After spending the week working on my webinar presentation for Singh-Ray which is dealing with photographing the derelict and decaying, I was fully in the mood to capture some rust and rural scenes. The weather was a little uncertain for the weekend, but it was looking like Saturday was going to be my better day when it came to clouds in the sky. I had thought about trying to get a sunrise out of the day, but looking at the sunrise forecast the color was going to be non-existent. That meant I could sleep a bit later. The only question was, where to go on this trip? A few years ago, I had found myself in Sparta, NC, after a tip from a fellow photographer. There is a great little roadside yard art display with a ton of tractors, and this one really nice GMC truck. I remember having a great time with it last time, although it was in the winter and I was standing in a good deal of slush to get the pictures. The green trees really should change the look of the compositions here. This was going to be my starting point for the day. I say starting point because I always have a first picture in mind when I head out, and then I start to explore from there. Since I don't spend a lot of time in the area of Sparta, I was looking forward to a little bit of rural exploration. I wanted to get an early start on the day, but not quite early enough to catch a sunrise. This meant I left the house around 5:30am, looking to arrive in the area around 7ish or so. The trip out there was easy enough, and it looked like the clouds were going to be cooperating with me for a change. I found the old truck with no problems and saw that it was still pretty much as I had left it several years ago. The sun was just now starting to hit the side of the truck, so the lighting should be pretty good for what I was wanting. I started out with my 16-35mm lens for a change. I wanted to accentuate the cab while visually reducing the impact of the rear frame and dual wheels. Of course, I added my Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer to really bring out the colors in the patina and increase the contrast of the scene. One of the first shots of the day turned out to be keeper which was pretty cool.
Patina Panels
One of the aspects of this old truck that I love is the patina. There is so much texture in the rust and the colors are amazing. Something that I started doing a little bit the last time I was here was shooting isolations on the truck. I have gotten a bit better at it over the years and was all set to work some more intimate patina shots today. I decided that I needed a different tool to make that work so I swapped over to my 70-200mm lens and kept the polarizer attached to it. At this point, I was like a sniper picking bits and pieces of the truck out as subjects. The chrome emblems on the hood really caught my eye since the bright color really contrasted with the rust that surrounded it. The bit of pitting in the chrome pulled it all together. There was a vent in the cowl of the truck that added to the visual impact with the repeating horizontal lines, and I used the vertical lines of the hood, and fender to balance out the composition. I'm telling you, this truck is fascinating to work with, and every time I have photographed it, I have been quite fortunate and gotten many good images. There is just so much character to find, and every inch of this truck is part of the story behind it. The textures that it offers is nothing short of amazing though, and probably my favorite aspect of the whole truck.
Final Sigh
The grill of this old truck has always caught my attention, but it was a little blah when photographed straight on. I tried that not only this time, but the previous time. It just seemed to lack something in the translation and I have yet to be happy with a straight on shot of the front of this truck. However, when I moved over to the side and started to frame up a composition from here, the grill started to make sense. It was no longer two dimensional, it had depth and life, and was rather impressive without being overbearing. The patina detail on the bumper even added to the composition, giving a strong vertical aspect to compliment the horizontal slats of the grill. The greenery was a nice frame to the whole image and the one bit of dead leaves in the background helps to pull it all together. For a simple image, there is a lot to look at here.
Strong and Gentle
While I was paying attention to the front of the truck, I really wanted to do something with the flowers that were right beside the front wheel. I had included them in the overall shot, but they were just too perfect sitting where they were to ignore up close. I liked the grill shot that I had just done, but the flowers would not work with that composition. They were much too related to the wheel. Hmm, I could work with that. I decided to focus on the wheel with the flowers framing the rim. The fender would frame the tire, and the image would be bounded by a bumper corner, headlight, marker light, and the chrome emblem. This composition seemed to really flow, and it had a softer side to it thanks to the flowers. Even though this is just a small section of the truck, the sense of power that is conveyed here is unmistakable and the colors are rather dynamic which makes this an interesting image.
Vent Age
Speaking of the chrome emblem, the sun was peeking out from behind a cloud and the truck was getting bathed in a warm glow. The rust was absolutely on fire on the side of the truck. I reacted quickly and got into position for another composition on the side of the hood. This time, I was looking for a collection of lines, I wanted to reduce the composition down to the emblem, and the vent with just enough of the fender to balance out the composition. I framed the image very tight, at about 160mm and waited for the sun to hit it just right before releasing the shutter. When I saw the image come up on the LCD, I knew I had a winner. Even with the contrast and saturation reduced, there was color galore and the histogram showed a perfect exposure. This one was going to turn out really good I thought, and I was right! I tried a few other things, and even tried shooting into the cab through the open window, but the compositions were not as strong as what I had already done. I looked on the other side to see if I was missing anything interesting. There just was nothing really to keep me here much longer. With the morning sun climbing into the sky, I wanted to continue on my journey to find some more rural subjects before the light got too harsh. I packed up my gear and got into the truck for a destination not quite known to me. I drove around Sparta, and into Piney Grove before getting really lost. I was heading in a Northwesterly direction knowing that eventually I would come into Virginia. Of course, that did happen rather quickly as I was at the top portion of NC to start with. I believe I was entering Grayson County and found that there were a lot of great potential subjects, but power lines and bad lighting were getting the best of me. I just won't even stop if I don't see a pretty good potential picture. I was getting deeper and deeper into Virginia and was starting to get a tad discouraged as the morning was marching on quickly.
