Wednesday, December 8, 2021
I would like to start off by apologizing for the email notification that went out on Tuesday. I was working on getting the year end blog entries done and I thought I had set up the scheduled publishing date, but I forgot to put 2022. Guess that is the first of many times I’ll be doing that little mistake for a while. Anyway, the publish notification went out in error and linked back to an empty page. If you didn’t get that email, then you probably aren’t a subscriber to the blog and you are going to be missing actual entries like this one here where I have a handful of new images to discuss. Subscribing is easy, you just have to go to the bottom of the home page and look for “Subscribe by Email.” When you enter your email address, and confirm receipt of the test email, you are all signed up. You will get automatic notifications with each new post.
Now that I have that out of the way, I can start talking about how this day went down. I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m actually quite happy with today’s trek and consider myself rather fortunate considering how things started out. Before going to bed last night, I looked at the weather knowing that there were going to be clouds at some point during the day. Sure enough, there were clouds set for the morning hours until about 10am. They were going to be filling up all three levels in the atmosphere which meant that I would have good diffusion of the sun as well as some texture from the low level clouds. It was just a perfect recipe for my photography. The question at this point was what in the world did I want to photograph?
Well, I have been wanting to photograph some moving water for a while now, but even though the weather was supposed to be nearly ideal for that, with the lack of rain that we have had for the last few months, I didn’t figure that there would be much in the way of water flow which kind of negated the idea of photographing waterfalls. Next on my list was going out to West Jefferson where I had seen some potential barns to shoot. I didn’t have anything particular in mind but wanted to get out there to see what I could come up with. Looking at the weather, areas just North of home were going to see a bit more clouds until about 11am. That was my goal for the day as I went to bed. I had my clock set for 6am so that I could get up and out early enough to make use of the few hours that I had to work with since the clouds would be clearing out quickly, leaving nothing but a clear sky.
When my clock rang, I checked the weather and saw that the clouds had started to thin out a good bit and were going to be leaving sooner than expected. The areas North were in a pattern to get thinner clouds than I was hoping for which kind of killed my idea for going into West Jefferson. I stayed in bed trying to come up with another plan of action and just couldn’t get anything put together. I ultimately rolled over and curled up with Toni for another two hours of sleep. When I finally woke up, I could tell that the light outside was much dimmer than it should have been which meant that there were clouds overhead.
I looked out of the window and saw dark clouds overhead and flat light everywhere. It was not good light for photography, and I wasn’t sad at all that I had slept in for a couple of extra hours. I checked the weather reports again and saw that the clouds were going to be clearing out in an hour or two. As I looked off to the West, there was a bit of texture to the clouds which I kind of liked. It was enough to prod me out the door with my camera in tow. My plan was to go ahead and go into West Jefferson to check out those barns to see if I could get anything in the time that I was going to have with the clouds. First, I had to stop and get gas because I only had a quarter of a tank, and there was every chance I would be burning through that before I got back home again. While I was at the Exxon on 421, I was looking at the clouds because I had a much better vantage point from here. I could tell that the sky was clearing already to the West, and the North was looking kind of boring. The South had clouds, but they were kind of sporadic, and it looked like most of the good sky was to the East.
That was all I needed to get my directions set. I didn’t have a destination yet, but I was chasing the clouds which is a favorite pastime for me when it comes to photography. I was thinking about where I might find the best subjects and decided that I would pick up 115 and head to the Southeastern part of Wilkes County. I have spent some time out that way over the last year and know a few places that will usually produce some decent images. The only wildcard was the sky. According to the forecast, I was going to have a little over an hour before the light would start to fade.
Once I got on 115, I started to take side roads while I was still in Wilkesboro. I had been on most of these before, but it had been a while. I just drove slowly and looked in all of the less than visible places in hopes to find something good. Having just conducted my decay workshop, my eyes were geared towards finding old vehicles because that was what I found myself gravitating towards in my search. I wasn’t really finding anything at all, but I did pass an old diesel garage that had some bobtail tractors parked outside. It caught my eye because it was kind of odd to see that out here on the side road, but what kept my attention was an old Autocar truck parked over on the side of the property. I have no idea what year it was, but it was definitely an old one and had a rather unique nose on it.
