Wednesday, December 29, 2021
I’ll be honest here. I really thought that my year was all over. I had wrapped up 2021 with a really great day in Wilkes County where I managed to photograph a rat rod for the first time in a number of years. I had also had a really awesome day in Ashe County photographing some great examples of Old Iron. I was having a resurgence of my decay photography as applied to old cars. It really seemed as though most of my time spent with the decay subjects had been rural scenes and old barns more than anything. While these are great subjects and I really enjoy working with them, there is just something therapeutic about photographing the textures and colors of rust. I spent the better part of last Winter and Spring trying to find rusty vehicles out here to photograph and just never got into the right groove to do that. I ended up wondering if I was ever going to find the great areas for rusted cars out here. All good things come to those who wait.
It just takes a while to get in the flow of an area and really understand where to find the right subjects. Part of this process is spending a great deal of time riding around aimlessly and taking mental notes. Usually, when one subject is located, there will be even more close by, and the deeper you dig, the more you will find. I’ve finally made that connection with the area that I would consider local to me. I had a lock on it while I was in Forsyth County and could find old rusty vehicles at the drop of a hat. That took a while to build up to, and I am slowly getting to that point here in Wilkes. One of my recent treks had taken me out in the area of Cricket, near North Wilkesboro where I had stopped to take a photograph of an old GMC truck that Toni had spotted a while back. If you will remember, I wasn’t able to get any photographs of the old truck because the clouds cleared up before I could get the camera set up. I had made the connection with the property owner which made it very easy to come back at another time which I intended to do.
With the year coming to a close, I was all set to just sit back and ride it out trying to work on a solution to some website hosting issues. I’ll get into more detail on that front in a couple of days with my next Behind the Camera. It was getting rather frustrating though as the website seemed to be down much more than it was up and functioning. That kind of took the joy out of going out for new photographs since it was a toss-up as to whether or not I would be able to get the new images uploaded and added to the website. With a Springlike weather pattern coming into the area complete with warm weather and lots of rain (which we desperately need), I really didn’t see much chance in getting out for any new photos in the last few days of 2021.
However, with Toni going to work, and me waking up very early as she was getting ready to go, I was left looking at the weather which was actually looking promising with scattered showers through the morning, which brought with them some mixed layers of clouds which was just what I was wanting for the old GMC truck. It took me a while to get to see the clouds though since I was up well before sunrise. I got some things done down in the office while I was waiting to see what the sky was going to look at. I frustrated myself because I wasn’t able to get into the website to put the finishing touches on the first entry of 2022. I knew that Nick was working on the problem, but the attacks on the site had gotten so bad that he couldn’t even keep access long enough to make a backup copy of the website. It was starting to look like an exercise in futility to try and stay ahead of the issues with the website, so I just got flustered and went upstairs and stretched out in the recliner. It was still dark, and I ended up going to sleep for a little bit. I ended up waking up around 8am and could see that it was light outside, but when I looked at the clouds, there was really no definition in them at all. The rain was holding off which was a good thing, but unless I could get some detail in the sky, there would be no sense in going out for photos.
I went back downstairs and did some trouble shooting with another issue that I have been having dealing with some online services. I wasn’t able to get that straightened out either, and ended up being on the phone for nearly an hour with tech support. So far, I was locked out of the website, and wasn’t able to update Quicken so that I could work with my finances for the end of the year. The day was not looking up at this point which left me with a big question. I had been up for five hours and had gotten nothing at all accomplished of any importance. I had clouds outside with no rain and I had planned on going out with the camera on some level. I guess you could say I guilted myself into going out to see what I could find. There was a bit more definition in the clouds now that the day was progressing, but nothing like what I was looking for in order to photograph that GMC truck.
