'The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip'

 Randy Mallory’s The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip is a record of a place I know.

Mallory’s first job out of college was with a magazine for customers of rural power co-ops. He did stories, which included photographs, of a lot of places that are off the main highways.

Mallory spent decades as a writer and photographer. When he donated his archive to the University of North Texas, the university’s press decided to publish a book.

I’m looking and reading slowly, with delight.

I come back to this question often: We all look at the world. Why is it that some people see so much more than others?

It’s a theoretical question, but Mallory has a practical answer.

Mallory says that, at the beginning of his career, he went to a seminar to improve his photographic skills. He took to heart a bit of advice: When you go to an assignment, make it a point to look for something specific. Wherever he went, Mallory looked for brooms.

When you are looking for something specific, you tend to see things you might otherwise have missed.

• Source: Randy Mallory, The Fifty-Year Texas Road Trip; Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2025.