I drove on past it, but it stuck in my mind, and I was letting my imagination play with the scene. In a minute or so, I had come up with a plan for the composition, so I turned around and went back to the garage. There was nobody there, and it looked like it was no longer in operation, at least on a regular basis. I suspect that the trucks were just parked there while the drivers were in town. There were “No Trespassing” signs on the building, but I was going to be nowhere near the building. In fact, what I was going to be shooting was rather close to the roadway. I got parked and pulled out the camera with a 24-70mm lens on it. I added a polarizer and set about getting the composition fine-tuned.
I had to worry about a utility pole right in front of the truck and several houses that could be seen behind the truck. The truck was parked on a slight hill and was leaning over which was going to make a low composition difficult because the perspective distortion was going to be heavily accentuated. I just worked with the position of the camera until I had a pleasing composition that had enough balance to the scene. My first attempt had too much of the grill in the frame and that dominated the entire photograph, so I had to move to the left a little bit. I had to balance out the bulk of the cab of this truck when compared to the bobtail that was a very small part of the composition. I had to keep the composition focused on the cab to really make this work out. After about 5 minutes I landed on the right composition and started shooting in between the bits of wind that kept coming through. It didn’t take long, and I was reasonably pleased with the images that I had captured.
I was about ready to pack things up and roll on, but I was thinking that there was more to this truck than an overall shot. I started to play the game of what I liked and what I didn’t like when it came to the details of the truck. What I ended up with was working a composition around the air cleaner, just above the passenger side fender. There was a lot of interesting contrasts going on there and plenty of texture from rust which I loved. I tried to frame up several different compositions both vertical and horizontal. The first one that I found which I liked was the vertical composition. I shot a few frames of that using different depths of field because I couldn’t tell which I liked better at the time. When I was done with that one, I flipped the camera back to horizontal and worked a different variation of what I had found vertically. At first, I couldn’t get it to balance out, but the more I played with it, I found that I could use the exhaust pipe to frame the image on the left and have the dark hood side frame it to the right. I fine-tuned things as I was shooting exposures and when I finally got the composition that I thought was the best, I bracketed images for depth of field the same as I did vertically. My gut was telling me to go for a limited depth of field with an aperture of f/5.6, but just in case I didn’t like that, I went for a tighter aperture of f/16. I’m glad I did, because I didn’t like any of the images that I allowed to go soft in the distance. The details here demanded a wider depth of field.
After my edits were all done, this is my early favorite image of day. There are some that happened later on which I like almost as well, but there is something about this photograph that just really speaks to me. I had spent the longest part of my stop at this truck working on this detail image, so that might have something to do with the fact that I’m attached to it. Whatever the reason is, I am very happy that I stopped here at this truck. It was not my normal subject, but I’m getting to where more and more I like breaking the mold of what is considered my normal subject matter. Just wait until you see my most significant images of 2021 when I publish it shortly after Christmas. I’m all over the place on that list and I can’t wait to share it with you.
After spending about 20 minutes here with the old truck, I was back on the road looking for the next composition. The clouds were actually starting to look really good at this point and they had definition to them. I could see to the West and far South that the clouds were clearing still, but what was over me right now seemed to be content to stick around a while longer and who was I to argue? I got back on 115 headed South and started to look for clues that might lead me to some great scenes. I started to turn down side roads which I hadn’t been on before in hopes that I could find some new scenes. Those side roads brought me to other side roads which eventually got me lost which was what I was after. I just watched the compass to make sure that I was roughly headed in a direction that I was ok with.
