Catch It While You Can

Holt Webb is a lucky man. For the next two years—maybe longer—he will have the privilege of traveling the country in a 32-foot diesel motorhome and a Land Rover photographing what he calls “Vanishing America.”

A business partner is helping to fund the project, which will attempt to record things that are disappearing in American life, from natural wonders to old buildings to declining occupations.
Webb, a 38-year-old freelance photographer, is traveling in a 2005 Winnebago Journey. When we caught up with him by phone, he was driving his diesel pusher to Redding, California, to convert it to run on vegetable oil. He had already converted his Land Rover.

He believes the conversions will not only help the environment, but also save money since he can pick up used vegetable oil at little or no cost. He has put solar panels on the roof of his coach to supply power and is using biodegradable products and eating organic food whenever possible. It wouldn’t make sense to tour the country lamenting the destruction of the environment, he said, unless he was doing what he could to conserve resources himself.

Finding Treasures
The motorhome is wrapped with the name “Vanishing America” and with images of the Okefenokee Swamp in Webb’s home state of Georgia. The RV is an instant conversation-starter, which helps the project since Webb is counting on local people to steer him to out-of-the-way places that are endangered.

The subjects he has shot so far include a herd of wild mustangs, a California movie theater that is threatened with demolition, a group of brick warehouses, and the Oregon Dunes, which are being encroached upon by non-native plant life. There have been surprises along the way, such as a couple of tiny fishing villages he spotted along a river east of Florence, Oregon. Webb said lots of people have been helpful in pointing out things that are disappearing, so he has no shortage of subjects.

Webb traces his own interest in the topic to his youth in a rural town near Atlanta. “It really started when I was a little kid,” he said. He would ride his bike long a trail through woods and across creeks, ponds and pastures to a tiny store until one day he found his path blocked by a bulldozer carving up the land for a subdivision. It was then, Webb said, that he realized how rapidly and drastically things could change.

After graduating from the University of Georgia with a degree in fine arts photography, Webb moved to San Diego and got involved in architectural photography. As he watched the countryside around San Diego be overtaken by development, Webb conceived the “Vanishing America” project. He said he told himself that before more things disappear, “I’ve got to get out and see the rest of the country.”

Multi-Media Projects
He acquired the motorhome and Land Rover, equipping his rig with a satellite dish for Internet and phone access, and top-quality cameras and computer equipment to store and edit photographs and video. His plan is to produce coffee-table books, write a novel, and perhaps create a documentary. Meanwhile he is posting photographs and accounts of his journey on the Internet at www.vanishingamerica.net

You might think from the nature of the project that Webb is a dedicated environmentalist, but that’s not quite the case. As he explained in one of his blog entries:

“People have asked me if I’m an environmentalist. I’m not sure how to answer that. I love Nature. I love to see the massive forests, the wide-open plains, the tree-lined and snow-capped mountains, the swamps and wetlands, the sweeping deserts and the diversity of the seashore. …And I love the idea of this land as it was two hundred years ago, teeming with uncountable forms of life. But, that bountiful landscape is only a memory. When humans began to significantly populate this country, Nature was forced to take a back seat while we shaped the land into something more suitable to the way we wished to live. And it will always be that way.”

The key, he wrote, is to manage growth responsibly. “It’s very difficult to do,” he wrote, “but there has to be balance in order for both man and nature to thrive.”

On page 14 in this issue, you will find some examples of Webb’s photography, and in future issues, he will share some of the interesting stories he runs across as he continues his journey.

Write to Mike Ward, editor at RV Life Magazine, 18717 76th Avenue West, Suite B, Lynnwood, WA 98037 or e-mail editor@rvlife.com. Find First Glance on-line at rvlife.com.