Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Is it just me, or is March really dragging? Every time I think about where we are in the year, I’m fully into April at this point, but yet the calendar still says March. I’ve had a lot going on this month and that is a good thing for the most part. I’ve been busy with Mentorships and planning workshops for much of the month which has kept me focused on photography even though I haven’t been doing much in the way of actual photography. In addition, I’ve been doing a bit of self-education and learning some new skills that I hope to be able to put to use and to teach later on. Some of these skills I was able to put to work on this particular trek and I’m pretty happy with how things worked out. You see, I’m always learning new editing techniques and part of that is evaluating them myself to see how they work for my photography. The technique that I have learned most recently is dealing with how to establish color in the image. For years now, I’ve been starting with a color image and tweaking the different color channels until I liked what I saw. A few days ago, I was introduced to a different method of editing my color photos which intrigued me. The idea was to start with a black and white image and then build the color as needed to tell the story. I was excited to give that a try, and I was also waiting for the weather to be good so that I could get back out to Eastern Wilkes County where I had met Charles on a recent trek.
Charles was nice enough to invite me back out to check out several other locations in the area that he thought I might enjoy photographing. It took longer than I had wanted to contact him, but I wanted a day with weather that I could work with no matter the subject. That meant clouds to control the contrast, and to reduce the directionality of the light. A day that would likely work finally happened, and I messaged him after I got my morning stuff taken care of around the house and was ready to head out. Knowing that there was still a lot of area out that way that I hadn’t photographed yet, I headed out before I heard back from him. I wasn’t sure of the destination, but I knew the area that I wanted to be in to start scouting.
On my way out there, I heard from Charles who said that he would be available between noon and one which worked out well enough for me. That gave me a couple of hours at least to find something else to work with and get warmed up. Once I got into the area of Ronda, I started to dip down the back roads to see what I could find. Oddly enough, there was no pressure for this trek since I knew that I was going to be seeing several different places later on which held promise. I kind of knew how the day was going to end so how it started had much less bearing on my emotional state as I drove around looking.
As I was driving down one of the roads that I had been on before, my eyes caught something over to the right well behind a house. It was a pickup and it looked pretty rusty sitting there. I slowed down and realized that there was a road that turned off on the side of that property. I made the turn to get a closer look. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the truck was actually kind of close to the road, and I had a very nice and clear view of it from that road. I didn’t even have to consider the possibilities here, I just pulled off on the shoulder of the road and parked. There was a barn behind the truck, and I knew that I would be able to make some sort of composition here. Since the truck was so close to the road, I went ahead and grabbed my 24-70mm lens along with the Color Combo Polarizer. I worked my way along the edge of the property to find the right angle to set the tripod at. It was a little further back than I had thought and when I started to look at the composition through the camera, I realized that I had picked out the wrong lens. I wasn’t able to get tight enough on the truck and barn to avoid the other buildings in the background. I went back to the truck and swapped out to the 70-200mm and switched the polarizer over.
I went back to where I had found the sweet spot for the composition and got things set up there. As I was dialing in the composition, I realized that there was some trash on the opposite side of the truck which was a distraction. I used the truck to cover that trash by placing the camera in that perfect location where the trash ended up behind the front clip of the truck. I had just enough separation between the truck and the barn roof to where I was happy with that. I started off with a pretty wide composition at around 80mm so that I could include a bit of the sky behind the trees. I liked the composition, but it left too much negative space on the sides of the frame, so I decided to shoot the composition vertically. That was a little bit better and removed the negative space that didn’t really work in the composition. I now had some great detail in the trees as they stretched up into the cloudy sky. The problem with that was the sky was now the brightest part of the image and was severely competing for attention with the truck which took much less room in the frame. I knew that I was going to crop it down to either a 4:5 or 5:7 ratio, but I wasn’t sure if that would do enough for me. It was looking like my best chance though.
Before I left, I wanted to try one other composition. This was something that I would typically do with a flatter sky, and I didn’t think it was going to work here, but I gave it a try. I went back horizontal and zoomed the lens in closer to the truck and barn. I eliminated the sky altogether which constricted the composition, but it did draw the attention on the barn and the truck quite nicely. There was no doubt what I wanted the viewer to look at here which was the goal. I ended up shooting at 155mm which was much tighter than I had assumed at the beginning when I fitted the standard lens on the camera. It was this experiment that worked the best out of all of the compositions to tell the story that I wanted to share of this scene. It was a great start to the day, and I was certain that I had something workable out of the three compositions that I worked on with this truck.
