Taking pictures of other peoples art makes me always hesitate and asking myself, why would I ever publish them? Here I try to put that in context with the Black & White photo “Enchanted Highway”, the only picture of that shoot that I really value. I do a bit of travel photography but mostly publish it in privately distributed books, and that’s where the pictures of sculptures would have a place to live. The photo of the “Enchanted Highway” stands out on its own, but why we would even go there, in the middle of frigging nowhere in North Dakota?
Wikipedia says: The Enchanted Highway is a collection of the world's largest scrap metal sculptures … along a 32-mile (51 km) stretch of two-lane highway in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of North Dakota. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Highway)
I would agree not to call it a “tourist trap”, because we didn’t really see many people at the end of August 2020, during some of the best travel times.
For my photography friends, here is a little information for those who may consider to include this remote location in one of their future travel plans. If you just travel this road during the day, as we did, the direction of sunlight may not be in your favor. Some of the metal sculptures have their face pointed at Polaris and keeping the sun out of the frame might be a challenge during the day. As you can see in some of the images, clouds help a lot and finding a way to place them in your photo may be beneficial. Towards the end of this 32-mile trip the blue parts of the sky were completely covered by clouds and that was the other challenge to deal with… If time is not a factor and you can stay in the charming little town of Regent, North Dakota , I’m sure sunrise and sunset are your best friends…