It does look like cowhide or ponyskin...a great find, this dilapidated gate, although the gate itself seems fine, it's just the paint that is jumping ship! Yes, a scrape/sand/paint job would seem to be in order here. Excellent find and superb capture, Harry!

If it gets done it will become very boring!

a good slogan to restore the appearance of the wooden door ... more irrélédiables risk of damage if your board is not heard! beautiful textures!!!

I guess the owner has an artistic soul ;o] (or is a lazy sob..lol), anyway i second @durleybeachbum, paint would ruin it, @least the art in it :o)

I like Andrea's and motic's comment---fix it up, it won't be as beautiful. The conflict between function and art, lol...A straightforward presentation, you have equal amount of concrete wall on either side, and almost equal amounts of top and bottom (leaves and more concrete). I say "almost" because the door is on a slight angle, changing the amount of ground in the shot---but it has your usual intuitive balanced composition---which is one way you photograph, by contrast to your highly angled and dramatic compositions (such as with your padlock shots, which have all kinds of dramatic lines, intersections, collisions, etc). And that brings to mind one of the challenges I find in all such shots as these: It's sometimes impossible to get a symmetrical shot, because of what's around it, the light, the opening, etc; and so invariably one has to angle it. But your angle here enhances the door, it lets it move back in space, and it lets it fan out on the top. All important to minimalistic photography. And beyond all that, the door is wonderfully peeled and decayed; and what stands out in this one is how the lower peeled sections have become grayed, due to age and rain; and so they look faded. Good eye again, Harry, it's much more complicated than it appears, and it adds to your distinguished collection of everything under the sun succumbing to the unstoppable forces of nature...