The Road to Nowhere – Idiom: A plan, project, development, or course of action that appears to have or offer no meaningful, desirable, or useful conclusion.
I’ve taken many a “Road to Nowhere” in my pursuit of photography subjects. Many of my best images have been found in the middle of nowhere.
The road to nowhere is the equivalent of experimentation in abstract expressionist painting. When do you reach the end? You know it when you see it.
In 1985 the Talking Heads sang about a Road to Nowhere:
“Well, we know where we’re going
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowing
But we can’t say what we’ve seen
And we’re not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out”
The Talking Heads
Along the Road to Nowhere one will find many fine subjects to inspire, if one allows the journey to be as important as the end point. One turns around when the day is waning, the gas tank is emptying or the stomach is churning not because the end has been reached but because the return from nowhere has just begun.
We’re on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
I’m feeling okay this morning
And you know
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go
The Talking Heads
David Byrne wrote the rock song Road to Nowhere for the 1985 Talking Heads album Little Creatures and considers it a joyful ode to doom. Basically, we’re all going to die sometime, we might as well enjoy the ride.
In my own work, I strive to enjoy the ride with powers of observation to discover new things along the way that perhaps others miss.
