Road signs are usually seen from cars at driving speeds, and the landscape behind a sign seems to spin in relation to the stock-still sign. I love the road, the possibility of moving along that line through the land. But when it comes to signs beside the road, I like to subtract the motion and see each sign in relation to the landscape in which it stands motionless.

Driving over the contours of the land on different roads in the Yukon, I found many signs with the pictogram of a camera. Each sign earnestly bids us, the drivers, to stop at a precise spot — there is something right here that someone has decided is worthy of our attention and, maybe, photographic film. Some of these spots were, as one might expect, scenic viewpoints. But most of the places were not what would be considered ‘photogenic’ — many were roadside historic plaques, not ‘scenery’. I found the message directing us to take a photograph more interesting.