Clouds (finally) at Stone Mountain

Sunday, May 27, 2018

Casualty of Spring

For the last several weeks, I have been looking for some clouds that will work for some grand landscapes.  I've been having a rough time with those as they have been too thick, too absent, or too low to really work for this purpose.  I've been waiting for them to be "juuuusssst right" as Goldilocks would say.  Well, I finally got my opportunity to capture those clouds, but it wasn't a normal trek by any stretch.  The forecast for the day was showing clouds with the possibility for storms.  The day started out pretty sunny, but that was fine as I had some things that needed to be done anyway.  When I was getting home around lunch time, the clouds were starting to form up and looked pretty promising.

I started to formulate a plan to take advantage of the clouds should they continue to form like this.  I needed to wait a few hours since the sun was still very high in the sky and providing some harsh light, too harsh to really work with for what I was wanting to do.  I was needing somewhere close that I could go where I could do some grand landscapes.  I thought about Hanging Rock, but I was very limited there.  The next obvious choice was Stone Mountain.  I've always had good luck here, and the past 6 or so times I've been here I have been down in the lower sections focusing on waterfalls and streams.

Drifting

At about 3pm, I decided to make a go of the trip and see what I would come up with.  I arrived at the park shortly after 4 which was giving me about 5 hours to work with before the park was closed.  I knew I wanted to head out to Wolf Rock and Cedar Rock where I had a pretty good understanding of the potential compositions.  The hike was about a mile and a half, and pretty much uphill the whole way.  I made it in just under 30 minutes.  My shirt was soaked from sweat.  It was about 80 degrees, but the heat index was 90. When I got up to Wolf Rock, I found the clouds I was wanting, and the sun was still behaving despite being fairly bright.  I started to look for compositions and found the angles that I wanted for the clouds.  The problem was, I had no foreground.

Well, that was an easy fix once I found a branch that had broken off of a dead tree up the hill.  I grabbed it and positioned it just so, in the foreground of my composition.  That made the difference, and it helped to accentuate the different hues of the exposed rock I was shooting from.  The exposure didn't look too difficult, so I didn't use any filters on my 16-35mm lens.  I did get the lens right above ground level to really capture the dramatic quality of the dead branch.

Gnarled Direction

The old branch worked out so well that I grabbed it and moved it to another location where I was seeing some interesting clouds forming above.  I left the wide angle lens attached and kept the camera low to the ground for this shot as well.  The clouds were quite dramatic in the sky and were just what I had been looking for over the last few weeks.  I was wishing I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but that was just too far to travel for an evening shoot.  Sometimes I have to settle for locations, and this time it was working out pretty well.

Some hikers joined me shortly after I got started which didn't really surprise me considering the amount of cars that were in the parking lot.  What did surprise me was that when I arrived at Wolf Rock, I had to the place to myself.  It was short lived, but I could deal with two hikers better than a crowd of people.  I just moved over to another section for a bit to see what else I could find to shoot.

Stone on the Mountain

I was still actively looking for foreground interest to place under the clouds.  I had left my branch, and was looking for something a little different.  I found a smooth stone that was sitting on the rocky surface.  It was slightly eroded from the runoff, and looked quite interesting to me.  I went ahead and got the camera positioned once again.  The slope of the mountain I was on provided a great deal of diagonal quality to the composition which provided a lot of visual tension to the image.  The clouds above completed the look I was after.  The little stream that ran past the stone made a nice lower frame for the image as well.

I started to look around for other things that I could use as a foreground interest.  Typically, I would look for trees, but I wasn't really wanting to do the same things with this set of images.  I wanted more emphasis on the sky, and didn't really want a lot intruding into the clouds.  What I found next was pretty nice, and was only possible from the recent rains that we have had.  I found a puddle, but not just any puddle.  This one had moss growing on the side of it.  How cool is that?

Into the Looking Glass

The little bit of moss really linked the foreground with the rolling hills resplendent in their spring hues.  I again set the camera up without any filters, using my 16-35mm lens.  I started working on compositions.  The clouds dictated the directions that I shot in, but I also wanted to make sure that I got some of the mountain detail in the midground as well.  I found that the vertical compositions tended to be a little more dramatic, while the horizontal ones leaned more to the calm end of the spectrum.

Gathering Moss

After an hour or so shooting on Wolf Rock, I realized that I had not only been shooting exclusively with my 16-35mm lens, I was using it racked out to 16mm probably 90% of the time.  In fact, the pictures that I have posted so far (exception of the pano) were all at 16mm.  This was surprising since for many years, I would avoid much wider than 35mm because I was afraid that the mountains in the background would be diminished.  They were less impressive at the wide angle, but I was really liking the drama of the foreground that I was able to include, not to mention the expanse of sky that I captured.  I'm liking my newfound techniques using wider angles than I have previously.  It is opening up a lot of possibilities for me.  I was thinking about using my 14mm while I was here, but the way the sun was, I was worried that I would get a lot of ghosting on the lens, and would possibly end up including the sun which would blow part of the sky out.  I decided that I would save that for another situation.

