When Things Just Don't Go Your Way

Monday, July 30, 2018

Since I had a community function to do at work on Saturday, I ended up with a Monday off, and I wanted to try and do something real quick in the morning before spending the day with my family.  I needed something that was close by, and could be shot with low clouds.  My original thought was a barn that was out near Union Cross that I had shot a few times before.  I had gone out to get it for a sunrise in the early Spring, but that didn't pan out because there was an enclosed semi trailer backed up to the door.  This time I wasn't planning on any color in the sky, and was actually looking forward to deep clouds, and possibly a light fog over the barn.  I was going to shoot this as black and white to accentuate the mood I was going for.

When I arrived at the barn, it was shortly before sunrise and I could tell that the clouds were not as low as I was hoping.  In fact, there was no definition at all in the sky, and the lighting on the bar was not good at all for how the scene was developing.  Instead of waiting there, I decided to abandon that idea and move out to Walnut Cove to see what was at my favorite restoration shop.  The last time I was out there there were a couple of Edsels which caught my eye and I thought with the diffused lighting of the cloudy morning I could so some more work with them.

As I was traveling down the road, I looked over to the left and saw a blue Chevy truck parked up against another shop with a white brick wall.  The framing on the window was blue and it matched the truck.  The lighting wasn't right for the shot just yet, so I continued on my way to my "plan B" destination.  When I got there, one of the Edsels was gone, and there wasn't anything particularly that was jumping out at me.  It was also starting to drizzle a little bit.  I was starting to feel beat down at this point.  I had gotten up early, and was driving around for what appeared to be nothing at all.

I started on my way home, but I wanted to check out that one blue truck as I went past it.  When I arrived at the shop, the lighting was a good deal better with the sun fully up.  It was still very diffused thanks to the clouds, but the clouds had brought a steady mist.  It wasn't enough to really hamper any photography so I pulled off into the side lot and grabbed the camera.

Beaded Blue

I fitted my 24-70mm lens for the simple fact that I was going to need to be in the 50mm range for this shot.  There was a newer Dodge pickup parked just to the side of the old Chevy that I wanted to avoid.  There was also a bunch of junk on the side of the building.  Had I gone any wider than 50mm, I would have been including too much of this.  On the other end, I wanted to include the window that was on the side of the shop since it matched the truck and provided a very nice visual balance to the scene.  Shooting with my long lens would have isolated the truck, but would have missed much of the window, and flattened the truck too much.  I also wanted to saturate the colors and remove glare, so I added my Color Combo Polarizer.

I went ahead and started to frame up shots, and quickly realized that it was starting to rain pretty hard.  It was hard enough that I was going to have to abandon this location rather quickly.  I moved in close and opened the field of view up a bit and was able to grab this shot which I though was one of the best out of the six frames I was able to get.  After getting this shot, it was time to head to the house.  The rain was just too much for me to deal with.

When I got home and started to look through the images, I realized that the water on the truck actually worked to take some of the high gloss out of the equation.  Since I was used to working with non-reflective surfaces, I liked how the water added a touch of texture to the shiny bits.  The blue in the window frame mimicked the blue paint just like I had seen in the early morning hours and the white wall of the building complimented the bumper and grill on this this truck.  

Shop Truck

While going through my images, one of the first ones that I shot also caught my eye.  It wasn't the color of the scene like in the previous one though.  This one just had a certain feel to it that I liked, but it deserved a different treatment.  I actually started by converting it to a black and white image.  I worked on the tonal relationships and did some dodging and burning here and there before I really started to like how this one looked.  I added a touch of grain to the image as well to give it a bit of a dated look, without going overboard on it.  The key parts to this image are the door art, and the window once again which provides a nice visual balance to the whole composition.

My morning certainly didn't go as planned, and I didn't even get my intended barn shot at all.  I was able to find a truck that I had not seen before, and was lucky enough that it was in a setting that really fit it.  I would like to go back another time to see if I can shoot it in different light, but I have a feeling that this was a fleeting chance to capture this truck, and had I not been out looking for that "plan B", I would have missed the opportunity to capture it at all.  It might not have been the morning I was expecting, but some good did come from it.