I developed a quick plan to stick close to home so that I could get out to capture that GMC if the sky started to look good. I grabbed my gear and loaded it up in the truck so that I could head out towards North Wilkesboro. The lighting was good for what I like to work with, and I got to thinking about another truck that Toni had seen while we were driving home from dinner one evening in the Miata. This truck was situated in the framework for a canopy of sorts, and I really wasn’t sure if it would make a good image or not. I knew that I had the right light for it, and it was close to the area where the big GMC was located so I made a course to the smaller GMC to see what I could do with it.
When I got there, I started to look at it critically and determined that it wasn’t going to be all that easy to get a good composition of. The framework was causing a huge distraction and was going to force me to include a lot of the surroundings in order to have the poles make sense which were going to be in the frame at least in portions. The truck was great, and I really did want to photograph it, so I pulled off on the side of the road to really think this composition through. I couldn’t tell if anyone was home at the house which was associated with the property, and honestly, I wasn’t sure that I needed to get access to the property in order to photograph this truck. If I got in close, I would have to go with a wide-angle lens which would really stretch the distance of the framework from the truck and make me have to include a lot of the surroundings which I didn’t think would look good at that kind of focal length.
It did look pretty good from the road and with the compression of the long lens; I would be able to keep the framework around the truck scaled appropriately. I just had to figure out how to organize the elements in the composition. There was a large car from the early ’80’s parked to the left of the scene, and there was an old barn parked to the right of the truck. Of the two, there was no question that I would rather have the barn in the photograph, so I started to work a composition from an angle that would omit the car, while including the barn. Unfortunately, the barn took up a lot of room in the composition and made the truck very small which was dangerous with the framework around it. I needed to have more visual weight on the truck to overcome the poles. In order to do that, I ended up only including a portion of the barn which seemed to work very well.
I chose to make the right side of the frame just past a tree that was growing up right next to the barn. I ended the frame to the left just past the last upright support so that I was able to include the entire frame for the shelter. I let the trees give me the much-needed visual interest in the sky since the clouds were not quite detailed enough for my liking. The composition was simple enough, and I tried my hardest to keep the elements separated enough to avoid confusion in the frame. I did have to block one other vehicle which was parked behind the truck which more or less dictated how far left I could go in order to capture the image before I showed the red car to the rear.
I tried a lot of different positions from the road, as well as about 20 into the driveway. The closer I got the less the composition worked so I was confident that I wasn’t going to need to knock on the door for this one. I just stuck it out on the side of the road until I had what I though was a good range of images to go through hoping that one would work out. I wasn’t thrilled with this scene, but it was one that I had wanted to photograph for a while, and I finally had gotten it done. It is always nice to have the first image in the bag as that gives me the drive to go on and create more photography.
I loaded everything back up in the truck and started back out on my mission to find more subjects. The clouds were starting to look better, and I figured that this was going to be the perfect time to check on the big GMC. I drove by the house and the sky was starting to develop behind the truck which was enough for me to want to give the owner a call to see if I could go ahead and give it a shot. I called the house phone and left a voicemail. I drove around for a few minutes and decided that he might be outside and away from the phone, so I drove back by and pulled in the driveway. I got out and knocked on the door with no answer. The light was really looking good, and I hated to abandon this one, but I had told him that I would call before I came by to shoot it, so he didn’t have to worry about me being there without him. I had to be true to my word, so I got back in the truck and decided to stay close and hope that he would call back.
I was taking some different roads here and there and eventually ended up on 115 which I knew of an old house that I had been invited to shoot a bit further South. I started that way and tried to think about a composition that I could do with the house, but as I was considering those options, I decided to turn down another road that I had been on recently with really good luck. I drove down that way for a while and started to turn on rods that I hadn’t been on before. There was a lot of great potential, but nothing was striking me as a composition just yet. I was starting to get a little discouraged since I had only shot one scene thus far, and it wasn’t all that great of a photograph I was afraid. I was really wanting to find something else which might be a bit more exciting to photograph. I just wasn’t finding anything that excited my creative self.