With that first subject in the bag, I got things put back in the bag and started back out to see what else I could find before Charles got back home. I ended up driving through the community of Lomax which I had been through the last couple of times that I had worked this part of the county. As I was driving, I ended up on a road that I had been on each time, and I passed an intersection that I was getting rather familiar with. At this intersection was a barn which was very close to the roadway. I had looked at it before, but really didn’t see a composition there. I did look again, only this time there was something about it that was speaking to me. I wasn’t sure if it was the clouds which had some really nice texture, or if it was the blooming tree behind the barn that set the roof off in the scene. Whatever it was, I was now very interested in photographing this barn. I pulled off on the side of the road opposite from the barn and grabbed my camera with the 24-70mm lens. I also added the Lee filter holder along with the 105mm polarizer knowing that I was going to need to add an ND Grad to the mix to pull the sky down.
I found the angle that I wanted to shoot the barn from and got the tripod set up. I wanted to make sure that I got the trees fully in the frame, so I stayed across the street from the barn which was beneficial since there were plenty of notifications on the barn to stay away from it. Once I got the composition established, I checked the exposure. It was closer than I thought it would be, but I still wanted to bring a bit more mood into the sky, so I grabbed a 2-stop grad filter from my bag and slid it into the holder. I started to make exposures at this point and made some very minor composition tweaks. Within a few minutes, I had a composition that I was committed to, and I just waited for the light to change on the scene to ensure that I had the best possible image. As I was playing hide and seek with the sunshine over my shoulder, I saw a man coming towards me from the house on the other side of the intersection. He looked happy enough, so I just kept doing what I was doing until he got close enough to say hi.
He introduced himself as Jeff and said that he had originally thought that I was having car trouble, but then saw that I was taking photos. We actually chatted for a while, and I learned a lot about this area of Lomax. It had been the center of town years ago and the Lomax Post Office had been just behind his house. The barn had been here for a little longer than 100 years. The field that it was on was protected land which was happy news for me as most of the barns that I shoot magically transform into Dollar Generals eventually. I had a great conversation with Jeff, and I gave him one of my cards since the barn was his I wanted to offer up a free print should he want one.
As an aside, before I got home from the trek, he called me to let me know that he had visited my website. I was happy to learn that he enjoyed the photos there and he asked if I had seen the grist mill not to far from the barn. As a matter of fact, I had been by there just before I came across the barn and thought that it was quite interesting. The catch was that there were way too many notifications that this was private property and that trespassing was probably not a good idea. I had written this off as a photographic subject because I was probably going to be met with a “hard no” if I was to find the owner of the property. Anyway, I let Jeff know that I would love to try photographing that mill at some point and asked if he happened to know the owners. It didn’t surprise me that he did know them, and he was happy to ask if they wouldn’t mind if I came back to work it a bit.
I’m actually starting to think that this part of the county will be similar to how Traphill always goes for me. It seems that every time I go to Traphill, I end up making connections that lead to at least another visit, if not several others. I’m starting to see that routine happening in this part of the county now, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m really kind of excited about getting a chance to photograph the mill even though I haven’t really looked at it critically yet. I know that there is a good deal of interest there and I’m sure I would have a great time getting to know it, if I had the chance.
Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked here. Shortly after Jeff went back to his house I was finished up with the barn. I had shot it in several different lighting situations as well as with varying skies behind it, so I was pretty sure I had what I wanted from this location. I got things packed up and started to drive around once again. It didn’t take long for Charles to let me know that he was back home and was free to show me around some places. I was 10 minutes away, so I started that direction full of excitement for what I was going to find.
I met up with him next door to where I had first met him almost two weeks ago. It didn’t take long at all, and we were on the road checking out several different locations. Among the places that we went were a burned down house which had been in the news recently which was down a very long gravel path that I would sworn was a driveway. We then headed back out towards his house and drove down what looked like another driveway, but it went much longer than that. It turned into a path that went into a large field. I would have never suspected that this would have led to anything, but there it was…a barn slightly overgrown sitting alone in the field. Charles had attempted to contact the owner to see if it was ok for me to shoot the barn but hadn’t heard back from him. For now, it was just scouting with Charles leading the way. While we were there, I wanted to see what I would have to work with should the owner grant me permission. I walked around the barn and determined that this would make a nice morning subject with a bit of sunlight hitting it on the side that was more visible. For now, this was going to have to go in the collection of future subjects since I didn’t have permission, or the right light to shoot this one just yet.
When we left that barn, we drove a bit further up the road and he pulled off on the shoulder in front of a green house that I had seen a couple of times before. it had caught my eye, but it looked like it was possibly still lived in which prevented me from wanting to photograph it. There were aspects of it that were interesting, and the sky was looking good behind it. Charles said that it was recently vacated, but the property was still being maintained. It wouldn’t be a problem for me to come back and photograph it, so I put this one in the bank of potential subjects. I liked the looked of the property, but was having a hard time figuring out the right composition to use on the house. It was going to have to be something that I thought about for a while before I committed to getting the camera out.
