Saturday, March 14, 2026
OK, class is back in session. Well, maybe not class, but we are walking around a college campus if you will recall from our last blog entry. To be fair, this was more of a scouting trip for an upcoming photo session that I will be doing for a client of Models 1st Management. Of course, if I’m in a place that might yield some photos for my own portfolio, it would be crazy to leave the camera at home. I knew that the community college had some interesting features that I have photographed in the past and it is really one of the better places around Wilkes County for me to get anything remotely like interesting architecture. Since I’ve been wanting to work on my abstracts and detail shots, I figured that this might be a great place to stretch that creative eye a bit as well.
When we had last left off, I had been walking around with the standard zoom for the entire time. That lens had been working quite well, though I had been at either end of the focal length range for the most part which does indicate that I’m moving away from that “standard” 40-60mm focal length. There were times that was appropriate and I had used it, but for the most part, I was sticking more to the wide end and occasionally going deep to 70mm. At any rate, it was time for a change.
Since I was in the main courtyard of the college, I was surrounded by buildings and some landscaping elements which I found interesting. Since I was seeing details that I wanted to work with, the telephoto lens made the most sense. Now, I’ve proven that I can shoot details with the wide-angle lens as well, but that choice comes with some drawbacks in terms of how much of the background is included. With things being rather busy in this section of the campus, I really couldn’t afford that kind of detail intrusion. For that reason alone, I chose to go with the compression of the telephoto lens.
The way that the light was hitting the planters on either side of the courtyard caught my attention. There were shadows that were added into the scene from the branches that added to the visual interest for me and tended to take some of the attention off of the textures which left that aspect as kind of a reward for looking into the photo. Each cube was evenly spaced from the next and that created a visual pathway of sorts that I wanted to play with. I just had to be careful about how many of the elements that I included into the frame. This was where the rule of odds came into effect once again.
Looking at the grouping of trees, I spotted three that I liked which would become the basis of the composition. I could have chosen five, but that was just too much visual information to keep within a scene. Keeping the number to a more manageable three seemed to work well. Now, I didn’t want to include the branches of the trees because that would have overly complicated the scene with the additional shadows below. This was a very conscious decision of mine and I had to really skirt the branches at the top of the frame to keep them out of the photo while including as much of the trunks as I could. The idea was that the shadows would complete the tree shape, only in an abstract way that made your brain do some assembly of the scene.
While the shape of the trees was a concern of mine as far as the story of the photo, they were certainly not my primary focus. What I was really focusing on was the play of light and shadow between the planters that developed a visual pathway of sorts through the different boxes. I could have very easily elevated the camera and come in closer to show that pathway, but once again, I didn’t want to spoon-feed the viewer that bit of the puzzle either. The path is now implied thanks to the separation that the light provides on the boxes which gives them shape and dimension. We know that there are breaks between the boxes and therefore a pathway. This is not presented in total clarity, just as the shape of the trees wasn’t. All of this was designed to give a more abstract feeling and a bit more visual interest than just seeing planters all lined up in a row.
The abstract thing is really growing on me and there are lots of different ways to look at it through the camera. In some regards, I can put the scene on full display in an abstract manner using perspective and framing to remove context and scale. I can also dial in the details, compress distance, and end up with something that truly goes against how we normally see things as visual creatures. Exploring both ends of this spectrum is something that I am starting to truly enjoy. I like creating images that aren’t expected and this is opening up a new way of photographing scenes which was the whole point of this learning process.
It is interesting that while starting out with this blog entry, I received an email from someone that has followed my work for a number of years now. I always enjoy hearing from Patrick, but this email was just too timely not to have an impact on what I was saying. There was one bit that really stood out to me which I want to share with you.
“Images which meld representation and abstract expressionism, and with a 3-dimensional sculptural quality thrown in as an added bonus, just really turn my crank. “Command Center” and “Puzzled” do it in spades!”
Of course, he was talking about the last entry that I made which was published last night. The timing was perfect because any time I do entries like these I know that they are not going to get a lot of traction on social media or boost my web traffic. That isn’t the point of them, and I’ve talked a lot about doing the photos that mean something to me instead of chasing the popular subjects and compositions. In the end, blog entries like this one and the one from my recent photo walk in North Wilkesboro will largely be dismissed by most of the folks that are interested in my work. Most of my audience is pretty concentrated on treks that involve rusty cars, old barns, or landscapes. While I enjoy those as well, it is these treks that are much more photo walk inspired that help me learn the ways of seeing that I can apply to those other subjects. They are for me, but I get a kick out of finding out that others are enjoying the photos as well. The way Patrick talks about these newest photos sounds more like an art critic lauding over work in a gallery which really means something to me as I am still working on this journey. It fuels my desire to get better at it because it would appear that I am on the right track.