The Red Roof
Doing this type of exploring, I have gotten used to a whole lot of nothing punctuated with a quick blast of "Oh Boy!!!" That was just what happened as I was traveling down one of the state roads. I saw a barn set just off of the road with no power lines. It had this amazing red roof and the barn wood was perfectly aged. As I was passing it by, I caught sight of a Chevy Biscayne all by itself next to the hill. I even stopped in the middle of the road for a brief second and took it all in. The car had some aftermarket wheels straight from the 90's on it, but other than that it looked perfect to me. I got turned around and slowly came back. I could get the barn from the road, but the car was really going to need some permission to go that deep in. Looking at the properties around it, I was able to determine that the house across the street was probably the one associated with the barn. I parked in the driveway to the barn and walked over to the house. I picked a door that looked like a guest entry and and knocked. I could hear sounds inside so I was pretty sure that somebody was home. As I was looking around, I saw a dog coming out from one of the structures on the property beadlocked on me. He didn't look fierce or upset, so I just held my hand out and spoke with him. He came over and sniffed and then licked my hand. At that point, I knew I was in good shape with the dog. I rubbed his head for a minute and made friends. He even sat down right next to me while I waited at the door. I could still hear sounds, but the door wasn't opening. I decided it was time to move to the next door that looked like it went to a sun room. As I got close, I raised my hand to knock on the door as the door was opening. The resident came out looking down at the ground. I knew he did not know I was there, and I didn't want to scare him with my fist up in the air. I quickly raised both hands and said "don't let me scare you." He looked up startled but calmed quickly and we introduced ourselves. He confirmed that the barn was his property and even volunteered about 100 acres of land for me to photograph on.
My first order of business was to work on the Biscayne at the rear of the barn. I grabbed my gear from the truck and walked back there. The exposure was going to be difficult because the car was in the shadows and the sky was pretty bright. The clouds were nice though, so I was willing to work with the scene to make something great. I went ahead and built the camera with my 24-70mm lens and added the prerequisite Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer. Knowing that the exposure latitude was going to be too great, I added my Lee Filter Holder and slid in a Singh-Ray 3-Stop hard edge Galen Rowell ND Grad. After the first couple of exposures I had a realization... I have yet to do a video on the ND Grads for Singh-Ray, so I decided that this would be a fantastic time to do just that. I pulled out my phone and set it up to shoot video. Then I started to figure out how to make my one remaining hand be able to manipulate the filters. I bypassed some of the steps just simply because I didn't have enough hands to be able to go through all of the steps and demonstrations, but in the end I think I got the general idea out there.
Biscayne
The resulting image turned out quite nice and really shows the patina that caught my eye in the first place. The sky exposed well using the 3-Stop Grad. There was just something about this car sitting there beneath the hill that captured my imagination. The colors on the car really suited the environment it was in with the blues relating to the sky, and the green and rusty hues matching the landscape. The chrome bits complimented the lighter parts of the clouds. Everything just seemed to flow with this image
Deep Fins
The sky was starting to clear at this point and the sun was hitting the car pretty hard. I really wanted to do something to highlight the wicked cool fins on the back of the car. I moved to the rear of the car and set up close to the ground. I opted for a pretty wide angle shot to really pull the attention to the lines in the back of the car. The harsh sun actually helped here by showing off the shadows deep under the fin. Without this shadow, the dramatic lines would not have been as obvious. For this shot, I was able to remove the Grad filter since the sky wasn't as bright in comparison from this angle.. I worked around the car for a bit, but surprisingly was unable to find any isolations that I really liked. The overall shots turned out so much better than any of the isolations that I did, so that is what I decided to keep from this shoot. With the sun rising, and the clouds looking different, I decided to move onto other things. I wanted to go out and shoot the barn real quick, so I grabbed my stuff and moved back out to the road. I was able to keep my 24-70mm attached based on the distance I was shooting from and I started to fine tune the composition of the barn. Now, according to the owner, this was a school originally before the civil war. After that period of time, the school was moved to the current location and reassembled as a barn. It is still in use to this day.
In the Barn
Once I finished with the barn pictures, I made my way back across the street and worked my way to a small shed over in the corner of the property. I had seen an old Ford tractor sitting in it while talking with the property owner. This tractor was still in use, but had a certain rustic look sitting in the shed. The lighting was not great with the back part of the tractor in the full sun and the light shining in from the rear pretty bright. The nose of the tractor was fully in the shade, and I really liked the textures of the wood siding. I decided to get a tight crop shot of the front of this tractor using my 24-70mm lens right at the frame of the entrance. The Singh-Ray polarizer helped to make the red bumper pop and to control the glare on the hood of the tractor. I tried several positions, but found that this one from about four feet off the ground worked the best out of all. These N series tractors are always a lot of fun to photograph when I'm given the opportunity. I was wishing for more compositions, but with the lighting, I was lucky to get the one that I did. It was now time to move on to the next opportunity. Having been given the overview of the property, I remembered that the owner said that the view from the top of the hill behind his house was fantastic. Since he said that I could go check it out, I decided to put on my landscape eyes and give it a go. I walked up to the top of the hill and checked things out. Yes, you could see for miles and miles in two different directions. You could make out Mount Rogers in one direction, and see into West Jefferson in the other. It took me a few minutes to really determine how best to capture this view.
Mount Rogers
Looking at the sweeping views, I really wanted to take advantage of all there was to see. I swapped out my lens to bring my 16-35mm into play. I added the Color Combo Polarizer to bring out a little more contrast in the sky. The composition needed something to anchor it, and I decided on a huge tree which dominated the landscape. At the wide end of the lens, the tree was no longer as heavy in the scene and actually provided the perfect visual balance to the slope of the hill that I was on. The strong diagonal helped to bring the attention to the distant mountain range and Mount Rogers in the distance. The warm rolling hills transitioned into the Blue Ridge Mountains which blended nicely with the sky. It was a simple landscape, but I thought it was an effective one. My next concept was to get right beside of the tree and do something with the small rocky outcrop that was just to the right of it. When I got over to it, I could already see a composition taking place right in front of my eyes.
The View From Here
One of the things that immediately caught my eye was a pond in the valley below. It was just perfectly nestled at the base of the trees and helped to guide the eyes through the image. The clouds seemed to mimic the ridges in the distance as well. My initial thought was to shoot this as a sweeping landscape, but it lost the sense of meaning by doing that. When I flipped the camera on the side and recomposed, it all made perfect sense. My eyes were going exactly where I needed them to go within the frame.