At some point during my travels into Southeastern Wilkes County I came upon a house that had two old Plymouths sitting in a fenced in field. They were mostly grown over with weeds, but the weeds were basically dead at this point and not blocking the view too terribly. I just didn’t really see a composition on either of these cars, so I just kept on going down the road in search of something better. I drove for a few more miles and eventually came to the end of the road and decided to turn back around. As I got closer to the pair of Plymouths I decided to pull off on the side of the road and give them another look. From that vantage point, I could see that I would have to do a composition on each car individually if I were going to make it work. With the weeds, I was going to have to fill up the frame with the car to make sure that they drew the attention that I needed from them. They were close to the road and I could shoot them from the side of the fence near the road. I could tell that nobody was at home at the house so there was no sense in knocking. I really didn’t need to access the property anyway
I grabbed the camera which was still set up with the 24-70mm lens and polarizer. I went across the road and climbed the short embankment to get to the fence. I got things set up on Fury to the right because it seemed to be more photogenic than the other one thanks to a large wheeled rake parked right next to the car. I framed up a composition that I thought would work only to find out that I wanted to zoom in tighter on the scene. I was at 70mm and there was no more give in this lens. Instead of swapping glass though, I shot a test shot at 70mm and then zoomed into the image review to see what the tighter crop would look like. I liked it, and it was worth swapping out the lens to get that perspective on the scene.
I ran back to the truck and fitted the 70-200mm lens along with the polarizer before going back to the spot where I had just been. Now I was able to frame up a composition at 88mm which was just perfect to really bring the attention to the car and the farming implement. The sky over the distant mountains was just about perfect with lots of mood and depth so I was sure to include what I could of the sky. I didn’t want to overpower the scene though, so I kept the sky to a minimum, but with enough effect to show off the textures there. The composition just fell into place so well that I committed to that composition and shot between breezes so that I could ensure that the vegetation wasn’t moving in the frame.
When I got done shooting the first car, I turned my attention to the neighboring car which was parked by a concrete wall and under a tree. I could have shot this car at the same focal length and included the sky, but the trees were blocking the sky and causing it to not look all that great. I decided to have a tighter crop on this image and zoomed into 135mm which allowed the tree limb to frame the car and the wall to be a complimenting element to the car which was placed in the lower right third. The same game was played with this composition as the breeze blew by. I had to wait till the air was still to get the shots because I knew that the tall grass and weeds would be a distraction if they were in motion.
I felt less confident about this composition than I did with the other one. I was concerned that the car wouldn’t stand out well enough in the yard clutter, and really figured that I was shooting this for practice only. The chances of a keeper coming from this car was slim. Well, when I got to editing the images, this one was much quicker to edit, and required much less in terms of local adjustments. I liked it much more than I thought that I would. The other composition I shot here was the one that I was most excited about from the entire day when I got home, but it didn’t come together as nice as I had hoped. It took about twice as long to edit and my final opinion of it was not as positive as I had imagined it would be.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like both of the images that I got from this location and think that I like them equally as well now. I just exceeded my expectations on one while I didn’t quite meet my expectations on the other. Photography is funny like that and always forces me to evaluate my expectations vs realities. I’ll still happily take two images that I do like when I was really thinking only one would reach that level of satisfaction. It had probably taken me about 30 minutes to capture these cars and that was all that I could do with them due to the fence restricting my accessibility to them. I looked around real quick to see if there was something else that I might be able to shoo, but there was nothing there that was calling my name.
I was back on the road in search of another location which I was going to look at as a bonus because according to the cloud forecast, the clouds should be breaking up at this point and clear skies should be just around the bend. I counted my blessings and kept searching for something else. I had lost track of what roads I had been on, and where I was in relation to anything which suited me just fine. That is when I normally find the best scenes to photograph. After a little bit of driving, like maybe 20 miles or so, I drove past a scene with a barn, an old house, and a blue International Scout. The Scout interested me, but it was parked between two trees and very close to the barn. I wasn’t sure how a composition would work here so I just filed it in my head and I kept on driving. The further I drove, the more I was thinking about this Scout. Could I make a composition with it? There was really no other way to figure that out than to go back and try.