It was time to move on anyway, I wanted to check out Cedar Rock to see how the clouds looked on that side.  I also couldn't remember how long the hike was to get there.  Turns out, it was only 5 minutes down the trail, so that was no big deal at all.  I made my way to the top and moved around to see Stone Mountain.  I worked my way in close and stood on a very steep part of the slope.  I knew that if I dropped anything, like a lens cap, it would be gone forever as I couldn't even move quickly for fear of losing balance and tumbling myself.

Drama Above

As I was looking at the situation unfolding in front of me, I decided that now would be a good time for the Rokinon 14mm lens.  I had a great sky that I wanted to include, some great leading lines in the foreground, and I was close enough to Stone Mountain so that it wouldn't just shrink into oblivion.  I set the camera up and started to compose the picture.  The lines were looking fantastic, and the clouds were appearing to capture the mood I was after.  I shot the image as a color piece, but after looking at it on the computer, I thought that the true rendition should be monochrome to take full advantage of the lines and clouds.  I massaged the tones and their relationships until it looked as I had envisioned it.  There was gobs of texture to be had in this piece, and it really turned out pretty good.  It was much better than the color version, so I ditched the color completely and kept only the monochrome.

Distant Bald

That wasn't to say that I had no interest in a color image of Stone Mountain.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  After I got done with my 14mm lens, I decided to fit the 24-70mm lens, again with no filters.  I started to compose images that paid more attention to the bald, but found that I was still on the wide end of things with this one being a 24mm shot.  The clouds were really starting to come in, which made for some dramatic skies, but it also brought with it some rain.  There was a pretty good drizzle happening as I shot the next round of pictures.

I could hear thunder in the distance, and was starting to wonder if I was going to get caught out in the rain since I had about a half hour hike ahead of me to get back to the car.  I decided to risk it and stick around shooting pictures.  I had a poncho, and other wet weather gear for the camera.  I did decide to get off of the slope I was on just in case a downpour happened.  I knew that this surface would be very slick when wet and I wanted no part of that at all.  I moved back to the other side of the trail and found a nice clump of greenery.

Clouded Vista

I found an angle where I could make use of this bit of vegetation while still including the sky which was looking fantastic now.  There was a bank of clouds that looked just like snow covered mountains in the distance.  The hints of blue in the sky were wonderful, and I got down low and started to make compositions to capture it all.  I tried both vertical and horizontal compositions and as I had found earlier, they both ended up with a distinctly different feel.  Even though I was using my 24-70mm lens, I was still at the 24mm end of the zoom for these as well.  I probably should have swapped in my 16-35mm lens, but I was still using a good bit of the range of this lens.  It just so happened that the images I liked the best were from the wide side.

Calming

As the sky faded a bit in that direction, I moved back over to the Stone Mountain section and started to work other compositions.  Nothing was working, but the sky was looking pretty good on that side now.  I wanted to do a panorama of Stone Mountain, so I quickly swapped over to my 70-200mm lens which is a great one for panoramas.  I got into position, and defined my boundaries.  I then set the focus of the lens.  From there, I dialed in an exposure that would capture all of the information from the entire sweep.  I then shot a seven frame series from left to right.  I didn't know how it would turn out, but the histogram said that I had all of the information that I needed for the final image.  I left it at that, and did not reshoot the panorama.  I think it turned out pretty good though, as it is my opening image for this entry.

There might be a little confusion about the title to this one, so I will clear it up.  I called this Casualty of Spring because one of the elements that my eyes are drawn to is the fallen tree in the midground.  It is orange, and you can tell that it recently died since it still has leaves on it.  The trunk is shattered and completely charred.  It was hit by lightning, undoubtedly from one of our recent storms.  With the stormy sky above, I thought that would be a fitting name for the image.

At this point, the light was fading, but instead of going to another location for another 30-45 minutes, I decided to move on down the trail to get to the car.  I was wanting to get home, and if I played my cards right, I would make it home before everyone started to go to sleep.

In the course of my 3 hours, covering two sections of the trail, I had shot 117 frames.  The culling process was difficult because I really liked each and every one of the images.  However, I had to cut images that were similar to others, and that meant that about 10 that I wanted to keep were thrown in the bin as they were similar, but not quite as good as another one.  My one black and white image started life out in the bin as a third round cut, but when I came back evaluating black and white images, it made a comeback.  In all, I came away with 10 images that I am reasonably happy with.  It was a quick trek, but a pretty good one.  I hiked a bit over three miles and had a really good time out in nature.

Stone and Iron

Saturday, March 24, 2018

The Skull Behind the Water

I'm going to start out by saying, I am really starting to hate the weather this year.  It seems that every weekend I'm faced with rain, snow, or blazing sun...sometimes on the same day.  It is forcing me to get creative and venture out on very rainy days when normally I would stay home.  This weekend, was looking to be a little better than most with mostly cloudy skies for the first part of the day on Saturday, followed by rain, turning into snow, and eventually accumulating to an inch or so.  Sunday was looking like a mess potentially so I made the decision to go out early on Saturday and do some photography.