A Rolling View
Just below the big tree where I was standing currently was a field with lots of hay bales scattered about. I have always enjoyed photographing hay bales and decided that I would give these a shot or two before heading back to the truck. Leaving the wide angle lens on, I started to put together some compositions. I found a few bales that would give me a leading line into the scene and got in close as to really make the bale prominent in the scene. In this picture, I was actually about 10 feet away from the first bale. I liked how my eyes moved from one bale to the next until the leading lines of the distant field pulled you the rest of the way in. The dark green trees provided a great framework for the image, and the clouds again seemed to mimic the features in the landscape with the largest hanging above the largest grove of trees. I tried this scene as a landscape shot as well, but it just didn't have the same visual impact and the eyes seemed to rove all over the image as opposed to following a course. I looked around for some other shots as well, but I was seeing nothing else that caught my eye with the current light. I went ahead and walked back out to the truck. Before loading up, I went back over to the Biscayne and shot a few more images with different light. At the time, I was thinking that these were going to turn out better, but after getting home and seeing them on the monitor, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the original ones had turned out better by far. This pretty much wrapped up my day, and it was time to get back home since it was nearing noon. I wanted to spend the second half of the day with Sierra since it was her birthday. That is why it took so long to get the images processed and the blog entry done. I didn't start it until 5am the following morning. I had shot a total of 92 images from essentially two locations which was pretty good. I was thinking it would be somewhere more in the area of 75 frames. I had estimated about ten of the images would be keepers, and I managed to make a collection of 12 shots that made the cut. It was a successful day and I was able to get my old iron, and even added a rustic scene with the barn. I even got to do some landscape work which I usually don't get to do when I'm working on rural exploration.
Now, it is time to put the finishing touches on the webinar presentation, and get ready for that. It will air on Friday the 20th at 8pm. To view it, you will need to register with Singh-Ray which is free to do. Once you are registered, you will be able to view it live, and will have access to the archived recording as well. I hope to see you there!
I'm going to go ahead and start with a disclaimer which I rarely do. I apologize in advance for how this is going to read. I had a slight SNAFU while processing these images that caused me to be dead in the water for nearly a full week. Without knowing what photos I had, I wasn't able to really write this blog entry, so I sat on the memory....and I sat....and I sat. As of two hours ago, I had the computer hooked back up and was up and running again. Here is the story, to the best of my memory. Picture it....a week ago. The weather was supposed to be cloudy with a few showers in the morning, and then moving into partly cloudy conditions later in the afternoon. We had been getting several days of rain, and the last of it was on Friday night. My plan was to head out to Hanging Rock in the morning to shoot Tory's Falls which looks really good after a lot of rain. I figured that the lighting would be pretty decent in the morning for some waterfall photography. For those of you that are observant, you will notice that the opening picture doesn't look much like a waterfall. In fact there is no water to be seen here. Yes, you are correct, this is not a waterfall. You see, what had happened was...As I was driving down the road I was looking up at the sky noticing that the clouds were breaking rather quickly. This was frustrating since I had been sitting at home for a couple of hours watching the clouds to see what they were going to do. It kept looking like they were going to break open, but never did. I had decided to count on them sticking around for a while. It took about 10 minutes of driving to clear the sky. Yes, my driving has magical powers when it comes to the weather.
Step Into History
The sky was just too clear for me to do any kind of waterfall photography, so I decided to go with plan B, which was to head over to the shop of a Rat Rod Builder in East Bend. There were a lot of great subjects to work with on his property and I was about to text him to see if I could swing by and spend a portion of the day out there. As I was examining the sky, I came across a little restoration shop that I have photographed at a time or two in the past. The lighting was not the best, but something caught my eye. Was that an Edsel that I saw on the side of the lot? I did...I did....I did see a puddy tat...I mean an Edsel sitting there on the side lot. I got turned around and came back to the shop. Not only had I seen one Edsel, but I had also seen another one, as well as a bevvy of other possibilities to shoot. East Bend was going to have to wait. I already had a shot in mind of the Edsel Grill, and I was pretty sure I could make it work. I pulled into the lot, over to the side so that I wasn't in the way of any potential shots. I pulled out the camera and put my 24-70mm lens on, as well as my Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer. I went over to the first Edsel and started to work out a composition. It took a little bit of doing as I was going for a symmetrical shot focusing on the center grill. There is just something fascinating about the design of the Edsel's front ends, and this was my best chance to capture what drew my eyes in.
Impact Collar
As I was tightening up the shot, there were some clouds that were working their way across the sky over the car. Since I was at the wide end of the focal length range, I was able to get a very dramatic shot of the vertical grill as well as a good bit of the sky above. The Edsel logo was dominating the center of the frame, and the gold hues gave some much needed warmth to the composition. When I looked at the LCD I got a little excited, but I wasn't convinced that it would turn out. With the lighting that was going on , the clouds were pretty much washed out, and there were some pretty deep shadows in the grill. The saving grace was that the histogram was showing detail in both areas, so I had a lot of hope about how this would turn out. From my low position, I utilized some of the transforming functions of the Manfrotto tripod to get the camera inches from the ground. I laid across the parking lot to get the composition just right (opening image) before releasing the shutter. The down low angle, coupled with the Raleigh tag on the bumper really set this image off. The histogram was showing the same tonal range as the first composition that I talked about. While it didn't look that great in the LCD, I was feeling decent that I could bring out the detail when I got home.
Ranger
While I was down there, I might as well look at other possibilities for compositions. Plus, I'm getting old, and once I'm on the ground, it takes a while to get back up again. The headlight bucket has always fascinated me with these cars, and the way that the grill wraps around and includes a marker light is a great styling touch. That Raleigh tag provided a great triangular balance to the front corner of the car, and I found that when I got those elements lined up just like I wanted, I also had the added benefit of getting the "Ranger" emblem to show on the fender. The sky was still quite interesting, so I counted this image as a success as well. I was on a roll...until I tried to shoot the entire car. While it was an excellent subject, I just couldn't find a composition that I liked that fit the car. After shooting these isolations the entire car seemed to fall flat. I was thinking that I was about done here, but then I decided to look at some of the other cars since I have been having some pretty good luck shooting in the harsh sun lately.