When I got back there, I pulled off on the side of the road and pondered my options. No matter what I was going to do, I was going to have to get permission to be on the property because this was not a roadside scene. There were two trucks in the driveways on either side of the house which made me think that I might actually luck up and find somebody at home. Looking at the sky, I still had really good light, but I could see that blue sky getting closer. I had to act quick if I was going to do this. I drove up into the driveway and walked up to the front door. I knocked and immediately I was met with a loud bark from what I assumed was a pretty good-sized dog. That is better than a doorbell, so I just waited to see if anyone would come to the door. I could see a head coming my way from the widows at the top of the door so I braced for the big dog that would want to investigate the visitor.
The door opened and I was met by a gentleman with a big smile and welcoming attitude as he picked up a dog about the size of my foot. Well, I didn’t see that coming. I introduced myself and let him know why I was there. He was very nice about it all and allowed me to go over and photograph the side of the property that I was interested in. I got my truck parked out of his way and grabbed my bag because I really didn’t know what I was looking at in terms of a composition.
When I got over to the Scout, I kind of walked around with the tripod and made my eye the camera to see where I needed to place the tripod. It wasn’t quite as easy as I was hoping because the trees were not separated as much as I had thought they were from the road. This was going to come down to focal length because I wanted the closest tree to be my foreground interest and to slightly frame the truck. There was a tree in the background that I wanted to keep separate from the foreground tree and the Scout. The third tree was going to have to be right between the truck and the barn which was not ideal, but it was what I had to deal with. Now I had to make sure that the tree didn’t make the opening in the siding look odd, so I had to play with that relationship as well.
I noticed that most of those elements lined up when I was looking with my eyes, so I figured that around 50mm would be what I needed to shoot this scene with. I went ahead and placed the tripod down and put the camera on it with the 24-70mm lens attached. I added a polarizer to control the glare and worked on framing the image. I had the relationships worked out as I had intended with all of the elements, but needed to know just where the edges of the frame needed to be. The left side and bottom were pretty well established thanks to that large tree on the left. I just had to figure out the right balance from there and that brought about the want to include a tree in the upper right that still had a bit of Fall color on it. I figured that the right side of the frame would give the end of the barn enough breathing room which left the top of the frame to figure out. For that, I had to adjust the height of the camera until I had a more or less pleasing diagonal through the frame which was done in such a way as to minimize the negative space in the lower right while including enough of the tree to make sense. This was a rather involved composition and I had to use a lot of my tricks to make it work out.
I finally did get the composition worked out and started making exposures. The light was simple to work with and that proved to be no issue at all. It was the composition that ended up taking up the most time here, but thanks to all that planning, I had a working composition that did the scene justice. It only took a few frames to get the exposure and focus just like I wanted it. I kind of felt bad about picking up the camera after only a few shots, but I had the image that I wanted, and I didn’t see any way to improve on that composition. I wasn’t ready to leave just yet because I had a great barn and old house to work with. I just picked up everything and started to work my way around the barn to see what angles I could get with it.
When I got to the back side, I found that I loved the shape of the roof and the tire sitting on the tin to keep the section in place was just perfect. The sun was starting to burn through the clouds just beyond the barn so I was going to have a hard time with exposure here. Not to waste any time, I just kept the camera set up the way that it was and framed up an image that I thought looked good in the viewfinder. When I turned on live view, I could tell that the histogram was having a stroke. There was no way that I was going to be able to get the exposure worked out here. I could add an ND Grad, but that would overly darken the trees that I needed to keep exposed correctly. My only hope was to do an HDR blend which fortunately, the wind had stopped so that wouldn’t be a problem.
