Burton, who stumbles upon most of these places in his travels, can’t offer any answers, though he does circle back around to his subjects occasionally only to find that they’ve since perished without a trace, seemingly erasing their entire existence. One is a wooden farmhouse set beside two trees, surrounded on all sides by lush green crops. “The Substation Fire here in Oregon burnt this abandoned house and 70,000 acres of land just a month after I took this photo,” he tells Monster Children.

The Portland, Oregon-based photographer has been photographing abandoned places since 2011. For “Thin Places,” each property was shot with a drone to fully capture just how isolated they are. Burton says it’s the liminality of the spaces that draws him in. They exist somewhere between past and present, perhaps even somewhere between this realm and another.

“There is a Celtic concept regarding places that feel strangely magnetic,” Burton says. “It is said heaven and Earth are only three feet apart but in Thin Places that distance is even shorter. Abandoned houses are a perfect example of this phenomenon. These places are at the intersection of archeology and fantasy, and you can visit these sites but can never get the full story. So curiosity keeps bringing me back. What makes people leave, and what keeps things standing? How much of a life gets left along with it?”

Burton’s own childhood on a farm in rural Oregon informs much of his subject matter. A thread of wistful Americana runs through his body of work, whether he’s photographing homes that look like archaeological studies in danger of collapse or portraits set in foggy forests. Most of his imagery starts with road trips through the sparsely populated countryside, where he and his friends often enter empty-looking buildings and sort through the belongings left behind by whoever last lived there. Burton likes to immerse himself in each setting before he shoots, taking in its emotional essence and using that feeling to set up the photos.

Burton’s parents put a disposable camera in his hands when he was just six years old, but he began taking photography seriously at the age of sixteen, when he acquired his first digital SLR camera. An early focus in conceptual photography has shifted over time to be more documentary in nature. “I guess my style lately has been a mix of Children of the Corn with vaguely “Post Nuclear Fallout Exploration,’” Burton told My Modern Met in 2017. “I’m so obsessed with adding ambiguity to my work now, if I can come up with more than one storyline behind the image, I’ve succeeded.”

Burton will soon travel to Appalachia for a new photo series. Keep up with his evocative work by following along on Instagram @burtoo.

The post Thin Places: Photo Series Captures the Poetry of Isolated Abandoned Homes first appeared on Dornob.

Opinions are mixed on whether the real Cybertruck is a massive step forward in vehicle aesthetics or more akin to the vaguely car-shaped drawing your five-year-old might bring home from school. But one would imagine that when the Cybertruck is spotted on the road, it’ll look a little more pulled together than its hillbilly cousin. The Plybertruck is crudely assembled, its body covered in visible nails. But that’s all part of the fun.

Cromwell designed the car explicitly for the Gambler 500, a mostly off-road rally in which “cheap, impractical, and fun vehicles” roam through the countryside to pick up trash and remove abandoned vehicles and boats. Participants are supposed to spend no more than $500 on the vehicle they enter in the 500-mile rally, which began as a challenge to see how far cars that cheap could go. The first year had 14 participants, but since then, the event has spread all across the country, with thousands of attendees taking part. In 2018, enough “trail trash” was collected to fill three 40-foot containers.

The rally’s official website explains that “Gambler 500 started in Oregon 2014 by Tate Morgan and the OG Gamblers, a small group embracing cheap fun in all forms. Now dubbed ‘Gamblertown’ the original event in Oregon is the global meetup for what Gambler has evolved into as a brand encouraging people across the world to go have adventures using Gambler 500 as a call sign. We allow people to use the term ‘Gambler’ as long as it’s free and participants embrace the ideals of stewardship while having cheap fun in the outdoors.”

Unsurprisingly, the Plybertruck has gotten a lot of attention both on the road and on the internet, and now it even has its own Facebook page. The car underwent some upgrades this summer after the last Gambler event, including a new windshield, battery, and exhaust system, and it’ll hopefully be rejoining the fun when the next Gambler 500 happens in Oregon next June.

The Plybertruck certainly isn’t the first participant in the Gambler 500 to turn heads with its unusual looks, and it won’t be the last. Another notable entry this year was the “Double Trouble” Ford Ranger pickup by Gage Van, which is made of one red pickup and one purple, joined together cab-to-cab. In an interview with The Drive, Van explained that the project took just three days to complete. The newer red cab is the front, which powers the Frankentruck with a 4.0-liter V6 engine. It’s often accompanied on the road by an equally wild Chevy Suburban-based boat car.

The post Plybertruck: Low-Budget Cybertruck Spoof Designed for an Off-Road Competition first appeared on Dornob.