Woody Crest
There was a very nice example of an Edsel Bermuda Wagon on a lift to the side of the building. It had some great wooden panels on the side, and lots of texture to get lost in. The paint was in pretty good shape, so it was not one that I would normally get all excited about. This one was special though, I just couldn't explain it. I got into a position, wedged between the Edsel and a Mustang II (really, what were they thinking with that car?). I found a great little emblem tucked into the wood siding on the front fender and started to work out a composition using that crest. I found that these were turning out better than I had thought that they would, and I started to look for other abstract isolations on the side of this Edsel. I was back in the groove once again.
Woody Flare
Something that I have said all along about cars from the 40's and 50's is that they are rolling examples of art. There was a lot of thought given to the materials used, and the designs on the car. This Bermuda was an example of that artistic influence, and I wanted to capture as much of it as I could. This section of the passenger door had a marine feel to it with the pale wood and chrome rivets. The chrome scallop breaking up the mint and creme colors was just fantastic. I even captured a bit of the Mustang II for a splash of warm color to compliment the darker wood paneling on the bottom edge of the frame. The door handle gets lost in this composition and the eyes just sit and enjoy the lines and curves of the decorative siding on this land yacht.
Bermuda
I would be totally amiss if I were not to include an emblem shot with this car. Just ahead of the scallop that I was so interested in was the subtle script that described the car. The brown, tan, and mint colors all worked together so well, and the diagonal composition (dictated by the close quarters) gave a lot of visual tension to the image. I was having the time of my life with this car...or at least the side of it. The front was missing a lot of important pieces (refer to Step Into History) a bit earlier in the article. Why spend all of my time on a single area of the car when I was pretty sure that the rear held some of its own surprises for me?
Dynamic Signal
The rear of the car didn't disappoint, not in the least. The tail lights were really cool with the arrow shapes and complimenting circles and arches. This was the stuff that photographers really can have some fun with. Hey, wait a minute....I'm a photographer, and I have a camera!!! I started to set up some isolations on the lights. There were so may angles to play with, and I got to include the color pallet that had drawn me into the isolations on the side of the car earlier. The lines that I saw coming together were really great, and got me rather amped up once again about this car.
Arches and Angles
Wanting to try lots of different things with these lights, I got in even closer and just took a portion of the light assembly. This is where the 24-70mm lens really shines. I can shoot wide angle shots of an entire car, and I can get in to almost macro territory when shooting the details. With this one, I was able to isolate the basic colors and textures of the light. The square, rings, diagonals, and arches all worked together for a modern art rendering of this 70 year old car. OK, I was really having too much fun now. I was really looking forward to seeing what I had captured when I got home. I was really hopeful for about 3-4 images at this point. I'll save you the trouble of counting back through this entry. I have nine images thus far, to be fare, eight of them had been shot at this point. Yes, I hear you proving your superior math skills by telling me that is twice the number that I was hoping for at this point. What can I say, I was on a roll with these two cars. I was in the zone, so why should I quit while I'm ahead? I shouldn't, you are completely correct. I gathered up my equipment and started to look at the other cars....well, except the Mustang II.
Perforated Body Line
Well, as luck would have it, there was an early Ford Fairlane sitting behind the Edsel. Man was it in bad shape. Rust had eaten through the fender, the headlight was missing...hey wait a minute. That is my normal recipe for automotive photography. Yeah, this was going to be fun too. It was in close proximity to the other cars on the lot, so that meant I was going to have to be creative with the compositions. I started with isolations, and really liked the study of the front fender where the chrome molding used to be at the paint division line. The mounting holes had all rusted through, creating a great texture. The patina on this old car was fantastic too. This was more my speed than the Edsels, which were in pretty good shape...But boy did those Edsels photograph well!
Found on Roadside Dead
I'm going to take a quick break from my story about the capturing process and fast forward just a bit. When I got home, I had a total of 77 images to review which I started on pretty much the minute I arrived home. Things were going well...in fact, I was getting more and more excited about what I had captured as I was culling the less than ideal images from the collection. I started to work on processing them, and made it through to this point and as I was working on this particular image, Lightroom froze up. This happens occasionally, but not like this. Usually, within in a few seconds, my cursor will reappear and I'll be back in business. Not this time. The cursor was gone, and even trying to bring the task manager up wasn't working at all. I had to do a hard shutdown on the computer which I hate doing. I waited about 30 seconds and started it back up again. Well, it locked up while booting this time. Hmmmm, that isn't good. Long story short, Over the next two hours I was able to boot up about three times, but every time it would lock up fatally, and I was able to get less into the computer with each boot session. Eventually, I was unable to get the screen to turn on, and the computer would freeze giving me an error code on the power button. I started to google what was going on with my phone. My fixes involved changing out the button batter, reseating the RAM, and even swapping the memory to the alternate ports. I completely drained the power source several times, but to no avail. It was totally bricked. I had not saved the images as I was not totally finished with the editing process, so I had nothing to show for the 2.5-3 hours I had been working on images. I was in a panic, and knew that my editing was done for the day. Fortunately, I was able to get the CPU to the shop and they were able to work some magic and get it to boot, and they were able to fix the problems. fortunately, there were no hardware issues, and I was able to keep all of my progress on the new pictures. When I picked the CPU up and got it home, I was able to pick up where I left off. I was so thankful! So let's get back to the morning with the images that I have just now finished processing.
Some Assembly Required
I know what you are thinking. That idiot doesn't realize that the problem with the computer sucked the color right out of his pictures. No, I made this one monochrome on purpose. When I shot it, I liked the scene, but wasn't wild about the car. It was white with black stripes. The bit of rust on the quarter was the only splash of color on the car. The grass and trees were lit by a relatively bright sun and had an odd color cast to them which I wasn't really liking. I tried to play with the color image and got it pretty close to what I was seeing at the time, but still wasn't happy with it. As a last ditch effort, I made a conversion to monochrome and instantly became more happy with the image. As I worked with the tonal relationships I liked it more and more. Ultimately, I trashed the color image and kept the monochrome as it gave a timeless feel to this old Mustang.
