Saturday, July 18, 2026
Today really should have been spent cleaning up my nasty truck. I didn’t get that done, not even an attempt, so now that we have that out of the way, this is how this trek came to be. I took the Miata out yesterday for a bit of a drive before the rain started to set in for the next several days. If I had thrown the dice, I think that there would have been more randomness to my destination for the drive. I set out in one direction and then changed my mind and went in another direction and then altered the plan a third time which put me on a course to Taylorsville. I think that my motivation was to see if I could find those Fords that were supposed to be off the main road through the town. I had been through the areas to the North without finding them, but I did find some pretty good subjects to photograph instead. That left the other side of Taylorsville which I didn’t have the time to get to during that Trek.
I knew that I wasn’t really going to be able to dig deep into the area in the Miata, but I could do a basic search to see if maybe there was something obvious as I was out enjoying the country roads. I do tend to concentrate more on the road and the curves than what is off on the sides of the road when I am doing these little spirited drives. I did try to start looking at some of the details behind houses and buildings after I got through town. The only clue that I had to work on was that the cars were off of this main road just outside of Taylorsville. That could mean right off the road, or down a cross street just out of sight of the main road. I suppose it could also mean five turns and a 300-yard hike as well depending on how much the directions were obscured. At any rate, I was hoping to find a clue and eventually be able to locate these cars assuming they were all on the same property as well.
To make a long drive short, I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did see a barn that I have seen countless times before off on the side of the road. This was a large barn that was about half collapsed with a silo still standing opposite of the good end of the barn. It was an interesting subject and one that I have always slowed and looked at but never gotten any photographs of. I honestly don’t remember the reason that I haven’t photographed it yet. There was at least one time that I stopped and thought about it but never did pull the camera out. It might have been that there were other houses and a few vehicles visible on the sides of the barn. The vegetation has grown up a bit around the barn and looked like I could use that to obscure the background clutter, but I wasn’t positive about that.
Not having my camera, I didn’t bother to really slow down and look in detail. Instead, I just kept on driving down the road still in search of the Fords. Before long, I was well past Taylorsville and had actually been in Catawba County for a while. It was a safe bet that I was well past where the Fords were located. I did know of one other spot that I have tried countless times over the years to get permission to access the property. It wasn’t much further down the road and other than the fact that I was getting very hot in the convertible, I wanted to drive by and just see if there was any chance that the owner was there checking on the property. I had found that detail out while talking to a neighbor through his Ring doorbell a couple of years back. That was a few months before I was back out at the location trying once again. On this day, I stayed on the driveway to photograph a Ford sitting in a small garage off on the side of the property. I still hadn’t gotten permission which was why I stayed on the driveway which is customary for visitors. Even though I had used the telephoto lens, I still hadn’t gotten the composition that I really wanted, and I have tried to find the owner several more times after that.
This is one of the frustrating aspects of being a decay photographer when so much of what I do relies on getting permission. I’ve had a mixed bag of luck doing that over the years, but there are just times that I can’t even find an owner to ask. When I finally got to the spot on my drive, I found that the property was just as empty as it had been every time before this. The car was still there in the garage, and I could see other cars further into the property, but I had never been able to get a good look at those because they were so deep into the property. The one Ford in the garage was easily seen from the driveway and that was the car that had caught my eye initially as I was driving down the road.
There was nothing more for me to do here on this day, so I pointed the Miata back Northbound and started on my way home. During the remainder of the drive, I was considering the options that I had might have with the barn that I had passed by earlier. I wanted to take another look at it as I went by again just to see if there was an angle that might work now. When I got there, I slowed down and really took account of how things were lining up. I didn’t really like the broadside composition that I was seeing, but I was pretty sure I would be able to get enough angle on it to show some dimension while not obscuring the silo. It was worth coming back out to with the camera. I knew that I was going to need some visual interest in the sky which there was none on this day. I did like how the sun was lighting the barn though and figured that if I could get the sunlight on the barn with some good clouds in the background, I might just have something pretty decent.
