Friday, July 10, 2026
And just like that we are back. Well, it is a bit quicker for me than it was for you since I am typing this out right after publishing the previous chapter. For you, it is probably nearly a day later that you are reading this. That is all part of the process for me. I spend hours in front of the computer doing these blogs to describe what these treks are all about and how the photos come to be. Speaking of that, now is a great time for a word from our sponsor. Well, more words from me, because I am the sponsor here. I’m not one of those photographers that makes content to benefit other companies. I do it to further my own business through my photography. Print sales have long been the backbone of my photography and that is still what motivates me the most when it comes to going out on these treks. Every photo that I shoot and share in the blogs can be had as a print to hang on your wall. I can print in just about any size that you can imagine, but I do ask that we keep the original aspect ratio true to my vision. Not only can you have a print done on a variety of photographic and art papers, but they can also be done on metal or canvas to fit your own personal style. These are unique pieces of wall art and since I don’t have a volume business, you are just about guaranteed to have a one-of-a-kind piece of wall art. You are also supporting my photographic journey and allowing me to go on more of these treks.
During my years of being a photographer, I’ve learned an awful lot about the craft and the techniques that go into it. I’m not one to keep that information hidden from those trying to learn. In fact, I share a bunch of my techniques here in these blog entries free of charge. I do have a “donate” button at the bottom of each blog entry for those that feel inclined to buy me a coffee for my efforts, or maybe a Ferrari, I’ll let you be the judge of how much you would like to send my way. It can be as little or as much as you like, and I will greatly appreciate any support. For those that would like to learn a bit more from me than what I share here in the blogs, I do offer mentorships at several different levels. Whether you are just starting out in photography or are looking to take things to the next level, I have a program set up just for you. It all starts out with a free and no-obligation consultation to make sure that we are a good fit and that I can provide the knowledge that you are looking for. These mentorships have replaced my workshops so that I can more efficiently address the topics that you are wanting to lean about and I can do it in a way that works with your own style of photography. These sessions can be in person, on location, or via video chat where we can deal with post processing and even do image critiques.
The newest area of my photography is the people side where I have started to work with portraiture which I consider a blanket term for people photography. Within that realm, I offer professional headshots, family photos, engagement sessions, maternity photos, creative sessions, and a boudoir experience to round things out. Whether you are interested in a studio setting or something on location, I can work with you for a perfect experience. I’m not quite like other photographers out there as I take my time. I’m more about quality than I am quantity. I’ll make sure that you have lots of great photos to select from, but I want to make sure that they are all good and up to my standards before you see the proofs. Let’s start talking about what your portrait session will look like.
Now that we have the sponsor’s message out of the way, we can get right back to the trek at hand. As you will recall this all started out Friday morning as I was looking at the weather and trying to figure out where I could go for some photos. Things kind of started out slowly as I found a couple of barns that interested me and eventually a partially hidden Chevy that I spent a couple of minutes with. The biggest part of the day happened in the middle of town as I was going through Taylorsville. Between some buildings, I spotted an old Chevy sedan that I was familiar with from several treks into North Wilkesboro over the years. I had thought that the car was gone, and I would never see it again, but here it was right in the middle of town waiting for some new photos to be added to the collection.
Things had been moving very quickly with this car, and I was starting to feel like a gnat flying around it and grabbing photos every few minutes. To this point, I had shot 14 frames and out of those seven turned into keepers. Would I be able to keep this up for the remainder of my time here? Let’s see how that turned out. I had just finished working the back corner of the car which had some great patina and shapes to it. I had done the interior shot of the car but found that the missing vent window on the passenger side was calling out for another interior shot. I moved in closer to that to see what I was looking at inside of the car and what I might be able to do with the camera. What I saw was a large area of the dash that was framed nicely by the window frame. It kind of reminded me of a composition that I came up with for an old Dodge a few years back which turned out to be one of my favorites from the day.
Essentially, the composition was based on using the hole in the glass to frame a detail on the dash which in that case was the radio. I had a larger opening to work with on this car, and nothing quite as prominent on the dash. However, there were plenty of knobs and circular openings on the dash for gauges that provided plenty of visual interest. For the large amount of space that the window frame provided, the larger expanse of dash seemed to work out nicely. It was just a matter of organizing everything in the framework so that the composition would make sense in the final image.
I used some of the same visual tricks that I had used on the other side of the car and had some of the same things going for me on this side. The bounced light from the side of the building was still providing some illumination to the interior of the car to keep the exposure a little more balanced between the exterior and the interior. The sun was a little brighter on this side of the car which caused some more highlights to appear on the exterior, but it wasn’t too terrible to deal with. As I had done with the other side, I exposed to the right making sure not to clip the highlights other than the specular ones. This allowed the shadows to be decently exposed and well within the range of my camera. There was no need for an HDR blend here either which was certainly the hope as blending images is just another step in post that I would rather not have to worry about. For me, it is always better to get the image in a single capture rather than a series of frames to be blended later on.