Punished
As I was working my way back to the main parking area, I came across a few old pickup truck beds that were stored. There was one that caught my eye with the patina that it showed. The rust was fantastic, but I was having a hard time finding something to anchor the rust. What I ended up with was one of the flared sides that had some interesting white paint that was done as stripes and a design. I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at, but my mind immediately went to the logo of "The Punisher." With that, I had found my anchor, and I started to compose an image that captured that imagery.
Hunter's Specialty
The last car I wanted to capture was a Fairlane race car that was sitting out front by the gas pumps. The car was actually in pretty good condition and didn't have the usual patina that I liked. It was also a dark color which wasn't going to photograph well on its own. The decision was made to include the area that it was in and make the car a supporting element to a greater scene. The Gulf Pumps have always fascinated me, and I found that I was able to include them with the large Gulf logo on the building, with a bonus logo reflected in the window of the shop. I actually shot a couple of different compositions with this though in mind. The other one that I liked appears earlier in this piece. Both say something different and I think that they both stand on their own very well. The car has a lot of character being included in the whole scene and I think it makes for a much better picture than trying to isolate the car, or bits of it.
Shadetree Mechanic
With the sun getting a little too harsh, I decided to pack it in and head off to home, or possibly another location if I happened to see something that might work. I had given up on the Rat Rod shop since the lighting was not all wrong for that setting. I was just about to give up, and was actually about five miles from the house when I passed by a car that Toni, Sierra, and I had seen recently tucked in the trees by a house. With the dense trees, I thought that the lighting might actually work out. What was it going to hurt to stop and ask if I could shoot a couple of pictures? I pulled into the driveway and immediately heard music. It sounded like I might actually luck out and find somebody outside which is when I have the best luck in asking for time to shoot some pictures. Sure enough, the owner was outside working on a car. He was very nice, and was happy to let me photograph his car. He even told me the story behind it. The story is titled "It is not for sale, I don't care how much money you have!" It is actually a feel good story though. The car was his Dad's, and it turned into the current owner's first car in high school. It was a 1940 Oldsmobile which is apparently quite rare. His father recently passed away and the current owner has full intention on completing a ground up restoration on the car starting sometime this summer. After hearing how much money he passed up on this car recently, I can say with relative conviction that he means what he says. I do wish him luck with the project as the car is in really good shape despite the rough look .
Alien
While the story and the car were quite fascinating for me, I really liked the textures of the moss on the paint. It was almost a decent substitute for the patina that I like on these old cars. Like I said though, the condition of the paint was actually pretty good..under all of the moss. I was able to get a few isolations which brought out the character of the car. This one of the hood, might be less character of the car, and more character from the movie Alien. Looking at the color, shape, and texture here, I am reminded so vividly of the alien that was encountered by Sigourney Weaver back in 1979. Now that I have jogged your memory, I doubt that I am alone in that connection...right?
Eye on You
The curves around the light bucket were very interesting to me, and I worked several compositions that included the light and the fender curves with the grill as a boundary. I was wishing that the paint was in worse condition, but the moss once again helped me by giving some texture to the surface that you can see is still rather shiny underneath. Who knows, a new bumper and a coat of wax might be all this car needs. I spent another half hour or so at this house as he had a 1970 GTO in the side yard that I really wanted to shoot, but just couldn't find a successful composition that kept it clear of the clutter in the background. It was a great car, and one that I wish I had a satisfactory picture of. It was just in the wrong spot to really work for me. I wrapped up and headed home from here. I was so excited to see what I had from the day, and then all of a sudden, somebody pressed pause on my entire adventure. I'm finally at peace now, knowing that I have a total of 17 images that made the cut out of 77 frames shot. That is better than 20% which is rather cool, and I am happy. As I let out a huge sigh of relief knowing that the computer is working again, and that I didn't lose any of my previous work. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
The last morning that I had free from work, I tried to go out and photograph this old car, but I wasn't able to get in touch with the property owner at the time, and then the rain came. Several hours after I got to work, I got a call back from the property owner who said that he would not have a problem with me photographing his car, and with that, I had a definite destination for the next time the weather was decent. This morning, I also got to go in to work late, so I had a little time to kill and the weather was looking pretty good for doing some automotive photography. Having the permission to work the '56 Buick, I waited until the sun was fully up behind some pretty good clouds. I needed that hint of warmth in the lighting that early morning wouldn't give me. I drove over to the house, and pulled into the driveway. The clouds were starting to break apart, but there was still plenty of clouds in the sky for some diffusing action.
Blistering
I had let the owner know I would knock on the door when I got there, and he wanted to show me the seats that were going to go in the car. By the time I was done with that, I went back outside and was greeted by clear blue skies. Seriously? Two days ago, I was rained out while looking for clouds. Now the clouds have run away from me when there was supposed to be 70% cloud cover. That is part of being an outdoor photographer though, you just can't count on the weather to work with you. Well, I was here, and so was the sun. I was going to have a really hard time photographing a black car in direct light. I tried a few compositions, but there was just so much glare from the sun that the images were not really good enough to fine tune. In an attempt to salvage the morning, I started to work with some isolations featuring rust. There was one blistered place on the trunk that caught my eye. I had my 24-70mm lens on, which was really good for getting up close with the subject. I twisted the Singh Ray Color Combo filter and started to compose some images that captured the texture of the rust as it bled through the paint. It wasn't quite as satisfying as I had hoped, but it was something at least.
One Hundred
While working the Buick, I couldn't help but realize that most of the trim and emblems were missing. This is the part of isolations that I really like, but they just weren't there. I had some interest in the two tone portions of the paint, but nothing that would work in a composition. The Ford next to it, was a different story though. It had plenty of emblems still on it, but the patina wasn't all that fantastic since it was a solid black vehicle, and still in decent shape. There was moss on the diver's side which added some nice textures to play with. I decided since this was in the sun, and it was more or less indirect, I could work with some of the emblems. I started with the trim work on the hood and fender. The diagonals were interesting to me, there was a splash of color with the marker light, and the moss gave the black paint a little bit of texture and life. I had gone saying that I wasn't going to do anything with this truck, but all of a sudden, I was happiest with how these pictures were turning out.