Speaking of the right track, I would like to get us back on track again with the current trek and where we are at. I was still exploring the trees and planters but saw a completely different quality of light on the other side of the courtyard. What had been very sculpting light coming from the side was now for front light which changed the way that the shapes were interpreted. In a way things were flatter, but in another point of view, they were a bit more interesting and simpler at the same time. I started to explore this side with the camera pressed to my eye to see how the long lens was seeing things. I found some very similar qualities on that side which I felt inclined to work with further.
What I liked about this angle was that I was really compelled to make the scene simpler than on the other side. With the lack of sculpting, I was missing a big visual clue as to the shapes of things. This meant that in order to organize the scene, I was going to need another way of determining the shapes within the scene. I did this by reducing the scope of the image and keeping the number of planters to just two and only including portions of them. They were no longer subjects but the framework for the composition. You could make out two sections of the walkway between them which established a part of the visual pathway, without it being connected. I’m relying on the concept of closure as a Gestalt Principle which is sometimes referred to as reification. This essentially says that the human mind is pretty smart and it will connect the existing pieces of a puzzle to fill in the gaps. I firmly believe that the principle is alive and well with images like this one. In fact, I am relying on it for the success.
Now, I’ve talked about the elements that I have used as a framework for the image as well as the implied path through the image. I’ve yet to determine the focal point, or the main subject of the composition. On a cloudy day, I would have to say that the main subject was the texture on the wall, but that would have made for a very boring photo, and it wouldn’t be something that I would be inclined to shoot. The subject here is the sun, well, not literally the sun. What I chose to focus on was the effect from the sun or the shadow of the tree branches. Once again, I was using the shadows to imply the main subject only this time there were no trunks to give those shadows a base. I didn’t believe that they were needed here because the textured wall provided a clean enough surface for the shadows to speak for themselves. We know what is going on just out of the frame and seeing it within the frame was unnecessary in my opinion.
This is where I am really having to work on my compositional though process. I’ve created my style based on simplicity within a composition, but that usually means that my main subject is sitting proudly within the frame. By moving to a more abstract way of thinking, I am looking at an implied subject in photos like this. Think about it, the main subject is just a shadow. It will move constantly as the sun moves, change sharpness as clouds diffuse the light, it could even completely disappear were the sun to move out of view. My main subject doesn’t even physically exist, but it is a representation of something that was there which I could have photographed. That more expected composition of the tree would have been expected and boring. It would have been the postcard version of the scene and easily forgettable. We’ve all seen trees before, and these trees are seen by hundreds of people on a typical day. What we might not pay attention to is the shadow which is what I have chosen to make the main subject in this photo. Without the object in the frame that caused the shadow, the viewer is forced to see the main subject in a way that we are not used to studying. Is that not the point of photography?
This abstract stuff is just too cool when you start delving into it!
Having spent so time with hard lines and angles of the manmade objects around the area, I decided that I wanted to take a quick break and work with one of the trees that was nearby. It was starting to bloom as the season would suggest and that made it something interesting for me. I’ve talked about this type of photography before when it comes to seasonal photos. So many photographers choose to capture broad scenes to show off seasonal colors. While this can be effective, I have always preferred to make it about smaller and more intimate scenes. I enjoy adding just a bit of Fall color into a scene that includes a main subject that has nothing to do with the season. If the colors of the season are my main subject, I like to include a detail view of that color so that the viewer knows that it is the color that I am focusing on.
This is what I chose to do with this group of trees. I could have photographed the entire scene with all of the trees and the side of the building that they were next to, but that would have felt like a snapshot rather than a considered photograph. Instead, I opted for something that defined the tree and the season a bit more succinctly. There were blooms and flowers at different stages on the trees which gave me plenty of options. Fortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of a breeze which made it a bit easier to get a still photo of the details.
I started with a cluster of about five blooms in different stages and captured a photo with a very limited depth of field. I liked the photo, but the more I looked at it the more expected it looked. It just felt like a photo that anyone would take without giving much thought to it. I could do better than that, and I had set the bar higher for myself. I needed to reduce the scene to something much more direct, and it needed to have a more abstract feeling.
