Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Well, here we go again, back out into the cold and sometimes cruel world. It was just a little over a week ago that I went out on a bitterly cold hike along the beach for a sunrise session at Carolina Beach. I had a bad case of numb fingers that day, but learned a nice little trick with my hand warmers and how they fit into my gloves. I do enjoy learning different ways of using my gear, but any time I am in the cold like that, I am less than happy. My hope was that I wasn’t going to be out in the elements like that again any time soon. I mean, right before we left for the beach, I was briefly exposed during a short trek to some rather cold weather as well. While we do get chilly here in the foothills during the Winter months, the last few years have been mild overall and that was what the almanac had been calling for this year too. Well, the cold is sticking around for much longer than we had thought. Yesterday was in the upper 20’s for a high and the lows were lower than I care to remember. Today was forecasted to be slightly cooler, so why in the world did I decide to go out with my camera when I could have sat in the house, curled up under my blanket and watched Pirates of the Caribbean which I started the other day?
Well, it is rather simple. I’m starting this year out with a positive outlook and have been working on getting myself in a slightly better position professionally speaking. This means going out more often with the camera, learning new things, and marketing the products that I offer. The hope is that I can have a better year from a business standpoint than I did last year, but I don’t want to burn out or cause myself to fall into a creative slump again. Part of what I am planning on doing for the year is going on shorter treks where I will only concentrate on a single location for most outings. This makes for a faster turnaround, and a bit more attention on the planning aspects. In short, these treks should be lower stress, and higher quality. This will cause me to post more blogs and have them a bit shorter in length which I am sure you will all be happy about.
So, how did this trek come about? Well, as evening was approaching yesterday, Toni and I were on the way back from Winston, after having dinner with our daughter and her boyfriend. I was sitting on a nice seat heater trying to warm up and was looking at the phone to see what the weather was calling for over the next few days as I was really needing to wash Toni’s car and get the salt off of it. The temperatures were not looking good for anything dealing with water on Tuesday, but there were clouds in the forecast. They were middle and upper-level clouds which usually provide very good light for what I like to capture. I just needed to think about where I was going to go.
With us just finishing up from the beach trip, I hadn’t really been looking at doing much photography over the past few days, so I was kind of left hanging with what to photograph. The first thing that came to mind was working some more of the barns in Yadkin County that I had started scouting at the end of 2024. If there was texture in the clouds that could work out well, but I really didn’t want to be out in the cold. I started hoping that the high clouds would remove the texture that usually only the low clouds would offer. That would give me the excuse to stay home and stay warm. But that kind of goes against what I am wanting to do this year with my photography. I’ve spent too much time sitting at home comfortably. In order to get the really good photos, I have to be uncomfortable at times.
The more I thought about it, the more I started thinking about capturing some rust. It has been since last year when I photographed any real rust. That last trek of the year had an old truck in it, but I hardly count that as a rusty subject. Rust was a great subject under an overcast sky, and I really did enjoy working with the old vehicles when I didn’t have to worry too much about the direction of light. I just had to figure out a place to go. I sat in the recliner right before bedtime pondering places that I had seen lately. There weren’t any that really jumped out at me, but I did recall seeing a location that I had shot several years ago just outside of Elkin in Surry County. It had been so long ago that I was still using my 5D Mk3 if memory served. Back then the business was still open to a point, but I think it was a game room more than anything when I was last there. This most recent time when I was out in the area and saw it, I could see that the building was boarded up and most of the cars were gone from the property. There were two remaining ones though, and it was those that caught my attention.
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I’ve said for many years that a VW Bug can put a smile on anyone’s face, and I usually can come away from photographing one with several photos in the bag. Just the thought of going back out here again had me kind of excited. I pulled the phone out and went to street view to check it out again to remind myself of what it was looking like currently. I could see the two Beetles as well as the Ford truck off on the side of the building that I had recalled being there before. It looked like the Pontiac was missing from the other side of the building though, and that was a shame. Those VW’s were what I was most interested in though. I then started to go through my blog entries until I found the one where I had shot the cars for the first time back in 2019. Had it really been that long ago? Yes, it had been. It was time to make a return visit to this location because the building wasn’t looking all that great anymore. I imagine it will just be a matter of time before the property is sold and the vehicles removed. I’ll be you a dollar that a Dollar General will be built there soon enough…if it hasn’t already. It had been a couple of months since I passed by the location.