The resulting image worked very well and was similar in appearance to the photo from the other side. I liked the different details that were visible on this side and that it didn’t revolve around the steering wheel which just took up so much space. This was all about the finer details on the dash and I felt that was another very interesting story that the interior needed to tell. I was very happy that I had a good view of the interior of the car finally because that had been covered up by the tarp previously and I had had just not had the opportunity to photograph it before. The lighting was nearly perfect for the interior shots this time and surprisingly, they were working from both sides equally as well.
While working on the dash shot from the passenger side, I was once again looking at the details on the hood’s side panel. I still really liked the way that the staining completed a nice right angle shape at the front of the body line. It framed the handle nicely and the curve of the fender added just another dimension to it. I remembered shooting a couple of variations of this collection of shapes from the front of the car including the light and the grill but had been limited by the way that the tarp had been tied to the car. This time, I didn’t have that restriction and while I had initially decided to photograph this detail of the car from behind the fender, I was starting to see a nice composition forming from in front of the fender. I wanted the headlight to be the visual anchor and the focal point for the composition, so everything started to form around that element. With the headlight, I wanted to give it some nose room to breathe, which meant including a portion of the grill. I didn’t want so much as to pull the attention away from the light, but at the same time I wanted enough of it to define the shape of it. That gentle curve was important because of how it pulled in the fender to the composition. I chose to use the handle as a framing element on the left while the horizonal lines on the panel turned into diagonals that pointed to the light.
Once the composition was all figured out it was a matter of getting the light to cooperate. The clouds were coming in nicely at this point and it was actually starting to look like rain. The clouds were of varying thickness which meant that the shadows would fall differently as well as the glare on the fender. It was the last of three exposures when the light was sufficiently soft enough to make the composition work. This was where I had always missed the boat with the car in the past because it was parked under a tree. Even on cloudy days, the light was always dappled to one extent or another because of the tree. Now that it was in the open, I didn’t have to worry about that aspect and was able to get a much more even appearance over the scene. This even lighting allowed the texture to come from the rust rather than the light which was my preference.
Looking back over the previous times that I have photographed this angle; I had never really framed it quite this way. They were close, but there was either more grill with the handle clipped, or I placed the headlight to the left of the frame and captured the entire grill along with the opposite headlight. Those compositions also worked, but this one seems to have a much more organic flow to it and the lighting was much better here thanks to the open canopy.
I didn’t want to bypass the grill which was pretty cool in its own right. I really liked the hood ornament as well as the badge on the grill which is where I started this little session with. This time, I was inclined to photograph it from a taller vantage point looking down on the car. I had forgotten that I had done something similar with this before, but now that I have looked back over the previous blogs, I found where I had originally captured the concept as a horizontal composition. Ironically, it was done in black and white as well. I hadn’t remembered this while I was out in the field and just naturally gravitated to the same concept, even from the same side as I saw the better light from this side. The main difference and the one that I think makes this a much better photo was the decision to capture it vertically rather than horizontally.
I don’t know why I didn’t do it that way years ago, but it might have been because of the tarp that was over the car. I much prefer the vertical look for this because it accentuates the grill slats as well as the wing of the hood ornament. The elements almost demand a vertical composition, but I completely missed that the last time. At least this time the lighting was also monumentally better, so it was always going to be a stronger photo than the original one. I’ve also got a lot more experience under my belt in capturing scenes like this which made its own contribution to the end result.
While working with the front end of the car, I was still being drawn to the badge on the grill and knew that I had tried to photograph this several different ways before. The natural composition that came to mind was something straight on, but that was just boring with a strong vertical element that bisected the strong horizonal element. Basically, this would form a giant “+” in the middle of the frame which just didn’t inspire any excitement. Going to one side didn’t really help matters any, it just added a bit of depth to the scene. The trick was to elevate the camera and change the perspective. The moment that I did this the view started to change wildly, and I became very excited about this photo. I played with the angles and created a situation where the closest wing of the emblem was angled up slightly to bring the eyes into the photo. The other wing was at an angle, so it was shortened by perspective allowing the main part of the emblem to be off center while keeping the entire emblem in the frame. The natural bend of the wings caused the far side to angle up much steeper than the closer one. What had been boring vertical lines were now tilted to the left creating a series of diagonals.
It was the direction of those diagonals that created the mood for this photo that I wanted. The primary background of the grill slats were all going down to the right. This is a calming diagonal and keeps those lines in the background. The emblem created an upward diagonal that pitched up even stronger at the end of the element. This provided visual excitement which paired nicely with the very warm tone of the rust on the center part of the grill. Every part of this composition was meant to deliver a feeling rather than just a simple view of an emblem. It all came together so naturally that it surprised me having missed the opportunity so many times.
This is a perfect example of why it pays to revisit the same places time and time again. While this was technically a different place, the subject was the same, therefore it counts in that thought. As a side note, I just went through my collection of Behind the Camera entries thinking that I had done one on that topic, but it seems to be that I’ve missed out on that one. I’ll have to remedy that with a future installment so watch for that one in the coming months. Anyway, this was a very obvious composition that I just didn’t see before, and it wasn’t until pretty late in this trek that it finally became apparent to me. It is one of my favorite photos from this car from all the times that I have shot it. That is saying something pretty profound because I have always had really good luck with this car.
