photo by Hannah Reel

Local photographer displaying forgotten treasures

By Jennifer Edwards (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Sunday, May 3, 2009

NATCHEZ — Most people drive with their eyes facing forward and their mind focused on the destination.

When Salongo Lee heads out for a drive he focuses on the journey.

And when he spots a tossed aside tractor or a forgotten fire engine he has to pull out his camera and capture that image.

Lee said for many what he photographs would be considered eyesores, but to him the items are evidences of someone else’s hopes, dreams and aspirations.

“They might have worked out and they might have failed,” Lee said. “But they had (dreams).”

And he isn’t looking for the story behind the artifact.

“For me, it is just that it is there,” he said.

And he said he might be the only person to ever notice the rusted over tractor of the dump truck missing its front, but photographing them is his passion.

“When I get out of my car to shoot something, I work it like a crime scene,” he said. “Circling around it and shooting it from every possible angle.”

Lee said he is looking for the cracks and scratches — the details that show how whatever he is shooting has stood the test of time.

Sometimes the beauty comes in the juxtaposition of the item and its surroundings. Such was the case when Lee found an abandoned International Harvester truck on Aldrich Street in Natchez.

The grass surrounding the truck was neatly trimmed and regularly maintained, but the back end of the truck, indicated just how long it had been left alone.

“The weeds had grown through the back of the truck and were well over 10-feet tall,” Lee said. “Everything around it was cut, but the weeds were left.”

Sometimes, the details are not as obvious as towering weeds, but Lee said they are always there.

A Mayflower moving trailer on Martin Luther King Street shows its age by being completely covered in rust.

While the trailer is large Lee said one of the most noticeable details of the truck is actually quite small.

“It still has a locked padlock on it,” he said.

Lee said he isn’t sure why he sees the things others pass by. But, he said, when something piques his interest, he can only hold off the desire to photograph it for so long.

“Every time I would drive to Jackson, I would see this old fire engine from Roxie that was not in Roxie anymore,” Lee said.

But, he said, each time he drove by it, he wanted to shoot it, but his schedule never allowed the time.

“I was always on a schedule where I had to be somewhere at a certain time,” Lee said.

But eventually he gave in and started processing the truck.

“I had an appointment, but I stopped anyway,” he said. “I just had to shoot it.”