Monday, June 1, 2026
Yep, this is getting to be a habit at this point. After a good bit of time without any word from me, I’ve been posting regularly for the last week I believe. It all started with a trek to photograph an old Honda at the end of May. That day ended up back in North Wilkesboro working with a group of really nice subjects. As if that wasn’t enough, I slid in the latest Behind the Camera where I talked about difference between how you shoot something and what you shoot. While the digital ink wasn’t even dry on those blog entries, I was out on an unexpected trek to the North after seeing a VW Bug that I wanted to photograph. Right after working that car, I went to a barn that was also in Ashe County to spend a bit of time which was where we last left off. That brings us to this part of the series which has its own title rather than a chapter or part in the series.
It seemed logical to me to do it this way because this part of the trek was in a different county and was yet again a different kind of subject from the car and barn that I had been working with earlier. There were actually two different houses that I was looking to capture with this part of the day. The weather was still holding, and the light was just like I liked it. I knew that the last two locations that I was going to want to shoot each had their own hurdles that I was going to have to work through. Ironically, the hurdles were the exact opposites between each house.
The first house that I was looking to photograph was one that Toni had suggested to me based on a conversation with a coworker that she had had recently. I knew the house but couldn’t remember why I hadn’t photographed it before. Having seen it on my drive earlier in the day, I remembered all of the issues that the house and the location presented. The biggest issue was that there were a lot of trees around the house which kept me from getting a clear view of it. The trees were also blocking the important parts of the house from view. I could maybe work around that by getting in closer, but the property was heavily marked with signs indicating that they didn’t want anyone on the property. The house was close to the road and that made it more difficult to work with because I was limited in being able to include it in a grander view of the landscape.
The other house was a bit further down the road and is one that I had photographed before. This one was out in the open, but it was only viewable from a bridge between some trees. It was quite a distance from the road and there was really no clear access to be able to get closer than the bridge. Judging from the fence around the property, they didn’t want anyone getting close to it either. This one had to be photographed from a distance, but it would have been better from a closer vantage point.
Anyway, it was the house from Toni’s tip which is where I wanted to start out at this point. When I arrived, I pulled into the driveway facing one of the many signs and tried to figure out a way that I could shoot it from the street. There was just no good way to do that and have a decent composition. The light was good, but the subject was largely obscured. Without a killer composition, this was just not going to be a good photo at all. No matter what I came up with, I just didn’t like how it was looking in my mind. If I could have accessed the property a little deeper, I might have been able to work around some of the issues, but even that was doubtful. It was just looking like this was not going to happen yet again. It really wasn’t much of a surprise to me though after seeing it from the Miata earlier. I had that same response which I was having now looking at things critically.
Not wanting to linger here and waste good light, I decided to carry on down the road to the next house. It came up sooner than I was expecting and I actually passed it before seeing it. Fortunately, it was easy enough to turn around and go by slowly. I did remember shooting this house years ago during the winter which turned out OK, but the colors of winter didn’t really do this house any justice. Now, I was seeing lush greens which gave a nice contrast to the house and the sky above was looking great, especially considering that by this point in the day the sky was supposed to be clearing up according to the weather. I wasn’t seeing much in the way of alternatives to how I had shot it before, but the colors were enough to make me park the truck and grab the camera.
I remembered that I needed the reach of the long lens to get the house captured last time and that was where I started. There was a section of the bridge that was maybe ten feet wide that I was able to work with to get a clear view of the house. Fortunately, the shoulder was wide enough that I could stand there safely if any cars came by. I started to pick out my composition and decided on the framing which didn’t take too long with limited options. I went with something similar to what I had shot before, but I think I had opened up the view a little more to take advantage of the sky with a dark area that made for a natural vignette.
It wasn’t until I got home and started writing this blog that I looked back to see the original photo and how closely they looked in terms of composition. The idea was roughly the same, but the surrounding field and trees dictated several different choices which pushed the house to the left side of the frame rather than the right. The clearing of the field and the green grass made all the difference in the world and that allowed me to capture a wider image than what I had done originally. That wider end of things turned out to be 85mm which was actually getting towards the wider end of that long lens. I might have been mistaken that I had to have that lens to capture an image here as I was seeing some possibilities for a composition going even wider.
I rotated the camera vertically to try and include the fence in the foreground, but that 70mm focal length just didn’t quite give me the breathing room that I needed. In fact, I was just barely able to capture everything that I wanted from foreground to background with that lens and that left me no room to change the aspect ratio to something more easily viewed. I had no choice but to swap lenses and go with the standard zoom for a bit more inclusion into the composition.
After swapping lenses, I got back into position and lowered the camera right to the top edge of the bridge wall. This helped to shrink the distance between the foreground and the background which I felt was needed to keep it all cohesive. I found that there was a tree to the left that I was now able to include if I shot this in a horizontal orientation which I was actually liking quite a bit. The tree helped to block out a light colored building on that side of the field and helped to push the eyes to the old house while giving a very distinct foreground for depth. I was still able to include the sky above which set the mood and atmosphere for the image.