Custom Moss
I moved down the side to the rear of the bed where I found another emblem on top of a body molding. The same formula applied here with the diagonal lines. The moss was a little thicker here which was a very good thing. The sparkle of the chrome against the paint and moss really popped and I liked where this was going. Isolation were going to be where I was going to get my images today since the sun was not cooperating.
Buick Style
I realized a few months ago, that you just can't photograph a classic Buick and not pay attention to the port holes on the fenders. Had this car had the chrome trim, they would have been visually prominent enough to carry the entire image. This car was void of almost all of its trim though, which made isolations a bit more difficult. I played around with isolating a single one of the holes, but on a black car, it had no pop at all. If I added the splash of red to the bottom, there was no visual balance, and I needed a complimenting color for the red. Since the sky was blue, and I could get some visual interest with the A Pillar and roof, I thought about isolating the portholes in the bottom third with a bit of the red, balanced with the blue in the sky. I started to frame the image up and found that the wheel well to the right matched up with the diagonal of the rocker panel to the left. The door seem, took your eyes right up to the portholes, The haze in the windshield and the A Pillar brought your eyes up to the roof, and the the trees and the cloud carried your eyes to the blue sky. The only problem was the exposure was going to be way too difficult since I was shooting in the shade, and capturing the sky. I decided to do a four shot HDR image that covered four complete stops of light. With that, I was able to capture the detail in the black, as well as the detail in the clouds. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, and honestly, looking at the individual images I didn't have much hope. However, after they were blended, and I processed it, I was actually quite happy with what I had captured. It wasn't quite an isolation, but it wasn't a full capture of the car either. It highlighted the portholes, and then had a very light and airy feeling despite the primary elements and colors being quite dim.
Fire and Ice
I was feeling a little bit better about my isolations, so I went back to hunting elements on the car. There was this one area of damage that had rusted over the years. It struck me as quite interesting with the visual balance. The area was about 6 inches tall, so I had to get in pretty close to capture what I was seeing. I cropped in tight with that 24-70mm lens, and started to twist the polarizer until the black went completely glare free at the top. I noticed that there was a slight problem on the bottom half. I was reflecting in the image, as was the ground. I could remove me, but the ground reflection remained. I could have put my tripod bag on the ground to make that reflection black, but I started to see a different possibility. The earth toned reflection at the bottom provided a nice visual balance for the upper elements of the damage. I decided to keep that reflection, and even dialed back the polarizer a bit to capitalize on it. When I was done processing the image, it seemed to take on a different feel from anything I had shot on a car before. It was no longer rust, it wasn't even really abstract. It was hard and gritty, and full of emotion. It was a rock-n-roll album cover if I had ever seen one. Oddly enough, this one 6 inch section on the quarter panel of the car turned into my favorite shot of the day. There was just so much personality in this image that it can't be ignored. With that picture taken, I decided that I had worked everything that I could on the car with the existing light. It was time to pack up the camera and head to work. I got everything put away and suddenly realized that the sun was not nearly as intense. I looked up. There were clouds moving in, nice thick ones at that. I still had a bit of time, so I pulled the camera back out, and left the 70-200mm lens attached this time. I added that Singh Ray filter once more and started to find new compositions. I went with the front quarter shot from where I was standing since I had the long lens. I was just able to miss the corner of the house and the Ford next to the Buick. With the clouds killing some of the glare, the lighting was much better, but having a black car with shiny bits on it, was still creating problems. I decided to be safe and shot a 3-Shot HDR image which appears as the opening image. It is kind of a flat composition due to the focal length, but it draws the attention directly to the car. The patch of tan grass behind gives a nice color balance to the image, so it does work fairly well. This was the view that had caught my eye from the road several weeks ago, and I now had that shot in my collection.
Season of Rebirth
Now that the clouds were coming in nicely, I decided to try another composition I had attempted earlier in the morning. Not wanting to take the chance of losing the light, I kept the long lens on and went into the back yard. I had to get a good distance back , but that actually worked out even better than when I was up close. I had the sky included earlier which would not work now with the clouds. I did have a nice tree that was resplendent in white blooms. That achieved the all important sense of time for the image. There was a lot of red in this shot, so I was very happy to have the greens to balance things out. With the overall image rather dark, the white tree balanced that out as well, and helped to compliment the windows of the old Buick. Since the paint was in as good a shape as it was, I was happy that I was shooting on the North side so that I could get that moss which gave an indication of how long it had been sitting there. For me, this was another great success shot of the day. It was also the third HDR image that I shot that morning which appears here in this entry. For a single location, being shot on the way to work, I have to say that this was pretty successful. I shot 55 frames in about an hour and a half. Of those, there were three different multiple image series for HDR conversions. I ended up with seven out of the batch that I deemed good enough to hang onto. With that, I really can't complaint one bit. It was nice to be able to get out with the camera once again too. It had been far too long.
The weather has really not worked with me for the past month or so. Every weekend it has been raining, except for that one where the sun was blazing all day long. I've kind of gotten used to the routine of hiking in the rain and leaving my gear opened up drying over night. When I saw the forecast for this weekend, I was prepared for that same chain of events. There was clouds and rain for the vast majority of the day on Saturday, and more of the same on Sunday. I figured that this would be another opportunity to get some waterfalls done, and what better time to try and find some new ones. I know there are some other cascades at South Mountains which I have not found yet. I also wanted to try and photograph the main waterfall, High Shoals Falls. It has been probably 10 years or more since the last time I have ventured up the stairs to shoot it. Arguably though, it is not all that photogenic of a waterfall. To make matters worse, the boardwalk really gets in the way despite giving you a very close view of the waterfall.