As I was getting into Rhonda, I saw an old white house just down a side street that caught my eye. I could tell that the chimney was falling apart, and it was next to a really nice bare tree. Those two things were enough to get my mind racing with thoughts about a composition. When I turned down the road, I could see the house much better and saw that there was not one, but two chimneys that were falling apart. The covered porch was collapsing which was a bonus and the tree was awesome. The whole scene was situated at the top of a hill which helped to isolate it from the surrounding trees. All of the ingredients for a good composition were there, I just needed to figure out how to make it work.
I got pulled off on the side of the road and grabbed my camera. This time, I went for the wide-angle lens because I wanted to be sure to get the grand tree next to the house. I started working the scene from the roadway and was having a very hard time getting a composition to work out because there was a less than photogenic barn to the right of the scene. I had to be very careful about the angles that I was using to capture the house because using the wide-angle, I was creating some really bad converging verticals which I knew I was going to have to correct in post. I wanted to keep that kind of processing to a minimum, so I tried to work out the angles to the best of my ability. It became obvious very quickly though that I was needing to get closer so that I could go up the hill and get more in line with the altitude of the old house.
There was a small house on the other side of the driveway to this house. I wasn’t sure if it was occupied or not, but there was a car in the driveway which was possibly still operable. I knocked on the door which almost opened up under the impact of my knuckles. I thought that there was no way that anyone lived here, but there was a voice that rang out from inside asking who was there. I answered and she advised that she was on her way to the door. I waited and was eventually greeted by the lady of the house. I asked if it would be ok for me to set up in her yard in order to photograph the house. She didn’t have a problem with it but was confused as to why I wanted to photograph the old house which was falling down. I tried to explain the best that I could knowing that the clouds were parting as I was talking. I didn’t have long at all before the sky would be all wrong for this shot. Fortunately, she tired of me quickly and I was sent on my way.
I finished exploring the angles that the house offered and tried to get the best image that I possibly could. While I was working on the composition, I noticed that the sun was starting to come out over my shoulder which was causing the light on the house to get really interesting under the clouds. I quickly found the composition that I wanted and committed to it. I shot a number of frames as the light was changing hoping to get that perfect quality of warm sunlight on the house while the clouds were still dark in the background. Unfortunately, that didn’t really happen as the clouds were thinning too quickly and they were becoming more white than anything. It was still a great situation as the light on the house was really good and made it possible for the main subject to really stand out, not to mention the tree lit up as well.
I was pretty sure that I had something decent from this house, and that gave me two images for the day. Neither was going to be a showstopper, but I was at least feeling like the day had been worth my while and I was going to have something to show for it. I packed up my gear and looked at the sky. It was clearing off for the most part and the sun was actually starting to get a little harsh now. I didn’t really want to call it day just yet, but the light was telling me that I wasn’t going to get anything else good out here today. I set a lazy course back home and worked my way up to 268 which I knew would take me that way. As I was going through Rhonda proper, I got a phone call from Rickey who had just gotten home to find my message from earlier. He said that he was home and that I could come by and get the photographs. He said that the sun was out there which was not what I wanted to hear, but I had hopes that the clouds might start to build as the afternoon went on. It was worth going by there on the way home to see if I might get lucky.
When I finally got there, I had been on both ends of the weather spectrum during the trip. I had seen totally clear skies as well as completely overcast ones. I just had no idea what to expect when I arrived, but I was happy to see that there were good clouds over the GMC. There were some bright areas which I was hoping to avoid, but I had something to work with which was a good start. Rickey and his wife were already outside working on the house, so I pulled into the driveway and parked. Not wanting to lose the clouds, I said a quick hello and grabbed my gear. The first subject that I went for was that GMC which was the only one that required the sky to be in the frame. I had already figured this composition out for the most part, so I was able to get in position pretty quickly. I loaded up my 24-70mm lens and started to frame the composition. I had to mask a house in the background, as well as another vehicle behind the truck. There was a barn and a Dodge Pickup on the side of the old truck which I didn’t mind being in the composition for a bit of balance. It just took a while until I found the right combination of camera placement and focal length. Once I was there, I committed to the composition and started shooting frames.
