Highway Corner, Reedsville, West Virginia

In this photograph of a highway corner in West Virginia, signs proliferate and dominate, with no visible person to read them. The gas station, the traveler's last stop out of town, anchors the corner, a solid brick building that proudly reveals its nationalistic bent with the bold announcement that "AMERICAN GAS" is sold there. A formidable, solid telephone pole cuts vertically through the frame in the foreground while another peeks out from behind it in the distance. Wires busily intersect the sky, and a large, round sign for the telephone company announces the communication system. Despite all the evidence of devices to keep people connected, the image projects an ironic sense of emptiness and desolation.