Soothe the Soul
My day started as any other photography day...Early. I woke up with Toni at 4am and worked on getting on the road at 5 so I could be at the park when the gates opened. The most current forecast called for some light showers at 8am and cloudy until sometime in the afternoon when the clouds would start to break up. I wanted to give myself the most time under the clouds. As I was heading down the road, I could tell that there were very little clouds in the sky. I kind of expected that as there was only supposed to be intermittent cloud cover for the first part of the day. The closer I got, the less clouds I was seeing though. This was really starting to be an annoying pattern for this park. It seems that every time I come out here expecting clouds, I get bright blue skies and difficult lighting. I was starting to think that I was going to spend four hours on the road for less than ideal lighting once again. I didn't have a plan B in mind, and knew that much of the park was in the shadows early in the morning. At least I had that working in my favor. I was looking around as I approached the park to see if there was something that I could get with the existing lighting. I did see an old tractor by a shed that I had seen the last couple of times out, and had always wanted to photograph. The lighting wasn't quite right, and I wasn't sure I could get it from the road. I filed it away in my memory for later as I had done many times before.
Blue Sky Reflections
When I got to the park, the sky was blue overhead. I could see some light clouds in the distance, but they were moving away. I could see that the creek adjacent to the parking lot was in the full shadow of the mountain. I hadn't really worked this area before since there were usually fishermen in the water. This time, it was all empty so I decided to go and check it out. I found a nice set of cascades next to an overlook, so I decided to maneuver my way down to the water. Looking at things, I figured that doing isolations would be the best bet. For that, I decided to use my 70-200mm lens with a Color Combo Polarizer attached. I started working on compositions and found that my exposure time due to the lighting was between 13-30 seconds. That was plenty for a nice abstract flow of the water. The trick was picking areas of the cascades that made sense and had a cohesive flow to them. One of the neat ones that came from this section is the picture directly above. Since the sky was blue, the water was reflecting a nice blue hue just before dropping over the rocks. The rocks had some warm tones on them which balanced out the overall cool shade of the water. It made for a very interesting composition with the color pallet.
Uneven Flow
There is just something about cascades that really hypnotizes me when I see them. I could just look at the moving water for hours. The patterns of the rocks is what makes it all so interesting. This section of the creek really illustrated this quality for me. The rocks were strewn about with total randomness, yet everything just fit together so well. It is the wonder of nature, and I was so happy that I was able to photograph it. Not wanting to spend all my time with this section of the creek, I decided to move on down the trail. My ultimate goal was to get to High Shoals Falls and go beyond it to complete the loop trail. I told myself that I wasn't going to bother with scenes that I had photographed before unless they were noticeably better than previous times I had visited. That concept was put to the test at the fork in the creek. When I got there, I could see that the water was moving rather nicely, and was possibly a little more voluminous than previous attempts. However, there wasn't anything in the way of compositions that held a candle to my recent Autumn shots from this area. I quickly decided to move on down the trail.
Taking a Bow
My second test came just a few steps down the trail when I arrived at my favorite yawning tree. I looked and found that the water was looking better than my last time here. The lighting was definitely better as well. I decided to stop here and give it a few shots. I opted to use my 24-70mm lens with the same Singh Ray filter on the end. I got in position on one of the rocks that gave me the best view of the little waterfall as it plunged between the rocks. I was missing the Autumn colors this time, but I was thinking that the overall image was a good bit stronger than what I had several months ago. The anchor of the image was the waterfall, and the tree that I love so much worked the midground. From this angle it really looked like the tree was taking an overly dramatic bow...so of course, that became the title of the piece.
Kinetic Energy
I still wanted more of the tree, and decided to flip the camera on its side to compose a portrait shot of the scene. This allowed me to emphasize the tree a little bit more. The only problem with the tree was that there were a couple of fallen branches that were poking over the rock that I had initially seen as a distraction for an up close shot of the tree. However, upon looking at it once again, I decided that the tree looked like a skier getting ready to jump off of the rock, while the fallen branches looked like the skis. I know, I read too much into a scene, but you have to admit...you can't help but see it too. With the arms sticking straight up, the body leaning forward, and the skis about to clear the rock, there is a lot of implied energy here. Add to it the motion of the water, and this image is full of motion. It is one of my favorites from this location because of that. From here, it wasn't too long before I got to my favorite section of secondary cascades. The first one had a lot more flow to it than normal, but I wasn't sure I wanted to try shooting it just yet. I moved to the other side where I have always had good luck. Ironically, there was too much water on this side. I just wasn't feeling very good about making good pictures with the current flow. I opted instead, to go back to the other side, and climb over the railing. Once on the ground, I was seeing some pretty good compositions from this section. One of which is the opening image to this entry. It is also the first time I have used the boardwalk in a composition. Considering I always try to eliminate the man made aspects in my waterfall pictures, I actually really like this shot.
A Sacred Splash
With the waterfall being rather narrow and tall, I thought that I would do pretty well using my 16-35mm lens with the polarizer. It worked out rather well, and allowed me to include foreground interest, as well as getting in close to the lowest cascade to emphasize it in the composition. I forget how much fun the wide angle lens can be at times. I enjoyed playing with it on this section that normally I would have used my middle lens on.
Moment in Time
I spent a pretty good amount of time here moving around an inch here, and an inch there. It was all about how the different cascades lined up, and how they related to the other elements in the scene. With the perspective of the super wide angle lens, I was constantly reminded that position is everything. I had to be aware of every aspect of the composition, knowing that I was constructing every element as they related to one another. No point and click here, that's for sure! Eventually, I determined that I had everything that I wanted to get, and I packed the camera back up. I gave the next section a second look, but I was positive that there was just too much water for the images I was wanting to make. It was time to start climbing the stairs at this point. Normally, I would just turn around since I am just not a fan of High Shoals Falls. Today, I had promised myself another shot at it though. I bit my lip and climbed the hundred and some steps to the overlook.