I quickly realized that the sky was much too bright with the hotspot in the clouds. I had to swap up my filters so that in addition to my polarizer, I could slide in an ND Grad filter. I started off with a 2-stop hard edge filter because the horizon was roughly straight, and I wanted to get the majority of the filter effect pretty close to the horizon. I got the filter positioned and fired off another shot only to find out that the sky was still blowing out in that one area. I added a 3-stop soft edge filter for a bit of a gradual transition with some extra darkening capabilities at the top. That just barely did the trick and I managed to reduce the blinkies on the image review to a very small amount while I was able to expose for the shadow areas quite a bit better than before.
I stuck with this basic composition for a while as the clouds moved overhead. I eventually was rewarded with a more uniform luminosity to the sky, and I was able to pull out the 3-stop filter for the remaining exposures. I was thinking that these would be the ones that I would be choosing from for the keepers but ended up liking one of the earlier ones better because the sky brought much more drama to the scene. I finally had the photograph of the GMC that I had been waiting on for a couple of weeks now. The rest of this was going to be gravy since the sky wasn’t going to be important. I just let the camera as it was, but I did pull out the remaining grad filter because I knew I wasn’t going to be needing it anymore today.
The old GMC had captured my attention so thoroughly that I wasn’t ready to give it up just yet. The patina on it was amazing and I wanted to capture more of it before I moved on to something different. I started to look around to see what excited me the most. The first thing that I decided to work on was the emblem on the cowl just under the turn signal. There wasn’t anything really unique about the emblem, but the colors of the patina were great in comparison to the brightwork of the emblem. The turn signal was another element that I liked, but when I put it all together in my typical straight-on composition it just fell apart. There was nothing interesting about the lines, and the main elements were just too static in this format. I started to play with the angles and looked for some diagonals to introduce which really helped the composition. It was a new twist on an old formula for me and I really liked how it was looking.
I only shot a few frames of that side before I was sure that I had something that would work. I then moved to the other side to see if the appearance was any different or better on the passenger side. When I got around there, I was greeted with a surprise. This side was very unique compared to the other side, and the other trucks of this era that I had photographed. There was a cover on the vents under the emblem that added just that extra bit of detail to the shot. It was something completely different from the other side with lots more visual treats to include. I decided to frame this up very similar to how I did the other side.
The angle worked here as well, and it was helped with the addition of the equipment number right behind the turn signal. I tried to frame up the shot to where the intake was included in its entirety, but that just artificially lengthened the composition more than I wanted. I tried a 16:9 crop on this, but that wasn’t looking good at all. In order to keep the balance, I cropped in at the top part of the intake so that I could keep the turn signal and the #21 which I thought were very important to the image. I only did two exposures here with slightly different strengths on the polarizer before I was sure that I had one that would work for me. Things were going well at this point, and I was fully in the groove of working on the isolations with this big boy.
As I discovered in Ashe County, I have really missed doing isolations and they are a great way of simplifying my thoughts when I have a lot going on. I was really benefitting from homing in on the details of this big truck and I was thinking that I was actually liking the isolations more than the overall shot that I had been planning for quite some time now. While I was working on the different details on this truck, I started to receive some text messages from Nick who was able to actually get into the website to start trying to fix the problems we have been experiencing. This was really good news, but I wasn’t going to get my hopes up because the repair has turned out to be quite problematic over the last couple of weeks. It did make me wonder if I was going to be able to get into the website to post any of the photographs that turned out from this trek or not.