From there we continued on to another family home which was down at the dead end of an unimproved road that actually did turn into a driveway. Charles had to unlock the gate and we went on in to see the house where ten children were raised. For the era, this was a huge house and it struck me as I was looking at it that there was a single tree off to the side that looked like the mother, and then there were a good many smaller trees that were growing up around the house that looked like the growing children. Of course, this was something that I would have never connected had it not been for the background on the house. This is why it pays to talk with the property owners when you can. There is no telling what the story might be, and that could impact how the scene is shot.
As we were talking there in the field, I was a little concerned with how grown up the trees were around the house. I was thankful that it was still early enough in the Spring season that the trees were still bare. Had they had the leaves on them, there would be no way to make this composition work. When we got there, the sun was a little too bright as well, so the lighting was no good. I was actually able to describe what I was looking for in terms of light to Charles who was interested in what my opinion on good light actually was. As we talked about it, the clouds would move in and out of the scene and the quality of light would change on the house which afforded me the opportunity to illustrate what I was talking about with the contrast of the scene. That was the easy part to deal with, it was the complexity of the trees in front of the house that concerned me the most about this one.
As the light got better, Charles left me to go and tell the neighbors that I would be there for a while and that they didn’t need to worry. I got the camera out and decided to fit the wide angle lens this time because I knew I wanted to get the tall trees in the composition and wanted to have a good bit of the sky included as well. Once again, I fit the Color Combo Polarizer and used the filter holder so that I could add an ND Grad if needed. Once I got the composition figured out, I realized that I did need that filter. I slid in that same 2-stop soft edge grad that I had used before and that calmed the sky down just enough to where I could get the detail in the house that I was after.
The composition that I ended up going for was pretty much the view that I had seen while talking to Charles. It was the view that made the most sense and had the most visual interest to the house. It was the trees that told the story, and the house was more the setting for that story. That was how I composed this one, and it seemed to work ok while I was there. It wasn’t a strong composition though and I just couldn’t put my finger on why that was. I tried all sorts of variations of the basic composition and never really did come up with anything better. I even tried moving in close and using the flowers as a foreground, but the perspective wasn’t pleasing at that distance with the wide-angle lens.
It wasn’t until I got home and started to edit the image that the answer came to me. It was that large tree that was blocking the visual flow of the image from left to right. It took all of the emphasis off of the house which was where I was having the problem. A simple flip of the image put that large tree on the right so that it didn’t block the eyes from moving through the scene. It immediately got better, but I hated that I had to change the reality of the house for the sake of the composition. For most viewers, it would go unnoticed and would make for a much more pleasing composition. For Charles, I’m sure it will look odd because he is not used to seeing it in that direction. It was an artistic choice that I made for the sake of photograph, and one that I will stick by. It wasn’t the only time that I did this little compositional trick either.
After I was finally satisfied that I had all I could get from the overall view of the house, I started to look for details that were interesting. I stared out shooting the porch going to the front door which I found interesting, but the photos failed to deliver on that visual interest. As I was browsing around, I noticed the other section of the porch where there was a couch sitting beside an open door. Directly above the couch was a wasp nest which I found interesting when matched with the couch. I worked different angles until I found something that I thought would work for a composition. I had to set up on the ground, right at the edge of the porch surrounded by tree limbs and vines. It was hard to get into position, and even harder to see what I was composing in the camera, but I got something that I was pretty happy with.
I was using the 24-70mm lens at this point and had opted to leave off the filters since there wasn’t much need for any here. It was an interesting scene because you could tell that it was shot on the exterior of the house, but the couch was certainly something that started out life inside. It is those kinds of dichotomies that I love to find and photograph. The composition had the same problem that the overall house did though. It didn’t read smoothly from left to right with the vines coming into the frame on the left and the open door on the left side. Once again, I flipped the image left to right and it immediately read smoother. Again, I hated to do this because it would make the scene less familiar to Charles and his family, but for the sake of the photograph, it was the right choice once again. It did make me wonder if the house was just built backwards since both of the photos that I liked from here required flipping to flow better. Maybe it is just my low-grade dyslexia kicking in and I’m just reading it backwards. Either way, I do like how these turned out considering the complexity of the subject.
I had been working the house for about an hour to get what amounted to only two photos, but I was satisfied with the results. I got things loaded back into the truck and locked the gate back as I had promised to do before setting off on my way home. I kept thinking about that little green house that he had showed me earlier. It had caught my eye before that introduction so I really wanted to see if there was something that could be done with the house. It was on the way back home, so I just planned on stopping by and checking it out critically while I was still in the area. It didn’t take but a few minutes to get there and I pulled into the driveway right next to the “No Trespassing” sign. It is nice to have permission to be places!