That was where I spotted a single bloom that hadn’t opened up just yet. It was positioned close to another similar bloom that was several inches away. I started to look at how the scene looked through the viewfinder of the camera and started to see some visual connections between the two blooms. I knew that the quickest way to kill this photo was to have both blooms in focus because that would show too much of the scene. I liked the soft colors I was seeing looking through the viewfinder with the aperture wide open at f/2.8, but that seemed too soft for what I was wanting. Yeah, I was having a Goldilocks moment for sure. It is times like this that I love the depth of field preview button which stops the lens down to the shooting aperture. With that depressed, I tightened up the aperture on the lens until things had that perfect balance. At the distance that I was from the first bloom, I was very surprised that the depth of field that I chose was f/5.6 which gave the rear bloom enough shape and structure without making it sharp. The whole thing just looked dreamy while the lead bloom was in perfect focus. This was what I was after and after I boosted the ISO to kill any movement in the scene, I was able to get the shot.
I liked this one a lot more than the one that included the grouping of blooms and flowers. This felt much more delicate and seemed to fit the subject better than the grouping which was all in focus. Setting a mood and tone through a photograph is just as important as any other compositional technique. The group image didn’t set the right tone even though it was technically a well-executed photo. It just lacked that feeling which the softer image with more dimension provided. This was what I wanted to do with this tree, so I started to look for other areas where I could try similar approaches.
There was a tree right next to the one that I had been working on which provided the solution for me. There was a single bloom that caught my eye next to one that was just starting. I liked the different stages as well as the very different colors that the two blooms had. I moved around to find the right angle and found that the branch seemed to cradle both of the blooms at the terminal curve of that branch. From this angle, the branch actually seemed to frame the two blooms, and I built the composition around that fact.
Visually, I wanted the blooms to be in the lower section of the frame so that the visual weight made sense. This gave me a lot of space at the top of the frame which I didn’t want to be overly cluttered. I just needed the impression of shape through that section of the frame. Looking through the camera, f/5.6 was way too much depth of field, and it complicated the scene. However, as I was setting it up and looking through the lens wide open, I really liked that look. With the depth of field preview button pressed again, I started to open the lens up to see at what point things looked right. As it turned out, this time it was f/2.8 that looked the best which is what I went with.
Everything about this frame just fits. The softness and the overall blurred wash of color create this harmonizing color palette that just soothes my soul to look at. The only part that is sharp is the main subject while even the nearby bloom is going soft. This is one of those types of compositions that I do only a few times a year, but I do really enjoy them when it comes to defining a season. For me, it is more about the mood and atmosphere that is created rather than the subject or the seasonal representation behind the image. These are qualities much beyond what a photographer might typically be concerned with and that goes right along with how I am trying to grow as a photographer. I want to be able to better photograph how a scene makes me feel rather than just the scene. I’m slowly getting there, but at least it is a fun journey to take.
By this point, it was starting to get a little hot and I was starting to sweat. I just wasn’t quite ready for that after the lows being in the 20’s just days before. The sun was getting very bright, but with it on the downward part of the journey, I was seeing more of the lighting that I was looking for to use with the upcoming photo shoot. It was also starting to add a lot of character to the buildings which I was interested in capturing before I left. There is one section that has several of the buildings overlapping that has always interested me which I was seeing again near the entrance. The shadows were defining the shapes quite well and I really liked the blocked lines that were showing. Of course, from the distance that I had to be in order to capture all of these buildings together, there was no way to use perspective distortion to my advantage. In fact, it was the upright view of the scene that actually was drawing me in.
I’ve shot this view before on an earlier visit and while I had intended that photo to be in black and white, I ended up doing it in color. I couldn’t recall the exact composition that I had used, but I didn’t think that I had interpreted it as a full scene at the time, rather as an isolation. Since I was enjoying how it was looking with the current lighting, I decided to set the camera up and try for another chance at it. This time, I chose to make it an all-encompassing composition that showed how the buildings were looking to me even with the trees that were visible. This time, I planned on shooting it in color and composed with that in mind.
It wasn’t until I got home and started to look at it that the color kind of fell apart. It was missing balance with everything being rather blue toned. Even the tree with the white blooms just blended in. There was a lack of depth and as I added contrast, the image just fell apart. Once I decided to explore this as a black and white image, things started to turn around. All of a sudden, the wash of blue wasn’t a concern at all, and I was looking at the behavior of light which had been the motivator for the image in the first place. The composition became instantly more powerful, and I was able to bring in a lot more mood to the sky. It was looking more like how it had felt at the time and I worked through the processing until it was right there representing how it made me feel at the time.