There I went thinking about the big picture again and that started to get my mind flustered once again. Fortunately, I was still in the mode of working isolations on this old truck. I moved forward a bit where I had seen another unique emblem on the hood. It was one that I don’t recall ever seeing before and I was thrilled that it was situated in the middle of some fantastic patina and a beautiful cool blue paint. I tried to get just the emblem, but that was boring and uninspired. I looked for other alternatives and decided that the handle for the hood which was down near the fender would be a great element to put in the photograph. It would also force the inclusion of the fender which would add a nice curve to the image. I worked on a couple of ways to frame this us and decided on a vertical composition which I tried a couple of different variations with. I found that the one that only included the single panel line above the fender was my favorite. it was the simplest composition and the one that focused mostly on the shapes of the body.
Just like that I was no longer concerned with the website. My mind was filled with rusty goodness, and I was looking forward to the next fix. I started the slow walk around the truck in an attempt to find something else to work with. I had done pretty much all of the emblems and the front of the truck really didn’t have that much visual interest for this type of photography. The headlights and grill had served their purpose for the overall shot that I had started out with. I knew that there was still something else with this old gem though, so I kept on looking.
What I ended up finding was a long shot for a composition. It was the back corner of the cab on the passenger’s side. There was a completely rusted handle that was canted away from the door opening. The door seam was not straight, but it curved at roughly the same place that the handle did. The shapes were great and mirrored themselves. The part that sold me the most on the composition was that the original blue paint which used to cover the entire truck was still showing through in the doorjamb. It was that blue that I knew could easily be pushed towards the teal end of the spectrum that complemented the rusty tones so well. I had what I was hoping would be an interesting composition developing.
I worked with the camera for a while until I was happy with the positioning of it. I twisted the polarizer to get the right tonalities across the scene and started to make exposures. When the images started to come up on the LCD, I was immediately excited about what I was seeing. These images were looking so much better than I had expected and were quickly becoming the ones that I was most excited about for the day. I made sure that I tried every variation with the composition before I let this one go. The one that you see here was one of the last ones where I had figured out the placement just about perfectly. The lines matched up, there was a dynamic symmetry to the whole composition and that blue color was proudly presenting itself between the rusted panels just as I was hoping it would do. The last ingredient to this image was flipping the image horizontally in Lightroom. That put the handle on the right side of the frame and allowed your eyes to read through the image much better. I could have gotten this very composition on the opposite side of the truck, but that handle was still full of chrome and the blue paint was no longer there. Those two elements completely changed the look of the composition, so I went with the better of the two sides and just flipped it.
I could have stopped there, and I think I would have been totally fulfilled from the day. I had what I thought was an outstanding abstract image and that was without even seeing it on the computer. I still had good light though and the last thing that I wanted to do was call it quits when I was on a roll. There were several other vehicles out here that I wanted to try to photograph as well. One of them was an old Ford F-1 pickup. It was one of those body styles that I just love to work with. The problem was it was parked right next to that Dodge truck that had made a cameo in the opening image from this location. There was also another bigger Ford right in front of it. In short, I had to be very creative with the composition in order to keep this truck a solo cast member.
I tried a bunch of different compositions to try and get a good story of this truck, but none of them would work out. I was about to give up on the idea of a photograph but realized that I could do some isolations on this one and probably come away with some pretty good shots. The only thing that I had to contend with was the tree that was draping over the front of the truck, but there was enough room to work at the front right corner. I brought the camera in close and then elevated it to a level where I could get a nice corner image to show off the grille and fenders. I just remembered the way that I had been shooting the VW Bugs here recently because the overall shape was very similar between the two vehicles. It worked out quite well and I had a great started image for this subject.
My next stop was a bit further back towards the cab. One of my favorite compositions on these trucks is where the hood and fender meets the cowl. The point where those three panels join up make for a rally interesting composition which is even better when there is an emblem present. There was an emblem hidden behind the lichen which was just visible. The panel lines looked great, and the fender was full of wonderful surface rust and patina, not to mention a collection of leaves. As I was looking at this scene, I didn’t even bother going with my normal straight on shot because I really wanted to do something a bit different with this one.
