Don’t look back. You hear that all the time. The past is the past, don’t waste your time looking back. Just put one foot in front of the other, and keep moving forward. These sage words of advice are meant to motivate you, to keep you moving in the right direction, to keep you focused on achieving your goals – your success. Whatever success happens to mean for you. Contrary to this popular advice, I have found that it can be fun, and enlightening, to see what’s behind you – especially if you can do it without actually looking back.

Over the past year I have made several road trips, traveling between Alabama and California, utilizing a variety of routes and rest stops. The trips were long, but they were quite enjoyable, and I saw so many wonderful sights on my journeys. They were opportunities for me to get out and about, and see what I could see.

Most of the trips were solo, so I had a lot of time to contemplate life, and try to discover the solution for world peace. But, there is only so much that one brain can take, and I had to find other means of entertaining myself during those extended periods of time between one destination, and the other. Who knew snapping random pictures could be so energizing and therapeutic?

The photographic techniques used here are simple: Point. Click. Wait until you get home to see what wonderful surprises await you. This is also known as the “keep your eyes on the road and at least one hand on the wheel” technique. My results generally run the gamut from half-way decent, to blurry mess, to what on earth were you pointing at when you snapped this.

I have assembled some of the results of my randomness in a collection that I call Rear Views. I see so many parallels and analogies for life in these images, but I am going to resist the impulse to describe them to you.  Show, don’t tell. Besides, we have already established the fact I don’t always see things the way most people do. And I’m OK with that. The photographs in this collection have been labeled RearViews a to z, but they appear in random order. If you’re interested, I invite you to buckle-up and enjoy the ride – see what you can see – and then share it with me.