I checked out the sunrise forecaster and saw that there was a moderate chance that I would get to see some color in the sky at dawn.  That meant that I might as well wake up early and try to shoot a sunrise.  The question was, where to go?  I had been thinking about going to Stone Mountain after all of the rain that we have had to work on Widow's Creek Falls again.  This is one of my favorite waterfalls to go to because of its character.  The clouds would be great for that, and according to the forecast, the rain/snow would not start until about 3pm.  That would give me plenty of time to walk along Bullhead Creek and Widow's Creek from the lower trail head.  As far as sunrise, I thought that I would try to shoot it using a barn that I've seen several times in Yadkin County which was on the way to Stone Mountain.

Rock and a Soft Place

I woke up with Toni at 4am and checked the weather.  The sunrise was looking less promising, but the clouds were still good and the rain was still scheduled for around 3pm.  I decided that my plan was still a go, so I rolled back over and slept for a bit longer since I didn't need to leave until about 5:45 to get to the barn for sunrise.  Once I got up I was pretty excited about the prospect of the day.  I had a couple of good destinations in mind, and was looking to shoot things that I had not shot before.

I was making great time down the highway, and actually got to the barn a little earlier than I had planned.  I started to scope out the scene to see how the sun would be in relation to the barn.  My estimations were a little off unfortunately, and the angles that I had thought were not going to work.  To make matters worse, I was going to have to include a very large power pole in the composition that I did not really want there.  I still had time to get to another potential location in Traphill where I could shoot a sunrise.  I got back on the highway and continued on.

Splash Down

As I was heading up 77, I was looking to my right for any indication that there might be a decent sunrise. It really didn't look promising at all.  It appeared to be much too cloudy for any color to develop.  Based on my time, if I skipped the sunrise, I would make it to the park right at 7 when they opened the gates.  The way I saw it, I couldn't lose.  When I arrived at the field where I was thinking about shooting the sunrise, the sky was getting brighter, but wasn't showing any color at all.  I didn't even break stride as I drove by destined for Stone Mountain.

I got there just as the park was opening up.  In fact, I had to wait at two gates for Rangers to open them up.  I arrived at the lower trail head and checked the sky once again.  It was just gray, and it was about 5 minutes away from sunrise.  I could have hoofed it over to the meadow that I like to photograph so much, but I really didn't think that it was worth the jog.  I was also noticing that it was flurrying which probably meant that the clouds were a little too thick for any decent color.  I grabbed my gear and started to walk down the main road which parallels the two creeks I wanted to work with.

Ordered Confusion

The first stop on my walk was a picnic area that I had never visited.  It was right along a section of the Bullhead Creek and I could hear rapids. Sure enough, there was a nice little water feature within easy reach.  I grabbed my camera and fitted the 24-70mm lens with the Singh-Ray Color Combo Polarizer and started to find my compositions.  The sun was still very low and the light was quite dim.  That allowed me to shoot at 20-30 seconds of exposure.  That is a little longer than I really like, but for the mood I was going for, it was perfect.

As I was shooting, the snow was falling a little more heavy now, and I was pretty sure that the forecast was wrong about the starting time.  I happened to look up at the sky a little while after sunrise.  There was a pale pink hue in the clouds.  It wasn't anything that I would have been interested in photographing so I was pretty happy with my choice of getting my feet wet.

There was a little water slide below where I was shooting that I went over to investigate.  There was a small bit of white water, but more interesting was a flat rock that was propped in the creek bed in a diagonal fashion.  I also saw a tree with a rather complex trunk system that caught my eye.  I went ahead and started to work that scene out.  The rock paired nicely with the white water coming off of the slope.  The two really framed the tree quite nicely.

Sifting Gold

When I was done at the picnic area, I kept the camera built and continued down the road to another section of the Bullhead Creek.  I found a point of interest and started to shoot some compositions.  I wasn't liking what I was getting and I decided to swap out my lens for the longer 70-200mm so I could shoot some isolations.  This worked out better, but when I got home I decided that none of them really stood out as something special.  Ultimately, they got trashed.  I did continue on to the next creek which was Widow's Creek, near the waterfall that has the same name.  I had photographed this section many years ago, and have yet to find it with enough water to make it truly interesting since.  This time was a bit different.

There was a nice row of rocks stretching from coast to coast that I was able to work some compositions out with.  I kept my 70-200mm lens attached, and tried to keep it angled down since it was snowing pretty good now.  With the Polarizer attached, I was unable to use the lens hood, so keeping the camera pointed down was the easiest thing to do.  Fortunately, I found so many great things to work with in this section.

Getting Ahead

What I found so interesting about these rocks was the rich colors that they had.  The snow and rain falling kept them all glistening wet so that the tones were all nice and even.  I was able to shoot quite a few isolations with the moving water.  This was when I really felt like things were going my way.  The snow had changed over to rain, and it was slacking off a bit.  I knew that this was my opportunity to get over to the waterfall and start working it for a while before wet stuff started to fall once again.