There was nothing in the rule books that said that I had to keep the emblem square and level. I had been having a lot of fun incorporating diagonals into the compositions, so I kept with that theme. I shot the photograph from slightly behind the door post, using the seam of the door as an edge for the left side of the frame. That was what dictated the angle that the photograph was going to be shot at. I let the fender occupy a good amount of space in the bottom right portion of the frame while I cropped the top at the vent insert for the hood. I loved the lines from this angle and the rust really gave the whole image that perfect amount of pop. The lichen provided the textures that contrasted with the leaves, and for those that look close enough, you will see the emblem that will indicate what exactly you are looking at. This was another one of those compositions that only required a couple of shots to get in the bag. It was just too easy to work with, and the only question was how much of the fender to include. I ended up going with the second version that had just a little bit less of the fender so that the visual weight was balanced out for the whole image.
I was really happy with what I had so far, but there were still a few more vehicles that I wanted to try photographing before I was done. I worked my way through a couple of Fords and an International Travelall which just didn’t quite work out for a photograph. I looked for isolations on these, but they were just not nearly as interesting as the ones that I had already captured. I ended up making a quick tour through the area and decided that I was done. I was very happy with the day’s images and knew that I had 90 frames saved in the camera. Roughly half of them were from this location which I already knew would be producing the vast majority of the images for the day.
I made my way back up to my truck and broke the camera down. It had been a very good day and I was getting rather tired. I knew I was going to have a lot of editing in front of me when I got home, but really had no idea how many images that I was going to end up keeping. I felt reasonably sure that I would have about six or so but was shocked when I had eleven images that I pulled into Lightroom to edit. I nixed two of those because they were just other variations on the overall GMC photograph, and I liked the one that you see in this story the best by far of those. I had roughly a 5% hit rate for the first two scenes that I shot and then brought it home with a roughly 20% hit rate for the third and final location. When I’m in a good location with good light, it is hard to make a bad image.
I do hope that you enjoyed this trek as it might be the last for 2021. There is still the possibility that I might go out again before the weekend, but if I don’t, I think that I’m at peace with how the year has ended. Almost as if the icing on the cake, while I was doing the edits on the images Nick texted me and let me know that he was finally able to get the website transitioned to another host that is better able to deal with the brute force attacks that have been plaguing this site for a while now. He recommended giving it a little time to settle down before I did anything with it which wasn’t a problem at all since I spent roughly five hours editing the images from the day. By the time I was done, the website went like butter, and I have had no issues at all with accessing it to do this entry. Let me know if you are having any issues with this website, but I think we are finally out of the woods and ready to start 2022 with a fully functioning website.
Keep in mind, if there are any images that you are particularly fond of in my collections, I do offer prints of these photographs. It is these prints which actually represent the intended final form of these photographs. I never make a photograph with the intention of it just being an online digital file. Every time I press the shutter button, I am hoping that the resulting photo will be worthy enough to end up on a wall at some point. Since I no longer have room on my walls, I live vicariously through my wonderful clients. So, let me know what I can create for you to spruce up your walls, or in the case of this batch of photographs, your man-cave. I have an ever-growing collection of photographs for just about every need.
Also, if you are a photographer, you might be interested to know that I have changed up my one-on-one instruction and turned it into a full-fledged mentorship program. This is brand new, and I’ll talk a little about it in my next Behind the Camera but look for a full explanation of it probably in my March installment. This is a great program that I have been considering for quite some time now and I think that it will take my individual instruction to a whole new level of effectiveness. If there is something that you would like help with in your own photography, keep this new offer in mind.
Just in case, I don’t get back here before the new year, I want to wish everyone a safe and happy farewell to 2021. Let’s hope that 2022 has finally got all the glitches worked out so we can get back to normal. Yeah….I know….that ship has already sailed. Let’s just hope that 2022 isn’t a full-on dumpster fire.
Until next time….
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