While I was working on that grill shot, the rain started to fall. It was only a slight drizzle, but enough that I was needing to shade the filter from getting drops on it. Ironically, the sun was still shining as you can see in the shadows under the grill emblem. I wasn’t sure if I would be needing to call it quits just yet or if I could still work some more compositions before the rain got too heavy. At least I was satisfied with the emblem photo and ready to look to the next composition.
You might remember a photo that I shared in the last chapter that was focused on the shapes of the broken glass on both sides of the A pillar. I wasn’t sure that I had a solid composition there until I got home and saw it. I knew that I had only fired off two frames of that concept and knew that it all hinged on the negative space that the interior provided. Now that I had a good bit of luck with getting the lighting into the interior, I was motivated to try the same area, but with a different compositional mindset. No longer was I looking at the shapes of the broken glass or concentrating on the use of negative space. This time I was using the exterior of the car and the glass as a way to frame interior details as I had with the shot through the vent window a bit earlier. What I wanted to frame with this part of the window was the steering wheel, but not as a large circle in the car. I wanted to get the side profile of the wheel showing through over the dip in the window opening. What had been negative space before was now the main canvas for the visual anchor of the photo. It was a completely different kind of composition taken from essentially the same patch of ground with the camera angled very differently.
Unlike in the earlier version, I was fine with the pillar and the glass going soft and being out of focus. They weren’t important in that way to the photograph. I needed the focus to be on the steering wheel which was a good bit further into the car than the pillar. To keep that pillar from going completely blurred which I didn’t want, I needed a fairly wide depth of field which had the side effect of rendering the garage door and wall much sharper than I really wanted. However, I found that the background in better focus worked well for the simple textures that they offered. The panel line in the garage door served as a nice framing element to the top of the frame since I had the crop pretty tight to the steering wheel. This was matched with the tight crop to the bottom of the frame so that the balance still remained.
Everything looked pretty good in the image review and after two slightly different variations on the composition, I felt that I had something that would work. Ironically, this was an image that only made it through two rounds of culling before getting discarded because I felt that the composition just didn’t work. It was after all of the edits had been done that I revisited it and looked at it in black and white for the first time. It seemed to hit differently without the color. It was no longer too complicated and the white wall in the background was no longer a distraction as it had been. Everything seemed to fall into place as I had hoped from a compositional standpoint. With a bit of work in processing to get the tonal values sorted out, I had an image that I felt was pretty strong and paired well with the color abstract from earlier in the session. It was a very nice reminder for me how much the angle of the camera can influence how a photo turns out. These were two very different photographs, but the tripod was in essentially the same place for them both. It was just the elevation of the camera that really changed.
By this point, I had realized that I hadn’t done anything with the copper wheels on this car. While that wasn’t a main goal of mine since I’ve captured them before, I still felt that I owed it to the car to get at least one composition with the wheels in it. They appeared to have been cleaned since the last time I had photographed them when there was grass clippings stuck to the whitewalls. These looked to be freshly washed, and I liked that juxtaposition when looking at the patina on the fender. This formed the concept for the next composition that I started to work on.
I just wanted something simple that showed the wheel and the fender. I wasn’t all that concerned with the whitewall tire except for using it as a frame of sort for the wheel. The similarities in color between the wheel and some of the rust on the fender linked the two elements in my mind. I just needed to get the composition put together to sell the idea. I liked using the hubcap as a central focal point to the image as it told a lot of the story and was a brighter part of the scene being chrome. I had the camera elevated so that the fender would form a diagonal across the frame while dividing the two elements. It was just a matter of how much of the wheel I would be including. I didn’t want anything to look like an accidental crop, so Every edge decision was made on purpose with how much I cut into the elements and what remained in the frame. I leaned a lot of the Gestalt theories to justify how I cropped into this image. I think that it works well and certainly fleshes out what I wanted from the photo in the first place. There is just something about the color and condition of these wheels that just sticks out to me every time I see this car.
By this point, I had been out here for just a little over 40 minutes working the car. In that time, I had captured only 33 frames which resulted in 13 keepers. This brought the tally for the day to 69 frames shot with 17 keepers which isn’t bad at all. You can really see the difference in efficiency when the light is more stable and there is no motion from the wind to deal with. Things just moved so much faster with the car than with the other three scenes that I had worked through the day.
It had been a lightening round with the car, but I was starting to feel creatively exhausted. It was time to call it a day and head home. The rain was looking imminent anyway and I just didn’t have the drive to go any further on my quest to find the Fords. I’ll save that section of the county for another day and see what I can come up with later on. It was time to head home and see what I had captured for the day.
I thank you for joining me on this trek and as always, I hope you have enjoyed the photos as well as the story. As I wrap this entry up, I am already considering going out later in the day to work an old Dodge truck that is parked near home that has just recently been dropped off. I don’t know how long it will be there, but I have a feeling that the clouds this afternoon will make for good lighting for some details shots on it. I’m just waiting for the storms and rain to stop and for things to dry up a little bit before deciding if today will be the day for it.
If things go well, you might just see another entry tomorrow. Be sure to subscribe to the blog if you haven’t already so that you never miss an entry.
Until next time…
