Originally posted by Arvid By now I'm pretty sure you work as a train conductor.
I spend some time on trains, too, and I discovered things look better from a train. Same as things looking better through ther ear view mirror of a car that someone else is driving.
I keep telling myself that one day I will not take that train ride to get from A to B, but to get off whenever I think I'm close to one of these interesting spots. Probably I'll realize that the unusual, somewhat elevated perspective from the tracks and the fact that you'll always only see them for a short time, passing by made these places look alluring and when you get there, things will look just as shabby as everything looks up close. That perfect patch of grass turns out to be a bunch of crippled single weeds, that field is just your ordinary pile of mud, that abandonend shack is impossible to get a good angle on, becuase it's surrounded by scrap and shrubbery and so on and on.. One day, though, I'll still do it.
But isn't that what we do? We use interesting light, angles, perspective, etc to make the ordinary look extraordinary? Most people live in a place where there is to at least some degree, a tourism industry. I think we all get acclimated to our surroundings as the norm. We see pictures of people and places we don't see every day and yearn for those photographic or travel opportunities. I find myself wishing I lived somewhere in/near the Rockies - for the photography, trail racing, skiing, hunting, etc. But if I move to Colorado, I'd long for the ease of day trips to ocean, the sub-three hour drive to cities like Philadelphia, Washington, DC, NYC, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, etc. I can see a ridiculous number of sports teams and get there by train or a short drive. I think it's human nature to become complacent to what's immediately around us. Photography is a way out of feeling stuck in the mundane - you just have to look for it. The description in your post above reinforces the saying of the "grass isn't always greener on the other side." From a distance, it may look that way, and we can present it however we like with a photograph.