Car Crash

Photo by: Nicolai Howalt


Photo by: Nicolai Howalt


Photo by: Nicolai Howalt


Listening to: New Terrain by: Mew

A car crash do we ever think of it more than just twisted metal that was derived by an unfortunate accident. I have looked at it in different means today. The aftermath of the wreckage. A junkyard where twisted and incinerated cars are taken. I looked at each car intently. Inside, outside, underneath, above. What happened to the passengers?? Was there one, two, a family? Baby car seats burnt to a crisp. Skeletons of cars. More plastic than metal, airbags, glass. Nothing is left. Wait, there are cigarettes, groceries, playing cards, clothes, people's lives left in their cars. People's lives taken due to this piece of machinery. You can tell what the person may or may have not been doing before their unfortunate demise by just studying the inside of the car. Do I see blood stains? Do I see death or survival? I don't know and I will never know. I can only assume. All these thoughts run through my head as the photographer who I am assisting climbs in the backseat of this twisted metal as the rearview mirror dangles by a thread from the still intact shattered glass. Beautiful patterns that come from such traumatic impact. I feel sick, sad and in awe at the same time. Could you imagine?? I have been in a car accident and everything is in slow motion from what I remember. It doesn't seem real. Like a bad dream. It is happening soo fast but your body is slowing down. It feels like you are underwater and things are just floating by you or maybe in space where gravity doesn't exist. But in reality it is the rearview mirror flying by your face or the passenger being ejected out through the windshield. It stays with you forever and you relive it when you are put in front of such wreckage. You are happy to be alive...