Widow's Swirl

I had high hopes for this, and as I got close I could tell that the water was flowing very nicely.  Unfortunately, it was also starting to flow from the sky as well.  The rain had picked up again.  I went ahead and fitted my 24-70mm lens as it has the lens hood to best protect the front element from rain.  It is also the most versatile lens I have when it comes to waterfalls.  I had wanted to use my 16-35mm, but the hood was too shallow and I was sure to get water drops on the front element.  With my Color Combo Polarizer attached, I started to look for compositions.  There were two branches in the way of the shots that I wanted to take, so my first task was to work my way close to the waterfall in order to remove the limbs.  I think that the water was deeper than I thought because my feet actually started to get wet in my boots...but the limbs were cleared out of the way quick enough.

While I was up close to the waterfall, I decided to get a shot.  I found a swirl forming in what would become my foreground.  The amount of water sliding down the rock face was pretty impressive for this waterfall.  Short of floods, this was the most I've seen here, and I liked it.  I was having a very hard time keeping the glass dry though.  I was using my hat to cover the element, but with the ballhead dripping wet, the camera was hard to fine tune with one hand.  I decided to give up on this location and move under some trees in the hopes that I would be shielded from the rain a little.

The Stage

From this point, I was a little better able to keep the glass clear.  I was in familiar shooting grounds from here and knew the compositions that worked.  I made little adjustments to get the waterfall positioned just where I wanted it to go in relation to the runoff cascades downstream.  Something I've always loved about this waterfall is the small little scoop on the rock face to the left.  I was not happy to see that somebody had come and scratched graffiti onto the rock around this hole.  It really detracted from the scene, and was enough reason to allow me to do a little cloning to get the evidence gone.

It seems that more and more, these places of natural beauty are becoming targets of vandals.  Sure, they are doing it in good fun.  I've carved initials in benches before as a young man, so I'm not alien to the concepts of why it is done.  However, putting initials and messages right next to a waterfall is something else entirely.  I've seen it at several different falls over the years and it really ruins the beauty for the rest of us.  I do wish that there was a way to stop this from happening, but it is just too easy to be unwatched at these places.

On the Ledge

I'll get off of my stump now, and get back to the photography.  I was having fun with this waterfall, but the rain was now very steady, and myself and my camera were dripping wet.  I had even put the rain cover on my Lowepro bag, and had started to utilize the rain cover for the camera.  My problem was keeping the front element clear, and the rain was starting to soften the images I was shooting.  It was time to pack it in and give up for the day.  I had been rained or snowed on since I had gotten to the park, and it was getting a little old.

I packed up the camera and started the mile walk back to where the truck was.  There were a couple of places that I wanted to shoot on the way back when the sun was a little higher, but with the rain falling like it was that wasn't possible.  The closer I got to the truck, the more the rain was starting to become snow.  It was pretty, but it was also about five hours early according to the forecast.

Woodland Lean

I was getting pretty close to the truck, but happened to look over to the right.  There was a bare tree set away from the background.  It really stuck out because of the color of the bark, so I thought about how I could shoot it.  The snow was falling pretty heavy at this point, so I was going to need a lens hood to cover the element. For this composition, the 70-200mm lens was best suited, and it had a very deep hood.  The trade off was that I wasn't able to use a filter since my filters are a slightly bigger size than the diameter of this lens.  Well, I could do this shot without a polarizer well enough, so I fitted the long lens and worked on putting the composition together.

With a narrow depth of field, I was able to focus only on the tree and not the background.  This turned out pretty good, and the colors all complemented each other.  I only got three shots before the snow turned back to rain again.  With a fairly short shutter speed, you can actually see the snow streaking across the image.  It doesn't really show up in the low res web version though.

With that tree completed, I finished the walk back to the truck and tossed the soaking wet equipment in the back and hopped in the front seat.  I was cold and wet, but thought that I had a pretty good amount of shots for the morning.  I had just under 100 frames shot in the three hours that I was at the park, but I didn't feel like I was finished with the day.  I still wanted to shoot more, but the rain was telling me otherwise.

I did know that Winston was supposed to get the weather much later than the mountains so I decided to take the scenic route home and try to get in front of the heavy rain.  I waited until I got into Yadkin County and saw that the rain was almost non-existent.  That was where I branched off of the highway and went through Yadkinville.

The Builder's Toys

I'm one of the best people I know when it comes to getting lost in the country.  I have no idea where I was when I came across what looked to be a car grave yard of sorts.  Wait, no....that's not a grave yard.  Those are rat rods on the property.  OK, that is cool, and it wasn't raining more than a drizzle.  I got turned around and pulled off of the road.  There was a house, a workshop, and a long driveway leading to another house that all looked like it was connected to this property.  I could have gone and knocked on some doors, but I was rushing the weather.  I opted to get what I could from the road to save time.  This was a really cool property to find!

Fire Prevention

In addition to the rat rods, there was a really nice fire truck parked next to a barn that caught my eye.  Both of these scenes were within reach of my 70-200mm lens which I pulled out of the bag.  It was still rather damp from Stone Mountain, but functioned perfectly.  I didn't use any filters because it was raining enough that I needed some sort of covering on the lead element.  I got into the best positions that I could in order to capture the scenes in front of me.  The rat rods were simple and straightforward to shoot.  The fire truck was a little more complicated due to its position.  Ultimately, I decided to create a panorama to include the barn as well.  I shot a series of 6 shots which were later stitched together in Lightroom.