High Shoals Falls
As you can see, this is pretty much just a steep water slide. There is not much in the way of details in the water. If I were to have used a long shutter speed, it would have just been featureless white streaks down the rock. That wasn't what I was going for at all. Looking at the scene, I decided that my 24-70mm lens would be the best tool for the job, along with the Color Combo Polarizer. There were several issues that I was going to need to address before being able to shoot though. First, there was a nice overlook that got you right up to the waterfall. This same overlook appears in so many pictures of the waterfall because you just about can't avoid it. My solution was to set the tripod up on two legs, and swing the third over the railing for stability. This was where having independent legs is a must for a landscape photographer. With the ballhead positioned just inside of the railing, I was able to compose an image that didn't include the railing. Second, since I was so close to the waterfall, I was getting a lot of spray which was going right on my front element. There was no way to block it and still have a field of view. My solution was to work very quickly and minimize the time in the spray. Third, the wooden surface that I was set up on was less than solid. When I moved, the camera would move. That meant that when I was ready to release the shutter, I had to remain rock steady and even hold my breath as the timer went though the 2 second countdown and released the shutter for a fraction of a second.
Desperation
With all of this, it is a wonder why I even tried to photograph this waterfall. The images still aren't knocking on the door to my all time favorite waterfall images, but it was nice to shoot it again after so long avoiding it. I did manage to get an intimate picture that is a little bit thought provoking...at least for me. I had never noticed that one of the rocks near the bottom looked like head. For what ever reason, today I saw it as just that. The large branch was situated as if to help the person being overtaken by the water. It could also be the object holding the person under the water. Sadly, when I look at this picture, I see Toni dealing with her struggles with Bipolar Disorder. The medications which are supposed to help seem to cause so many other issues, and I can see her desperation as the days go on. I've always wanted to do a photography project to illustrate Bipolar Disorder. I think that maybe this one could be part of that project.
Cascade Waves
Back to happy thoughts... After about four times here, I finally decided to continue down (or rather, up) the trail. There were more steps leading to the top of the waterfall. I'm thinking about 200 more steps give or take. I wasn't sure what was beyond High Shoals Falls, but I was sure I was going to find out today. It actually didn't take too long to get to the top. When I did, I found a couple of small cascades along the rocky surface. They weren't much, but I was here, I might as well get the camera out. I would have loved to have gotten down to the water level, but I saw plenty of signs saying not to cross the fence. These signs were a little different than the others I've seen at waterfalls. These actually had the General Statute number on them. That make it a little more serious, and I opted to follow the direction of the signs and stay on my side of the fence. Because of that, I was going to need the reach of my 70-200mm lens.
Spilling Over
I needed to get as close to the water as I could to get the angles I was after. In order to do that, I did something very similar with the tripod as I had done at the waterfall a few minutes prior. This allowed me to get much closer to the railing than I would have been able to otherwise. I started to hunt compositions, and I fired off several frames as I attempted to capture what I saw. It all came down to the angles, and incorporating the elements that found important in a way that made sense.
Liquid Fingers
Because of where I was having to shoot from, isolations turned out to be a great compositional solution. I was able to pick out the bits of cascades that I found most interesting. I also found out that the water was reflecting the colors of the rocks as well as the trees on the shore. This gave some interesting color tones to the image. Of course, it was the textures of the water that I was most interested in. When I was satisfied that I had all I needed from this location, I continued down the trail. I didn't know what else I was going to run into, but was hoping that there were more pictures to be had. Well, there really weren't. The clouds which had barely stayed in the sky were now pretty much gone. The lighting was not great at this point, and I found myself concentrating on where I was stepping since I was hiking steadily down a steep hill at this point. There would have been a few interesting things in the fog, but for the present conditions, it was just a nice hike with no reason to take the camera out. I thought about going down another trail, but the sky wasn't really looking all that great, so I decided that I would go and see about maybe photographing that tractor I had seen on the way in. I loaded everything up in the truck and started back out of the park. The tractor wasn't far from the entrance, so I started looking once I got out of the park. When I saw it, there was a guy working on a truck right beside of it. Could it be that easy? I pulled into the driveway and introduced myself to him. I explained why I was there, and found that he was very willing to let me photograph the tractor. Jackpot!
Just Tired
As it turns out, I picked a great day to be here. After seeing it in front of the shed for some time now, I was being informed that there was a buyer coming to pick the tractor up later this afternoon. With only hours to spare, I had gained permission to get up close and personal with the tractor. I noticed that there was a good bit of clutter on the ground, but I thought that it helped to tell the story of "redneck living." That was how the owner put it when he asked if I just liked photographing "redneck living." I had to laugh, because in all honesty, I guess I do. Regardless of how you label the scene though, it all worked together so well. The siding on the shed matched the oxidized paint on the tractor, and both objects had a similar accent color of red. The balance here was perfect, and quite frankly, it looked staged for the purpose of photography. I was very lucky that for the time that I was working the tractor, the clouds had covered the sun just enough to give me that all important even lighting. I can't express how lucky I was for this scene to work out when it did. Had I passed it by once again, I would have never seen it again. The conditions couldn't have been any better which made it an even sweeter victory. And the icing on the cake...an old house being held up by a tree.
Delicate Balance
Off to the side of his property was an old house that was barely standing. In fact, it was two trees that kept it from collapsing it looked like. I had seen this house from the road, but never thought it worthy enough to stop and shoot. Now that I was out with the camera, and had access to the field, I really had not reason not to photograph the old house. I'll admit, it was not the easiest of compositions. I couldn't get it from the front because the fallen covered porch ruined the flow of a composition. The tree nearly blocking the window made it difficult to get from the side, and shooting from the rear corner was an odd composition. It was my only choice though, and that was just what I did. I shot one singe frame after attempting about a dozen compositions. I figured if this wouldn't work, nothing was going to. After this, I packed the camera up and thanked the property owner before heading back down the road. I spent the next hour looking for other subjects. I saw a few potential compositions, but the light was just too harsh at this point. I will just have to come back on another day to try to get some more rural scenes in Connelly Springs, NC. The day was actually rather successful with 100 frames saved in the camera. Of those, I found 15 that were worth keeping. I really have no complaints at all from the day. The weather was good when I needed it to be, and I had great conditions with the waterfalls. It was a great day, and it was sure nice to get out and go for a nice long hike. I needed the recharge!