I didn’t get the camera out just yet because I wanted to see what I might want to shoot. I looked at the overall scene which was pretty much as I had seen it driving by. The sky was great behind the house, but there were a lot of power lines and poles to deal with behind it. I could deal with those in post if needed, but it was going to be a fairly significant edit to do. The composition wasn’t all that strong either as there was not a good foreground or leading line that would work with a good angle, and the best angle on the house was the straight on shot which lacked depth. I wasn’t really feeling all that great about this location, but I knew that there was some great Spring color at the front porch.
That was where I went next and as I got closer; I could see a red wagon sitting right at the edge of the flowers. This is one of those scenes that I absolutely love. There are the bright and vibrant colors of the season showing new life while the wagon has obviously seen better days and was broken. The scene was perfect just like it was, and I knew that I had to photograph it before I left. I went back and grabbed the camera which once again had my standard lens attached along with that Color Combo Polarizer. I came back to the wagon and worked a lot of angles until I was happy with the composition. This was more difficult than it appears by looking though. I had to balance several elements within the frame while omitting parts of the porch and a wooden pole to the right. I wanted to get the wagon in a flattering view while keeping the steering axle as separated as I could from the rest of the parts of the wagon. I didn’t want to move anything, partly out of respect, but also because I would never be able to create something as natural and organic as this appeared. I wanted it just how I had found it, and I eventually found that right combination of elements to tell this story.
While I had been working on a composition with the wagon, I had originally tried to include what looked to be a decorative bird feeder, or light holder. I hadn’t been able to get a pleasing composition using both elements, so I decided to break them up into two different compositions. This one was going to be handled quite a bit different than the wagon. I actually wanted to use a limited depth of field for this composition and chose f/4 to make sure that I had the post all in focus with the background going soft. I worked on balancing all of the elements within the scene before getting the photos. I wasn’t sure how they would work, and I only shot three frames of this composition. It was simple and I liked the age of the wood with the colors and textures of the cover. Looking at it on the computer, I wished that I had moved the camera just a bit over to the left to give that last bit of separation between the cover and the beam to the left. I think I would have liked that better, but I’m going to tell myself that that slight overlap in the dark portion of the beam just creates a relationship between the elements. Yeah, that sounds good, and I’m convinced. How about you? Did you even notice that slight overlap, and if you did, is it a distraction?
I didn’t stay here as long as I should have, but I started to move around to see if there was anything else that I might want to capture. I went to the other side of the porch and looked at how the flowers looked over there. They were just as pretty, but there was no wagon to place in the middle of them which meant that there wasn’t a photo to be had in my opinion. I just kept on looking for something else to photograph. There had to be something else here, or a view of the whole house that I had missed. Nothing that I saw made sense as a photograph. Maybe I was all done here? I started to walk over by the edge of the driveway, and something caught my eye in one o the decorative details of the yard. I just saw a splash of red among the rich green vegetation. What could that be?
Well, that red turned out to be a bird house which had long since fallen from a pedestal of some sort. It was in bad shape, but it was beautiful in my eyes. There was a story here, almost as compelling at the wagon among the flowers. There was a photo here, I just knew it! I started to build a composition and I looked for the best angle to work with. The camera went down low, and I started more or less to the side of the house. I didn’t like that angle because the greenery got in the way of the front of the bird house. I shifted to the right so that I was shooting from the roof down which made for a more pleasing angle on the main subject. I also got the added benefit of getting the boarder to curve up to the left which balanced the scene a bit more and gave it some depth and dimension which I wanted. It was a quirky composition of an odd subject, but I truly loved what I was seeing.
I spend some time fine tuning the composition and I probably shot about six frames of this one subject. I was as excited about this as I was about the wagon. I might not have gotten any photographs of the entire house, but I was sure happy about these little details that I had found. I made one last look around and decided that I had all that I was going to get from here today. I loaded up the truck and started on my way home.
It had been a fun day, and I had been out for right at nine hours. During that time, I had shot 83 frames which resulted in seven keepers which wasn’t bad at all. There were a few here that I really liked which made the day a success. You know about the detail shots from the last house, but I’m also really happy with the Chevy Apache and the barn in Lomax. Those four images turned out very well and I think that they are a good indication that this new editing technique might just work out for certain types of photography. I’ll be doing more experimenting with it in the future and will probably end up adding it to my Lightroom instruction sessions.
If my luck continues, I should be able to get out to the barn Friday morning as the conditions are looking favorable for that composition at this time. Once I get the word that I have permission to photograph the mill, I’ll be out there on the next cloudy day for sure. I’m looking forward to both subjects and I hope that the photos turn out as good as I’m expecting.
Until that next time….
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