Firewood

I then pulled two of the images back out and stitched them together once again to create a single image of the truck by itself.  That is the nice thing about panoramas, they have so much image data that you can crop them all sorts of ways and maintain a very large file to print from.  The tree behind the truck was very interesting on its own, but seemed to work well to highlight the firetruck.

When I was done with the panorama, I heard somebody coming out of the shop.  I was expecting the typical "What are you doing," followed by "Get the hell off my property!" routine.  Instead I was greeted by a very nice man who invited me to come on in closer to photograph what I wanted.  This was a nice turn of events, and seems to be the case with folks in Yadkin County.  I chatted with him briefly, and found out that he built rat rods using the cars that were on the property.  He had been doing it for about eight years now, and had completed 38 builds, some of which were shipped out of the country to clients.

I went back to the truck and swapped out my long lens for my 24-70mm and a polarizer.  I was so excited that I forgot to put in a new battery which was getting depleted quickly at this point.  I was like a kid in a candy store, the only problem being which car to shoot first.

Furrowed Brow

The first subject to be placed in front of the lens was this Oldsmobile.  It was in sad shape, and there was a lot of clutter behind it as well.  The patina on the door and quarter more than made up for the extra clutter.  There was a large dent in the fender and the hood was bent from rusty springs it appeared.  It all worked together to remind me of a person with a quizzical look and squinting one eye.  Yeah, this car had personality for sure.  I still thought that the best part was the quarter and door.  When I realized that both of the windows were shattered, I really became interested in the side of the car.

Shattered Dreams

I decided that this needed an abstract approach, and I framed it up capturing both windows as well as the strong diagonal between the white and the black with the chrome molding.  This image was something special thanks to the way that the glass looked.  I could not have asked for any better with this car.  But I could have asked for better from my camera which was now on fumes.  The battery light was red and blinking at me now.  I only had one option, to go back to the truck and grab another battery.

Lacking Motivation

As the rain was starting to fall a little harder, I went where I could find some shelter.  That shelter happened to be right next to a Chevy truck cab.  I figured I would work on a composition with this old truck for a while.  There was a lot missing, but it sure did have a lot of character to it.  The part that really caught my eye was the grill.  It wasn't a flashy grill, and actually seemed rather unimpressive, but the design of it begged for something.  It just took me a few minutes to figure it out.

Bowtie Grill

What the grill was begging for was an isolation that captured the different directions of the slats as well as the Chevy emblem.  The moss at the top made for a great color balancing element, and the repeating shapes were absolutely awesome.  If you look close enough, you can also see where the engine should be, but instead it is just vegetation.  That adds to the mystery of what you are looking at until you have time to study it.  This is actually one of my favorite images from this location.  It is just cool the way it all plays out.

The rain started to ease up once again, and I started to make my way around the property again.  I had been looking at an old GMC truck for a while and decided that I would go and give it a closer look now.  It was in a row of four trucks, and the one next to it was pretty interesting as well.  I tried a group composition and reduced it to just the two.  None of them seemed to work out the way I really wanted them to.

Lucky Eights

What I ended up doing was shooting from the other side of the truck and capturing the moss on the side.  It was a pretty straightforward shot and wasn't all that spectacular, but I did like how the truck looked in the rain.  It was also odd to see an inspection sticker with eights all the way across.  it was a fun little picture to make, but what I found on the truck next to it overshadowed this image quite easily.  The truck was pretty cool, but the different layers of paint were all peeling which made for a very interesting abstract opportunity.

Sad State

As I started to look at the different patters I could shoot, I started to see where the rain was dripping down the side of the truck.  It almost looked as though it was crying.  On this section, there was a bit of blue which helped to balance out the red and green.  The rainy tears were at different stages, but I was able to capture one as it was actively moving down the side.  That was just what I was after.  I had texture, color, detail, and emotion.  This was a very cool shot, and I managed to get it in one exposure.

Now I was really looking for color having found this treasure trove of hues.  My next subject was about 50 feet from where I was standing.  It was an old Chevrolet tucked away in the weeds.  I did notice that the trees were blooming behind the truck, and the blooms were a perfect pink.  There were also burnt orange blooms mixed in which made for the perfect backdrop for this truck.

Spring in Your Step

When I got in position to shoot the scene, I noticed that the fender was mostly blue which made for a perfect complimenting color to the pinks and oranges in the trees.  While the color is not quite as brilliant as the previous picture, I have to say that this is one of my favorite images from the day.  I've found that I really enjoy photographing these derelict vehicles in Spring with all the vibrant colors and new life.  The dichotomy is just too perfect.

I shot a few different exposures of this old truck, but with the rain really staring to come down, I decided that it was time to get a few more subjects under my belt before I lost the opportunity.  I went back over to the rat rod side and started to look at the one completed rod situated in front of the barn.  I had a lot of issues with exposure on this one since I was going to have to include the sky.  I decided to get in close and skew the perspective to compliment the feel of the rat rod.

