Weathered Western Canada Motel Sign | Limited Edition of 10

Forgotten Prairie Motel Camping Sign Artwork

There’s something magnetic about old roadside signs—relics from an era when travel was slower, simpler, and maybe even more adventurous. This weathered “Motel Camping” sign, captured in Western Canada, is one of those survivors. Rust creeps along its edges, paint peels in the sunlight, and the neon tubes, once glowing with promise, now sit lifeless against the prairie sky. Still, it stands tall. A symbol of movement, of journeys taken, of families pulling off the highway for a night under the stars or in a cheap roadside room.

I came across this abandoned motel on one of my drives through the West. It was the kind of place you’d almost miss if you blinked—a ghost from the days before chain hotels and big-box convenience swallowed the roadside industry whole. What caught me was the sign. Even stripped of its original power, it still shouts its message: rest here, camp here, stay awhile. But the guests are long gone, and all that remains is a skeletal echo of what once was.

There’s a charm in that kind of decay. The bold typography, the retro arrow pointing the way, and the awkward but endearing “camping” block dangling beneath—all of it framed in stark monochrome. By photographing it in black and white, I wanted to emphasise the timelessness. Without colour, the focus shifts to form and texture—the way the sunlight carves shadows into the metal, the gritty details of age and neglect, and the emptiness in the sky that somehow feels full of memory.

This image isn’t about perfection; it’s about character. The character of a place, the character of a sign that once meant something to weary travellers. For me, it’s a piece of Prairie storytelling—raw, unpolished, honest. I don’t make these photographs in a studio or fabricate them with software; they come from standing there, camera in hand, breathing in the silence of forgotten places.

If you’ve ever driven long distances and felt that strange comfort of roadside signs, this artwork will strike a chord. It belongs on a wall where nostalgia is welcome, where people appreciate the beauty of things that refuse to be erased.

This print is part of my exploration into lost and weathered Americana, though set firmly in Canada’s wide-open landscapes. If you’d like to explore more works that capture this sense of timeworn storytelling, you can browse my sign photography collection or dive into the bygone era photography collection where I keep the echoes of the past alive.

© Dan Kosmayer, 2015