced its own style of "weathering" on these adverts for the sugary drink called Est.

It has a dirty, grimy feel but in detail I do like the grungy patterning.

Two information boards where weathering has definitely not helped their usefulness.

Nature has added her own tracks to this map and they are far more complicated and interesting...but much harder to follow.

I'll take your word for it.

The human world graced by the brush of weathering to produce a natural aesthetic. Hunting for these gems is a very worthy reason to go for walk.