Outlaw Fire

This thing was a work of art.  The stretched nose on it, with the wrapped fire hose in front of the grill was just beyond awesome.  It came fully equipped with lights and a siren it appeared, and I'm sure it could get to a fire in a hurry.  The gentleman that owned the shot really knows what he is doing.  I was able to capture the wide range of exposure with a single capture even though I was prepared to shoot an HDR image in order to capture the wide range.  When I got done processing it, I think it has jumped to the top of my list as my favorite image from the day.  The splashes of red, the patina, and the overall look of this rig were such a fantastic combination.  It has actually sparked an interest in rat rods that wasn't aware I had on that level.  I could see me driving one, and I could sure see me photographing more of them.

Brake Time

I puttered around on that side of the yard for a bit.  I found a few isolations to shoot, and started looking for things that I could come back and photograph at a different time.  There is really no end to the possibilities out here, and I see myself coming back many more times.  I wouldn't even be opposed to shooting marketing photos of his work.  I swear...the things that I find when I go out and get lost!

The rain was getting worse and worse now, and I decided that it was time to break stuff down and get back in the truck.  As I was walking back to the truck, I went past the big white firetruck that had caught my attention earlier.  I decided to give it another try with a different composition.  I got myself positioned so that I had a minimum of distraction in the background and made the exposure.

Kirkersville Pumper

At this distance I didn't have the tree in all of its splendor behind the truck, but I was able to get a bit more detail rendered here.  This is one of Mr Cornelius' next projects and I can't wait to see what he does with it.  He's got a bagged Cadillac in the back of the shop that was under a tarp that I would love to see more of as well.  As I said, I have plans on returning to this location, and I hope to get the opportunity to photograph more of his projects in different locations.  For today, however, my time was finished.  The rain was now very heavy and it was getting difficult to stay dry.  I packed it in, with a total of 157 frames shot for the day.  Of those, these 23 stood out from the crowd and made the cut.

I'll have to see where I can wedge a few into the gallery tomorrow as it is getting late right now.  While I love coming back with so many pictures from a trek, it does take a bunch of time to do all that needs to be done with them.  Until next time...

A Rural Exploration

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Farmhouse Sunrise

Winter is one of those weird times of year for photographers.  Personally, I really enjoy it, and have always been able to get out and get some really good images this time of year.  However, it takes a little bit of time for me to calibrate to the season after so many months of having color on the landscape.  I typically shift from doing landscapes to capturing more rural scenes which bring their own colors and textures.  With Fall winding down, I am still in the frame of mind to work landscapes though.  That was the original plan for the day when I was looking at the weather forecast.  I was looking forward to increasing clouds through the day, and I figured that I could head back to Stone Mountain and go up to the higher elevations to work some scenes there.

I also happened to check out the sunrise forecast and found that pretty much all of NC was going to see a potentially colorful sunrise.  Since Stone Mountain would be closed until after sunrise, I wasn't going to be able to do anything there, but I wanted to find a good place to take advantage of the colors of morning.  My first thought was Salem Lake, but having just done a really spectacular image there, I opted not to revisit that same location just yet.  My second idea was an old feed mill in Yadkin County which has changed a good bit over the last year with both booms coming down.  I have tried to photograph that building under the morning sky several times, but haven't quite gotten it right.  I figured it was on the way to Stone Mountain, so this would be the morning I would give it a try.

I woke up around 5am and was on the road a little before 6am.  That gave me plenty of time to get to the mill and find my composition before first light.  When I got there, the sky was already starting to show some colors and I was getting really excited.  There was a problem though...actually two of them.  First of all, it appeared as though they had plowed the field that the building was in.  That would make it hard to get into position, and I really didn't care for that as a foreground.  The second problem I was seeing was there was a tractor trailer pulled down to the cul de sac with the driver apparently asleep in the cab.  Anywhere I parked would put me in his way, and had a great potential of getting my truck hit.  Since the scene wasn't as I was hoping for, and the tractor trailer was causing problems, I opted to abandon my first stop on this photo tour.

Amber Skies

It was still too early to continue on to Stone Mountain, and the sky was looking incredible.  I decided to drive off blind and try to find something interesting to put under the sky.  It seeks I'm always chasing something to give context to the sky when I am out with the camera.  I was well into rural Yadkin County, so I knew that there would be trees and barns that might work for me.  I drove around in the dark, paying attention to where the light was in relation to the ground features.  The more I drove, the more I started to think that this was going to be a lost cause.  I was happy that I was witnessing one of the prettier sunrises I've seen in some time at least.  

At that point where I was about to throw in the towel, I saw a very interesting tree on the correct side of the road.  As I got closer, I could seen an old farmhouse sitting between two trees.  It was position absolutely perfect to give attention to the sunrise.  I quickly pulled off the road and grabbed my gear.  I evaluated the scene quickly and determined that the proper lens would be my 24-70mm with no filters attached.  I got right up on the fence line (as close as I could get to the house) and started to compose my images.

