I came across an old photograph, from the days before cell phones, when you had to drop off the film and pick up the prints later. The photo was taken in the summer of 1992 from the window of an Amtrak train on the outskirts of Albuquerque. I had never seen a backyard full of bathtubs before, and I managed just one shot before the train rolled on by.
You see things from the train that you see nowhere else, parts of America away from the vast network of roads and the endless chain of gas stations, stores and eateries, identical from coast to coast. On a train you see wild estuaries and flooding rivers. You see quaint midwestern towns and the worst parts of a few large cities. Surfers flash you from the shore on the elbow of California. Sometimes you can literally look into someone’s back yard – and it might be full of bathtubs.
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