Many years ago I interviewed the Finnish artist/metalsmith Heikki Seppa. For reasons lost to me now, I asked him to theorize what the world’s great artists would talk about if they were in a room together. Seppa replied, “They wouldn’t talk about art with a capital A. They would talk about the cheapest place to buy paint.”

This photograph reminds me of his comment because I have found photographers to be much more sharing and much less assholes compared to the only other artists with whom I have had significant interaction. Here is where I connect the dots. I remember a photographer saying that you should always leave a shot or two at the end of a roll of fim, or in today’s parlance, some space on your chip. The day when I took this shot, I had completed what I set out to shoot, but I left one 4x5 holder unexposed, “just in case.”

As I trudged home, I look over and saw the sun setting over this salvage yard. Fortunately, I still had two shots I could take. Regardless of its artistic merit, at least I had the opportunity to capture it.