As it turned out, Saturday was a day that was forecasted to start out sunny and get cloudier during the early afternoon with storms developing shortly after the changeover. The plan had been to get out and wash the truck in the morning before it got too hot and tuck it into the garage before it started to rain. The thought of missing the storm clouds overhead kind of made me rethink that plan and I started to redirect my thought process to going out with the camera during that time right before the storms. With the truck filthy, I wasn’t worried about getting caught in the storm which freed me up to do pretty much whatever I felt like in the search for a photo. That thought process won out after Toni and I decided to stay up late watching a show on Netflix the night before.
Saturday kind of got off to a slow start after thinking that I was going to be out busting suds at 7am. I actually didn’t even wake up until around eight which was nice after several days of getting up around six. I kept an eye on the weather and the rain kind of came and went during the day, but the clouds were still looking like they were going to be coming into play between 2-4pm. I knew that I wanted the sun on the west side of the road, so the early afternoon was fantastic for the lighting. I just needed a break in the clouds to let the sun shine through to make the photo that I had in mind. I was actually seeing this as both a color and a black and white image with the contrasts really worked in for both versions. The more I thought about the composition, the more I really wanted it to work out.
I probably spent two hours considering the photos that I was going to shoot by looking at Google Streetview and trying to estimate my angles and camera height by looking at the photo as taken from the passing car. It seemed very possible to get a good composition captured from the shoulder of the road, which meant that I didn’t need to bother anyone and I could just park at the church across the street. I really didn’t need to get in close because the barn was huge to begin with and I was going to want a good bit of sky in the background.
By 2pm, I couldn’t wait any longer and decided that I would head on my way knowing that it was going to take nearly 45 minutes to drive out there. I had already put the camera in the back of the truck so that it could acclimate to the warm and humid conditions after being in the studio which stays very cool during the summer months. The sky was looking really good as I left, and I could hear thunder close to home. This didn’t surprise me at all because there was a band of storms just to our northwest the last I looked at the weather. Those storms weren’t going to interfere with me in area I was going to be working in for several more hours. This gave me the window where I might get some really good light and great skies.
The closer I got to the barn, the clearer the sky started to appear. There were still clouds, but they weren’t the storm clouds that I was hoping for. The sun was still peeking through though which gave me hope for some good light. It was that good light that caught my eye when I first saw the barn. The sun was bathing it in light while there were some interesting clouds behind it. I got parked and grabbed the camera and tripod before crossing the street. After thinking about this for as long as I had, there was no reason to take the entire bag because I knew the compositions I wanted which were all possible with the standard zoom. The only filter that I was going to need was the polarizer because as long as I had sunlight on the barn, the exposure values with the sky were going to be perfect.
Once I crossed the road, I started to look for that angle that eliminated the other buildings and cars around the barn while still showing dimension. Once I found it, I started to frame up the composition as I had seen it in my head. It was all working out except for a very tall blade of grass that was poking into the lower part of the frame right at the center. It was enough of a distraction that I had to plan on cloning it out in post as that was about the only solution that I could come up with.
Shortly after I started firing off frames, I saw the property owner pulling into the driveway. I waved and they just kept going up the driveway without seeming too concerned about what I was doing. I saw them get out of the vehicle and still didn’t come my way, so I figured that I was totally in the clear. Within a few minutes, they were coming back down the driveway, and I walked over to speak with them. After making sure that I was OK working from the shoulder of the road, I asked if they minded if I got in closer to the barn as I was really thinking about that tall piece of grass that was in my frame. They didn’t have a problem with that and left me to the job at hand.
With the permission to access the property a bit deeper, I picked up my gear and moved in about another 50 feet or so. This gave me a better perspective and allowed me to avoid that one blade of grass. From here, I was able to get two different compositions with one showing more of the environment along with the remains of the left half of the barn stringing out beyond the silo. The other one was a bit tighter of a crop, though still pretty much formed the same as the wider composition. This was more focused on the weathering of the barn, and I felt that this was going to be my black and white version because the textures were much better with this crop.