I set the shot up and did four exposures from dark to light. I was confident that I had enough exposure information, so I just looked at the one that was closest to right to evaluate the composition. While I had done well with the exposure, I was seeing that the image was not all that balanced because I was going to have too much of the bright sky in the upper left of the frame. I decided to move slightly, and close in the crop. By doing that, I eliminated the brightest part of the sky as well as the need for an HDR image. This was going to work out quite well! I made a few exposures from this point as the clouds moved across the sky because there were still sections that threatened to blow out in the highlights. By waiting until the bright clouds moved, I was able to get this in a single frame which is always my prefered method.
There was no denying it at this point though. The sky was just too bright in that direction to continue. Behind me, the sky was clearing and going blue. The clouds right above me were still looking good, and that was what I wanted to capture, just in case the previous compositions didn’t work out. I went back to the other corner of the barn and started to frame up another composition. This one was not all that easy, but at least there was just one major consideration to make. That was the right side of the frame where the neighboring house tried to encroach into the frame as did a clothesline. I didn’t have long to figure this one out, so I decided to crop in close on that side effectively cropping out the clothesline and house. There were still a couple of branches creeping into the frame in the upper right, but I knew that I could clone those out if needed. Based on my proximity to the barn to avoid shooting from within another tree and having those branches in my way, I was using a fairly wide angle focal length. At 28mm I knew that I was going to have to do a little perspective distortion control in post which would more than likely blow those limbs right out of the frame.
When I finally got the composition figured out, I started to make images and found that even though the lighting was much better on this side, the sky was still very bright. With the now developing some deep shadows, I was not able to get all of the detail that I wanted out of single frame. I could have used an ND Grad, but if you see where the horizon is, I would be right back in the same position with either having to bring back the highlights or boosting the shadows. I didn’t’ want to push the image that hard and since there was still no wind, I decided to do an HDR blend here as well. This time, I just used three images 1.3 stops apart. That seemed to get it all covered.
By this point, the sun was getting too harsh, and I knew that the light was done for the day. it was time to pack up and head home. I had been having a lot of fun on this trek and had really lucked out with the clouds. I had managed to get an extra hour of good light from what I was expecting which I will never complain about. I had shot three scenes and come away with 66 frames. Of those, I managed to keep seven of them as keepers which is right at 10%. It has been a while since I’ve managed that kind of hit rate, so I’m rather stoked about that. The editing went well, and I started to get used to my new Wacom Tablet which isn’t as easy to use as I was hoping. I think that when I do get the hang of it, doing brush strokes in post processing will be much more intuitive and easier. At least that is what I hope. It was purchased primarily for retouching portraits though as it will speed up that process with the variable sensitivity that it will give me.
Speaking of portraits, I am looking for some test shoots, so if you are interested in taking part, please let me know. For these, I am willing to offer discounts, or I’ll do the shoot for free if it falls into certain categories. Just contact me if you are interested and we will see what can be worked out. I’ve got the studio pretty well outfitted at this point and I’ve done about all the learning that I can do at this point without actually putting the knowledge to work.
If you are just here to enjoy the pictures, that is just fine by me as well. I invite you to look through my galleries as well as my blog entries to find that perfect photograph that you might want a print of. There is still time to get that print shipped out to you in time for Christmas, but we are getting close to the point where that can’t be guaranteed. If you have any questions on ordering a print, just let me know. I’m happy to discuss prints with my clients at any time.
Thank you for joining me for this trek. It was a fun one, and one of the most fruitful ones that I’ve had in quite some time. I hope to get a few more in before the end of the year. Look forward to my first Behind the Camera of 2022 which will be published on the 1st. I’ll be looking back on 2021 and all of the ups and downs that I’ve been through. I’ve just gotten started on that one and it is proving to be a very interesting read. You can also look out for my most significant images of 2021 which I have set to publish on the 26th of December. I’ll count down through 12 of my images which represent some sort of significance to myself or my photography. I hope that you will take some time to read through both of those coming entries as they are always some of my favorite blogs from each year.
Until next time….
Remember to use the code KISER10 to get 10% off your purchase
