On our way to Indiana in the fall of 2021, my wife and I stayed a couple of days in a small Kentucky town, where she was born. Her sister and brother in law from Florida met us there. There are few relatives left here, but their genealogy runs back many years in this area. Chasing that genealogy was part of the incentive for this brief visit.
When not visiting the local library and graveyards, we killed a little time visiting an antique store a few miles outside of town. Since I could not be out shooting local landscapes and/or farm scenes here, I consoled myself with making a few images of old antique items with my iPhone.
Chew on This
In the parking lot of the antiques store an old GMC truck, with the store name painted on the passenger side door, drew my attention. It appears that this truck had been sitting for years in one location and had to be rescued from a tree that had grown between the front bumper and the body. The windshield interior is covered with mildew, which seems appropriate for the cloudy, rainy day.
Look what I bit off
Near the truck were a couple of old, rusty farm implements.
CultivatorSeed Planter
Inside the store, I snapped a few images of some of the old items offered for sale.
Crush It
I drank Orange Crush soft drink from a short, dark brown bottle in my very young days, but I never saw it in these screw top jars. Maybe these predate those more common little, brown bottles?
Perfect Mason
Ball Mason jars seem to be one of the most common items found in these type stores.
Zenith
I can actually remember some older folks having these old radio and/or record players (bottom pull out here) in their homes, when I was a young child.
Ballantine’s
Other frequently found items are old wooden crates for bottled beverages and/or liquor.
Sewing Tractor
Creative, crafty people sometimes come up with unique ideas for transforming antiques into whimsical items, like the sewing machine tractor in the image above. This was a first for me, I had never seen this done anywhere else. There were a couple of these in this store. The other was labeled as a John Deere.
In mid-September, 2019 my wife and I visited Liberty, Kentucky for a number of reasons, but the timing was mostly because my wife wanted to attend the local apple festival.
This photographic genre is definitely well out of my comfort zone and I have to force myself to see and make these type images. I suppose this is a good exercise, nonetheless I feel much more at home in a wide open landscape with no one around and just the sounds of nature rather than raucous crowds.
Entertainment at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 52mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
A cropped version of the photo above is posted on Flickr. I cropped it to get a closer view of several of the performers, which I think is more appealing than this wide angle view that I made to take in the sign above the stage.
This festival had all the usual things that festivals have: entertainment and lots of booths with various goods, over priced food and beverages for sale to the attendees.
Liberty, Kentucky is a typical southern, rural, small town with down home country people, deeply religious and patriotic folk. Many of the families here have deep roots going back for many generations. The intermarriage of local families means that many of the residents or descendants of them are related in some manner.
Casey County Courthouse, Liberty, Kentucky. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 40mm, 1/400s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Having grown up in a small, rural, southern town, I can understand the culture here. Most of the residents are conservative and have a long history of hunting, fishing and gun use as sport and as a means of supplementing their food supply. Hence, one will see such displays as this:
Leather handgun holsters at a vendor’s booth at Casey County Kentucky Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 400, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Many of the items displayed in the vendor booths are hand crafted, such as these beautiful wood vessels:
A craftsman’s display at the Casey County Apple Festival, Liberty, Kentucky Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 46mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 400, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
And, of course, many of the locals have ancestors that fought in the civil war, probably on both sides and that history is still prevalent in many vendor displays along with the hard scrabble life of rural farm history.
A vendor’s display at the Casey County Apple Festival, Liberty, Kentucky. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 70mm, 1/80s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Flag booth at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 58mm, 1/800s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Everyone knows how much southerners like sweet ice tea.
A Casey County Apple Festival beverage booth. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 48mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
This is also Trump country.
A vendor’s display at Casey County Apple Festival, Liberty, Kentucky. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm @ 50mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Trump hats at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Trump items at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 62mm, 1/200s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
One has to take time to pick the best hat:
Trump hats at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/160s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
I did not see any political displays for any of the current crop of Democratic Party presidential candidates. I’m guessing the progressive movement is not very popular here.
There were many items to enjoy seeing and have fun photographing at many of the vendor booths. Here are just a few.
Transparent spheres at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
Pink?
Vendor booth at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/320s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Manaquins at Casey County Festival Vendor Booth. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm, 1/250s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Dream Catchers at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm (pre-crop), 1/320s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.Toy display at the Casey County Apple Festival. Nikon D850, Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm (pre-crop), 1/800s, f/11, ISO 200, edited in Adobe Lightroom and DxO Nik modules.