The sun was starting to poke out in places and that changed how the light was falling on the landscape. It was still very diffused, but the intensity was changing over the scene. I shot several different frames here as the light changed while I was keeping the shutter speed fast enough to freeze the nearest tree. When shooting at the distance that I had been, the movement in the vegetation was not really an issue. Now, with the tree that close, the leaves were much more important, and I wanted them to be sharp.
It was the fourth of six frames that worked out the best with the light falling more on the house and that portion of the field while the background field was more in the shadows as well as the foreground. This was the image that made it through the culling, and I started to process it. My first thought was that there was too much green in the frame and that was overpowering the image. This prompted me to choose a black and white color profile to work with. This had the added benefit of being able to really work the contrasts in the scene as well as push the sky a bit further than it was for more mood.
I really liked how it came out, and I found that the house had an air of mystery around it since the tones matched the surrounding landscape. It was the second image out of ten frames shot that turned into a keeper. I was happy with that and went on to do some final color corrections on the full set of images before getting them ready for upload. It was during that last run through the images that I started to wonder about the lack of presence that the house had with the black and white image. Could it be better in color? Had I missed something when I dismissed it because of the abundance of green in the scene? There was one sure way to figure that out, and that was to make a virtual copy of the image and process it as a color image.
That was just what I did, and it did suffer from some of the issues that I had speculated originally, but through some careful dodging and burning in the image, I was able to work through those concerns. There was even enough tonal range in the grass that I was able to pull out some yellows and oranges to contrast with the greens that really helped the scene as a whole. The rusty tones of the house really stood out much better this way, and I was able to get them to pair nicely with the field in the background for a bit of unity to the scene.
I spent some time looking at both images to determine which I liked better because I don’t really like doing color and black and white versions of the same frame. I think that is a cop out for those that can’t decide which is better. The more I looked at them, the more arguments that I was able to make for both of them to stay in the collection of keepers. In the end, I had no choice but to keep them both for different reasons. Technically, this brought me to three keepers for a total of 10 frames shot of the house. I was happy with that, and when I compare it to the last time that I photographed this scene, I had two back then. The difference was that both of the images were cropped in much closer to the house and yet were still a good bit messier in terms of composition. I now had two different compositions that were cleaner and more direct while showing more of the scene. I consider that a win and certainly worth stopping here.
That brings us to the end of this trek, and even though I haven’t treated like a single trek, I did end up shooting a total of 63 frames which gave me a total of 15 keepers. Not bad at all after making the decision that the sun was just too bright to bother with going out with the camera. As you can see, that weather forecast wasn’t accurate at all and the clouds just kept getting better through the day. I’m sure that I could have stayed out longer and made more photos, but this was more than plenty. I have to save something for the next trek, right?
I’m not sure when that next trek will be as I am getting a list of things that need to be taken care of here at home, so I’ll be tied up for the next few days getting those things taken care of. We shall see if I remember how to mow the yard since it has been so long since the grass has actually grown. The recent rains have really made a difference and I’m happy to see green in the yard again, but that does mean that I have to spend a good bit of time caring for it.
Don’t forget that if you see a photo of mine either here in the blog, or in the galleries, I do make and sell prints of all of these photos for you. They might seem expensive when compared to the ones that you can buy from a box store but remember that those photos have been reproduced thousands of times and are hung in just as many rooms. When you buy from me, you are getting a photograph that is unique and more than likely a one of one print just for you. You get to select the size and the media that it is printed on, and you will know the story of how the photo came to be. That gives you a personal connection to the print, and it helps an artist out, not the box store that sells the pictures by the gross. It really is a win-win situation for both you and for me. Each print sale helps to fund these treks and the time that it takes. For instance, at this point, I have about eleven hours’ worth of work into this trek from the actual capturing, editing, to the blogging that you are reading now. Since I’m running a business based around photography, I have to keep my investment in time in mind. This is time that I am not available for other things or even marketing. While I am doing this for the love of the art, I have been slapped with the reality that if I don’t make a profit this year, I will end up losing the business. While that might not concern you, it will mean that I will no longer be able to sell prints or do contract work for folks whether it be portrait work or other mentorship arrangements. Essentially, if I lose the business title, I will take all of my photography down because I am not here to be a content creator for free. I hate that it has come to this point, and I’m not looking to make a huge profit with photography, just enough to keep me legal in the realm of being a business. I’ve done my part this year by personally funding many aspects of the business and no longer keeping track of my mileage for these treks. It would be great to have a few more print sales to help move me into the black for the year.
I’ll leave all that up to you but know that a print sale will certainly go a long way to helping me continue as a photographer. If you have no room for a print and would like to help, you can always click that donate button at the bottom of this entry and buy me a virtual cup of coffee as a tip. You can also buy me a virtual Lamborghini if you are moved to do so, there is no minimum or maximum for a donation. I do record that in the business funds and count it as income so that will help as well.
Until the next time….