The idea behind the compositions was quite simple, but I was finding myself pressing the shutter button way more often than I have in the past few treks. I actually ended up with 30 frames captured of this barn with variations on both compositions as the lighting and cloud patterns changed. I shot a bunch of this barn in the hopes of really coming up with something great after years of not stopping here. I really liked both compositions and felt that they did the barn justice, it was just a matter of the lighting to really bring it all home.
In the end, I was able to get one of each composition pulled out of the pile for processing. They were both towards the end of the time that I spent with the barn. The clouds had actually broken up a bit by this point which brought in some blue sky which I really felt worked well for a color balance to the image. Since the clouds were not dark at all, the light wasn’t as effective as far as magic light as I had hoped. Bringing the blue sky in added in the proper element for the overall mood and tone that I decided would fit the barn the best. There was also the added bonus of the very soft and low cloud that found its way right above the barn while there were more defined clouds beyond that soft one. The layers of texture really did wonders for the depth of the images.
After those 30 frames were shot, I was pretty sure that I was all done with this barn. I didn’t really see anything else that I would want to shoot with it and I had no intention of getting any closer to the barn than I currently was. It was time to pack it in and see about the next stop on the day. I could have gone and hunted more for the Fords that I was chasing, but there was an odd pull to go back to the one Ford in the small garage in Newton that has called for me over and over for years now. That was the one that won out. It wasn’t but maybe another 30 minutes down the road and since I had come this far, I might as well give it another try….another…try.
When I got there, I parked off on the shoulder of the road as I had done before. I didn’t get the camera just yet as I walked up to see if there were any signs of anyone being home. Things looked just like they always had and nothing at all had been moved. I called out with no answer. Looking at the car in the garage, I felt that my timeframe for getting the photo that I was after was going to pass me by long before I made contact with the owner. Since it wasn’t too far off of the driveway and I had yet to be bothered while being on the property, I decided to press my luck and see if I could get the photo real quick.
I went back to the truck and started to put the camera together. This time, I wasn’t fitting the telephoto lens, but rather the standard zoom which would allow me to get a bit of perspective distortion on the car which I knew would work well with it sitting in the shed. This is a concept that I first used years ago with a Buick in an open garage where I was able to get the detail of the rafters in the shot along with all the detail of the car. This photo later went on to win a first-place ribbon in the Professional Black and White category at the Dixie Classic Fair in 2019. This very photo, which has been matted and framed, is still in my collection and looking for a new home. It is one of my favorites, but it is time for someone else to enjoy it and for me to be able to replace it with something newer on the wall. If you are interested, please let me know and we can start the process of getting that award winning, framed print to you.
This is the shot that I had been dreaming of with this car for at least four years by this point. I was going to give it my best while I was firmly in the gray area as far as the needed permission goes. There were no signs or other indications that the owner didn’t want folks here, and I wasn’t going to get very deep into the property. In fact, everything that I was going to do was in full view of the business across the street which I had asked about the owner twice before without success. My plan was to make this quick and not push the luck too much. Fortunately, I knew exactly what I wanted and that allowed me to get in and get it done in a hurry.
Much like the last time I was here, I spent just a few minutes with the car and shot a total of eight frames. The first five were close in because that was the most important one to get. I tried several different elevations with the camera to see how the perspective changed. There was a set of supports that had been painted white about a third of the way into the shed that I really loved because of the framing within the frame that it provided. It was this element that made the car look like it was emerging from the frame rather than just being a two-dimensional photograph. Even after all of the years thinking about this photo, I had yet to determine whether I would like it best as a black and white or as a color image. I was pretty sure that it would work both ways, but I was leaning towards color because of the warm tones of the body contrasting to the cooler tones of the chrome and the staining on the radiator.
After I got the images home, I did process the best version in full color. I think that it turned out fantastic like that, but as I was doing my last check of the discarded images, I started to wonder what it would look like as a black and white image. The one that I had processed was the one that had the best light and the best framing, so I just went back to that one once more. I created a virtual copy of the file and started to make some basic changes by switching to a black and white color profile. After I found one that looked really good, I started to tweak the tonal relationships within the image to get the right contrast for the scene.