I started off including all of the elements I had seen with the two trees and the house.  The exposure was pretty straightforward and I did not need any grad filters as the sky was the predominant feature.  Once I had a few frames that I liked from that composition, I moved over to the more interesting of the two trees and composed one just of the sky, anchored by the single tree.  As I was reviewing the images in the LCD, I was pretty sure that I was going to like this composition much better than the one that I had shot previously.  As it turns out though, I like them both equally as well.  The sky was phenomenal to say the least.

As the sky brightened, the colors faded away, and I found no reason to stay at this location.  I had seen an old truck about a mile back on the road and figured that I would try to shoot that as the sun got high enough to light it up.  I packed the camera up, and went a little further down the road to see what I could see.  I found a lot of interesting subjects, but none of them were striking me as picture worthy this morning.  After a few miles, I turned around and went back to the truck I had seen in the dark.

You know the problem with scouting subjects in the dark?  You can't see all that is around them.  That was a fatal flaw with this truck.  There were houses much too close to the truck, and no appropriate backdrop to use.  I looked it over briefly, but found nothing that I wanted to work with at this particular time.  But my mind was pretty much set at this point.  I was wanting to work rural scenes rather than landscapes.  I was getting my Winter groove back kind of early this year.

Weather Beaten

I continued to drive around looking to see what I could find.  The sky was interesting in some directions, and less so in others.  The lighting was pretty uniform, so I was able to shoot in any direction, but to include the sky would be a little more difficult.  I came across a group of old barns that caught my eye.  The lighting was fine, but the clouds didn't have a whole lot of definition to them.  They had a little bit, but I wasn't sure if I could successfully bring it out in the editing process.  It was a nice enough scene to give it a try at least.

I pulled over, and pulled out the camera.  I staring at a big sign that said "No Trespassing" so, I wasn't going to be able to get close to the barns unfortunately.  I grabbed my 70-200mm lens and left the front element bare with no additional filters.  I set up right on the property line still on the easement.  I found that 125mm would capture the group of barns nicely, along with the trees, and some sky.  I played around with my exposure a little bit in order to eek out as much detail in the sky as I possibly could.  There was not a lot of exposure latitude to deal with, so I knew that I would be adding some contrast in post.

Since I didn't have many composition options from my position, I didn't stay here long at all.  I wasn't sure how this would turn out, but I was at least getting in the frame of mind to work rural settings again.  I was fine doing this instead of going to Stone Mountain to shoot landscapes.  The sky was iffy as to how it was wanting to behave, and I could tell that there was very little color to be had on the landscape.

I continued driving around for another 30-45 minutes before deciding that I might as well go and do a little hiking and try for some landscapes.  My rural adventure was drying up.  I went on to Stone Mountain just a couple hours later than I had planned on.  The park was nearly empty which was great after a full season of elbow to elbow hikers.  The sky was looking decent, so I decided that I would go high and shoot some landscapes from the summit.  I started out the hike, and went on the loop trail which should have taken me right where I wanted to go.  Unfortunately though, the trail was still closed due to damage.  My only other option was to head out to Wolf Rock which I have done far too often this year.  I ended up hiking back to the truck deciding to scrub hiking on the agenda.  In fact, I might as well go home at this point huh?

Ford Coupe

Just because I was headed home didn't mean that I couldn't take the long way.  I decided to go the rest of the way through the park and exit on the back side.  That would put me in an area that I had scouted back in January with Toni.  I knew that there were some nice subjects out that way.  One in particular that I was interested in was a house that had several old cars in the yard.  I had returned there once over the previous Winter to ask permission to enter the property, but nobody was there.  This time, I saw smoke coming from the chimney, and a car warming up in the driveway.  Might as well ask...

Well, the owner was home and had absolutely no problem with me working around his property photographing his cars.  I was excited about this!  I pulled the truck out of the way along the road and grabbed my gear.  I opted for my 24-70mm lens once again, and added my Singh Ray Color Combo Polarizer to help punch up the colors a bit.  The first car I worked was a 40's Ford Coupe that was nearly complete.  It was sitting next to an embankment that made for a great backdrop.  I just had to be a little careful with the clutter that was around the car.

Organic Ford

Before I moved on from this car, I decided to give the front emblem a little bit of attention.  This was different than most of the bling that I have been photographing recently.  The way it fit on the grill, and the lines created by the grill, hood, and fenders really worked together for an interesting automotive abstract shot.  That was how I framed the image in the camera.  I put the Ford logo in the most dominant position and let the rest of the line work around that part of the composition.  It made for a very interesting picture, and the textures of the moss and rust really added to the artistic quality of the image.

Blemished Script

Speaking of emblems, there was an old Ford pickup nearby that wasn't all that great for photography, but it did have a nice color paint on it.  The tailgate had a wonderful stamped Ford logo on it that was painted white.  It was a simple composition, but the fact that there was a huge section of rust at the bottom of the "F", I had no choice but to capture the image.  It wasn't quite the same as a chrome emblem, but the white script really stood out against the light blue paint.

The Gutless Crew

I should have counted how many cars this man had on his property.  Everywhere I looked, there were cars, trucks, and jeeps.  Most of them were just the shells and not much else.  Some still had enough character to photograph though.  The trick was isolating them from each other.  Sometimes that couldn't happen, so I had to include several of them at once.  The fact that the backdrop was a nice woodline was a huge bonus.  I would love to know the stories behind these vehicles.  That would have been the icing on the cake!

