This was maybe 15 or18 years ago and my wife, Kristen and I were out for an adventure drive — car trips where we would drive around the small towns and back roads of Georgia or Alabama or the Carolinas looking for things for Kristen to photograph. At the time she was writing and taking photos for a daily blog she had with 2 of our friends, Rinne Allen and Rebecca Wood called Beauty Everyday and so we would spend our weekends driving around and taking in our surroundings, looking for things, exploring our new home. It was a fun time for us both, I think.

Anyways, Kristen had been told about this place called The Nolan House which was a big old, abandoned house just outside of this small town, 15 miles south of us, called Bostwick. We found the home and Kristen started to photograph the old wood and paint peeled interior walls and ceilings, the beautiful old stairwell and mason jars in the kitchen. I wandered the property and met the horse that had come up to the fence from the neighbor's farm. In my memory Bill Callahan’s great album “Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle” was playing somewhere but I doubt the timing and date workout for that to be true. My memory is probably just being tricked by the cover for that record.

We then drove into Bostwick to explore the old Cotton Mill in town and take photos of that and the blooming Cotton fields in the area. Back in the car, we took a right to drive south toward this State Park called Hard Labor Creek where we were probably gonna eat a picnic lunch, but as soon as we took that right we passed a very old clay tennis court on someone’s property. I got very excited and turned the car around. I had never seen a clay tennis court in real life before and I was real excited. I parked the car across the street and started walking on the court. I have since met the people that own it (I didn't totally know I was trespassing at the time).. But when I first saw it, although still playable, it was starting to grow bits of grass along the lines. The fence was built only 5 or 6 feet from the baseline (way too close). The utility shed that clay courts store extra clay, rakes and whatever other things are needed, was starting to lean and had gaps between the wood boards so that it almost looked like it was frowning. When I got close to the net, I noticed that it was covered in moss and lichen, crusted and decorated in a way that it almost looked like it was underwater. The court was lined with even hedges on one side, a neighbor's row of pines behind one baseline, some straggly trees on the other baseline and then some huge Oaks and the road on the near sideline.

I was immediately charmed by the court and instantly had the idea for 7.6inthethird. I knew there must be other courts like it that had seen its day 10, 20, 30, 70 years ago and were now being taken back by the natural surroundings. And instead of it making me sad, it made me very happy and nostalgic for a sport that I once loved and was now seeing in a different light. A light of maturity and experience, but also in a light of play and creativity. I started to pay attention to shape, structure, colors and how nature was pushing against those strict tennis boundaries. I was seeing it as a canvas to play with. And I was already in love with the idea of adventuring to find new things, tennis courts would now be added to that list of things to search for. I don’t think I even took any photos on that first walk around the court, but the idea was in my mind and starting to germinate and become something exciting and real.