The end result was one that I really liked and felt that it was just as effective as the color image had been. After batting the two around for a bit, I decided that there was no reason that I couldn’t just keep them both in the collection. I liked them equally, and after so many years of planning for this one composition, I owed it to myself to keep as much as I could from this spot.
The composition that really surprised me though was the one that I left off with at the end of my time here. I had backed up from the garage a bit and started to frame up the shot that I probably should have done a little over a year ago. Since I had been stuck at the driveway, I had to work with the tree to the right and the best way that I could do that was to include it in the composition as a bit of a framing element. To keep things looking right, I had included the rest of the garage which kind of put the car in the middle of the frame. The colors were odd that day as well with the winter greens not looking all that great. These were the things that haunted me about that image ever since I originally shot it.
To address the concerns, I wanted to take advantage of the summer greens around the garage while getting in closer to the subject. This allowed me to work around the tree to the right and crop into the building which put the car in a much better place within the frame. The tree to the left was still used to frame the image but in a much different way than before. This time, I didn’t include the background beyond the tree and just kept the trunk right at the edge of the frame. This reduced the importance of the tree in the composition and allowed it to just be a framing element. Without another tree to the right, the visual balance was much better with the weight falling on the car sticking out of the garage.
The sunlight provided some visual interest across the background with some brighter areas contrasting with the shadowed areas around the main subject. There was a lot of contrast built into this scene and I thought about doing an HDR blend, but looking at the histogram, I was confident that I could do this in a single exposure. I only shot a few frames with slightly different framings and exposures before I was done with this car. Once again, I probably spent less than 10 minutes with the car, but the conditions had been much better with the photos turning out quite a bit better overall.
The surprise came when I got home and started to work the edits on all of the images. While I really loved the close in shots of the car, it was the one that was backed away here at the end that impressed me the most. After more than a year mentally fixing the mistakes that I had made during that capture, I was able to work those fixes into the new photo which turned out to be a much stronger composition. The exposure range of the image was also much better overall even though it was a high contrast image. To help deal with that, I picked a color profile that didn’t actually have a true black point which helped to lift the shadows slightly. The colors were also a little less vibrant which I ran with and kept things looking a bit more vintage through the frame. The end result has turned into a very successful image of this car. In fact, all three of these are ones that I feel are very strong and were worth the wait to get.
I doubt that I will be back to photograph this car again. If anything, I would like to get the permission to explore the other cars on the property, but that will have to be during the winter months when the vegetation has died down allowing me to really see what I would be working with. They are all pretty well covered currently, so I’m not even sure what is out there right now. I am content with having the images that I have of this car at this point and can finally mark this scene off of my bucket list for photos.
That car brought my total frame count to 38 for the day. it was a lot of photos considering that I only really shot four compositions of two subjects. The changing light and wind were the reasons behind the first 30 frames of the day. The photos of the Ford went much quicker, but that was because the light wasn’t really changing and there was not that much breeze that interfered with the vegetation. That wind did kick up as I was wrapping things up and it started to pour rain maybe 10 minutes after I got back on the road for home. My plan to get the clouds right before the storm had worked out well enough and I was happy with what I had for the day.
I do hope that you have enjoyed the photos and I want to say that I appreciate you joining me on this trek. Remember, I am happy to do prints of any of these images if they speak to you on a special level. If you like the photos here on the screen you are viewing them on, you will really love an actual print that represents the right colors, contrast, and exposure that I have worked into each image. I have no way of making the photo look exactly right on everyone’s screen because they are all calibrated differently. I work in a totally color calibrated environment and when it comes time to make a print, I know that the physical property will look exactly like I had intended during the digital editing process. You really have to see a print to believe it. These shrunken and compressed images you see here are merely references to the actual image that you could have hanging on your wall. Let’s get your order started so you can begin your own collection of wall art or add to a collection that you already are proud of.
Until next time…
