that feeling of getting this place

Fayetteville, West Virginia (1974)

You know what I really love about doing this? In a sense I preserve this little place - I caught it, and it won't disappear. It's been held. There's something about this particular moment, this particular unique little corner - and it's not going to go.... I love that feeling; I love that feeling of getting this place. You know, when you talk about everything disappearing and time going by and... it's sort of a nice feeling to think that even if that tin place burns down like that building in front of the town up there... maybe, maybe these pictures will be preserved just the way we have all of those pictures from other times that somebody else took the trouble to do. And to me, to be part of that tradition is very, very important.


David Plowden as quoted in Brave companions: portraits in history by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 1992. p. 187