Chrome Scallop

There were more times than not where I wasn't able to capture the whole car, whether because of clutter, or simply because there wasn't enough of the car to capture.  When I ran into those situations, I would go in for the intimate study on some of the lines of the cars.  Most of the chrome had been stripped off of the cars, but occasionally I got lucky and found some bling to work with.  There is just something about the style and the lines of the automotive decorations from this era.  Add to that the patina, and pine needles, and you have a very interesting picture!

Slowing With Age

There were times that most of the vehicle was gone, and there were no embellishments left on the remaining shells.  Occasionally, I would luck out and there would be some parts of the dash remaining.  I found one that had an intact instrument cluster and a missing door.  The one remaining window was right above the cluster, and there was a nice spider web on the dash.  That made for a fun little composition to change things up a little bit.  It struck me as funny that the odometer could be seen clear as could be, while the speedometer was almost unreadable.  I doubt that either works any more though.

Fastback

There was a great Ford fastback from the mid 60's  sitting there.  It didn't have a front clip, but it did have the chrome gills on the oversized "C-pillar" which really grabbed my attention.  The patina around them was awesome and the swooping lines of the quarter window really fit with the flow.  The lines of the fastback, as well as the body line on the quarter really added a lot of visual interest as well.  I spent some time working on this element as I included it in several compositions.

Chrome Gills

When it came to rust, I think that this Ford had the other beat.  There was just enough paint left to really make the rust pop off of the metal.  The chrome really stood out as well.  Compositionally, this car made for some fine photographs with the lines.  Pure art from Ford back in the day.  I really wish that the car had been a little more complete though.

Speaking of complete cars, there was a Four door Bel Air that was in really good shape and was mostly complete.  The paint was even in pretty good shape, although you could tell that it had been parked for a few years now.  I tried several different compositions with it, but the paint was just too good, and the front was in the shadows.  I was about to hang it up for this car when I got the idea to work on the hood ornament.  While I was putting the composition together, I noticed something really cool.  The shadows on the hood made for a very distinct division of tones, and the lower hood emblem was still picking up the light on the top edge.  This was looking rather interesting to say the least.

Aqua Abyss

It is no surprise that I really like working with emblems on old cars.  Part of that is the emblems are usually set off by a wonderful patina.  Not in this case though.  Like I said, the paint was actually in pretty good shape, and there was no patina to speak of on the hood.  I photographed this one with the full intention of really massaging it in Lightroom to take full advantage of the contrast that the sun was already providing.  I wanted to keep the lower emblem in the shadows except for the top edge.  The focal point was going to be the plane, and I wanted to gorgeous paint to melt around these elements.  This wasn't going to be a grungy rendition showing the rust, but a pure abstract that makes you think of something else entirely.

The more I played with this image, the more I liked it.  The cool tones were very relaxing to me.  The simple composition was striking, and the editing that I did seemed to really accentuate the elements that I was wanting it to.  I think that this is probably my favorite image of the day, and I've got at least one other vote in that direction from my daughter Lexi.

Eager For More

One thing that I haven't photographed much has been old Jeeps.  There were several on this property, and they were in varying degrees of condition.  One of them on the front of the house was pretty complete, but was surrounded by a lot of clutter.  The only way to really get this one was to shoot an isolation.  I started out just with the grill, and then added the right headlight.  However, I decided that I wanted to try to go at an angle to include the fronds of a tree next to fender for a bit of context.  The predominant grill was still the focal point, but the headlight brings your attention to the tree so you immediately get the feel that this is an offroad vehicle.  It is a little different than my normal compositions, but I'm enjoying thinking outside of the box these days.

Work in Progress

Before packing it up, I went around the house one last time and found a semi enclosed garage that housed the project vehicle.  Of course the lines of this car caught my eye as I've always been a fan of the 40's coupe designs.  An odd element that I liked was the skylights above.  They gave not only some visual interest, but helped provide a leading line into the photograph.  I would have loved it if the trash barrel was moved, but ultimately, everything here tells a story.  As my last set here on this property, I was going to tell the story of why there were so many cars on the property.

Hotrod Shop

It was a complex story, and scene to photograph.  I figured that in order to really put it all together, I could shoot this as either a portrait or a landscape.  When I got home, I liked them both equally as well, for different reasons.  I even liked the "Private Property" sign (mainly cause I had permission to be there) on the wall.  Everything here was telling a story, and that is my job as the photographer...to tell the story.

After a year, I had finally gotten the ability to return to this location and shoot so many of the cars.  It wasn't the landscapes that I had gone out looking for, but for that matter, my sunrise wasn't the scene that I had planned.  In fact, nothing about today had gone to plan, but in the end, the result was so much better than what I expected.  This will be a fun Winter I believe!

At the end of the day, I had shot 90 images.  I decided that 15 of them were worth keeping, and I had another handful that I liked, but they weren't quite special enough to process.  It was a spectacular day, even though I had my doubts at every step.