I did enjoy the irony about how this one had started out as a color image and was later converted to a black and white, while the earlier version was the exact opposite. Photography is funny that way sometimes and your expectations of an image can change in a very short amount of time from concept, to capture, to execution. I’m really quite happy with how this latest version has turned out and after comparing it to the previous one, I can certainly tell that my interpretation of the scene was very different both times. I liked the study in shapes from the last time, but I think that this establishing view is also quite nice while showing that exact feature as the other attempt, only not as exclusively.
I was pretty much feeling like I was done at this point, but I did leave the camera put together as I was walking along the front of the school one last time. I knew that there was one point of interest that I had shot during that same previous trek. It was a window that looked like it was in an alcove of sorts. I found it to be a great focal point to highlight some fall colors in the background because that made sense to me in terms of photographing the season. I was interested in finding that same feature to see what it looked like in the Spring. It was harder to find than I thought it would be, but I did eventually find that same window. The trees behind it were still bare, but I did like what the light was doing to it. It just had a very unique look to it that I really loved sticking out there on top of the trees.
Since there was no real rush to be done, I decided to see what I could do with this scene without the vibrant colors behind the window. I worked with the angles and whether or not to use a vertical or horizontal composition as I dialed in this framing. I really liked the mystery of it, especially with the window in shade causing it to pretty much get blacked out. This was the mood that I wanted for this one and felt that it was most definitely going to be best done in black and white.
What I had not considered in the field was the reading direction of the photo. It looked great in the camera and seemed to read just fine. However, when I started the processing on the image on the larger screen, my eyes tended to stop right at the window and that was the end of the visual tour. That was going to be an easy fix and one that I have done plenty of times in the past. I just flipped the image horizontally and made it a mirror image. That worked perfectly and allowed the structure of the building to lead the eyes to the window. They were then left with visiting the bare trees in the background before seeing the trees in the foreground.
The part that I loved best about this photo is that there is no indication that this is a window on a second story. Thanks to the framing and composition, it looks more like a doorway at ground level with bushes covering part of the view. This is totally an illusion brought to you by the optics of a camera and the choices around how to frame the image. It adds to the mystery and makes things much more interesting than if you knew that this was just a small window on the side of a building. The low key black and white look of the image adds to that mood and becomes an instrumental part of the appearance of the photo. It would not have had the same impact in color, and would have actually been a little more confusing, I think. This is one of those images that is very effective at showing how I was feeling when I saw this scene, and now you get to experience that same feeling by looking at it.
It was that composition and that specific image that brought me to a close for the trek. I was satisfied with what I had captured over 44 frames during an hour and 50 minutes of shooting. If you like keeping track of these stats at the end, you will notice that this was a much slower paced trek than ones that I have had in the past with 60 frames shot over 60 minutes. True, there was a lot more walking around and letting the scenes find me, but there was a lot more intentional shooting on this trek. I would evaluate a scene after dialing in the composition and if it wasn’t right, I wouldn’t release the shutter. This wasn’t a conscious thought as much as it was a trust thing with myself. I knew what I was wanting to capture and if the composition that I had set up didn’t meet that goal, I abandoned it and changed something before pressing the button. The 25% hit rate illustrates how effective that method can be and I came away with eleven keepers from the day. There were a couple more that I also liked, but they had some fatal flaws which caused them to be trashed during the culling process. It isn’t reasonable to think that I will even achieve a hit rate of 100% and that would actually be a bad thing. I really like coming home with 44 images that each would work just fine. However, if by pushing to improve on a composition, or exposure choice, I manage to get one that stands out among a group of four or five images, that is ideal in my eyes. That is essentially what happens on these treks and why I toss the majority of my images. It comes down to details mostly, but occasionally, there are concepts that just don’t work out at all. I try to keep those to a minimum, but I also know that failed concepts make for great teachers in my photography so I will continue to make those images as well.
Thank you for joining me on this trek. I do hope that you have enjoyed it and possibly learned a little more about photography. I do like using this as a teaching platform when I can. It is beneficial for those wanting to learn photography, and for those that aren’t trying to learn the craft, it will give you a better insight into what it takes to create the images that you are seeing. At any rate, I do hope that it is enjoyable for you.
There is a slight chance that the sky will be looking good this afternoon, in which case, there is an old, abandoned house that I spotted not too long ago that might look pretty good. I am having to get to it pretty quickly because it is covered in vines and will be invisible in a month or two. I’m hoping to get it captured while things are all dormant around it. We will see if I manage to get out there or not in the next few days.
Until then…