With hopes that a Dollar General hadn’t sprung up in that location, I started to put together a shot list for a trek. I knew that compositions would be easier to come by now that the other cars were moved out of the parking lot and the building was actually looking like my kind of element as well. I was hoping to get some wide-angle shots with a bit of perspective distortion added in to emphasize the shape of the little cars. That kind of seemed expected, so I also wanted to get some isolations on the cars because I really like how the lines all work together on the old Beetles. Of course, that too seemed to be expected. I could just do them better than before to make them stand out. Yeah, that’s it…just do them better.
Of course, I am always trying to do them better, so what was I going to do differently this time from what I had done before, or with similar scenes. Well, something that I didn’t get the chance to do at the beach which I wanted to try was a panoramic image. I keep intending on shooting one of those at the coast but always end up forgetting. I was thinking along those lines now, and looking at the street view, I could see some potential in doing a panoramic capture. That would be different for sure, and it would allow me to get both cars, the whole building, and the Ford around the side. There was even an old marque board out front that might work well in the composition. Yeah, this was going to be fun!
I didn’t plan on waking up early in the morning because there was really no need. I wanted the temperature to climb a bit before I went out, and there wasn’t all that much that needed to be done in the studio. I ended up waking up at 5:45 when Toni left to go to work and just couldn’t go back to sleep. I went ahead and got up to get my day started. My morning stuff was all done and I spent some time marketing and trying some different things out on the business front. Coincidentally, things do seem to be working, because a little while later I got word that a second slot in my upcoming Decay Workshop had been filled. I do like it when good things happen in terms of my business, but that had nothing to do with the idea that I had been working on. What I needed to be thinking about was whether or not I was going to be going out to this location which was about 40 minutes from home.
I had been nice and warm under my heated blanket by the computer. Yes, it is cold down in the studio unless I am running the space heater for clients. I wasn’t looking forward to going out when the temperature was showing to be 16 degrees…Fahrenheit!!! I knew that comfort would yield no photos at all, and if I bundled up and braved the cold, I might actually come back with one or two new ones. That was the better option and the one that I ultimately chose. Had Toni been here, there wouldn’t have been a discussion, she would have pushed me out the door and thrown my coat at me. At least this way, I was able to layer up and get all my warm clothing put together.
With that, I was on the way. The sky wasn’t looking great, but the light was looking really good. I knew that I wasn’t going to need much sky in the photo, so the lack of texture didn’t really bother me at all. The quality of light was what I was after, and I really hoped that it would hold until I got to my destination. Throughout the trip, everything remained pretty constant with the exception of a few spots of blue sky here and there, but it had no effect on the light that was falling on the landscape.
When I arrived, things were still looking really good, and the scene was just as I had remembered and hoped it would look like. I pulled off on the side of the road well out of the way because I knew I was going to be trying for a panoramic image at some point. There is just nothing worse than finding that perfect composition and realizing that some inconsiderate jackleg has parked his truck right in the frame. I didn’t want to be that jackleg.
Once I was parked, I got out and went over to the edge of the property to look at how things were looking. There were no signs up saying that I couldn’t be there and no fences either. I wasn’t going to be getting close to the building, and was going to stay pretty close to the road so that I could work with the Volkswagens mainly. I moved an empty water bottle from right between the cars and started to figure out compositions. Most of the ideas came pretty quickly, but I really wanted to work with the panorama. I figured that was going to be shot from across the street as I wanted to use my telephoto lens for the capture to minimize distortion. If I were run off from the property after that while working in closer to the cars, I would still have the pano. However, if I saved that till last, there was a chance that I might not get the opportunity to shoot it. That settled that.
I went back to the truck and grabbed the camera with the long lens attached along with the polarizer. I took it and the tripod over to the spot across the street where I figured that I would be best able to get the right angle. I leveled the tripod and raised it as far as I could for the right angle. I made a quick sweep from left to right to make sure that the camera was plumb before rotating it vertically and setting the focal length and top and bottom boundaries. Once that was done, I did another sweep and looked at the histogram in order to make the right exposure choices. When that was done, I locked the focus on the nearest Bug and went to the far left of what I figured would be my frame. The next step was to go through the series of images from left to right.
The first run was five frames, and I reviewed them on playback to find that one of the frames was slightly hot in the sky which just meant that I needed to drop the exposure. I ran anther series and confirmed that the exposure was correct at this point. It was the boundaries that I had set in my mind that came into question during this review. It seemed that I hadn’t given myself enough room on the sides for what I was really wanting to create. This meant one more sweep of images. This time, I added an extra frame to either side for a total of seven frames to be stitched together in post.
It was that last series that formed the first keeper for the day. I did a final aspect ratio of 1:2.5 which is a pretty good aspect ratio for a panorama. I had looked at 1:3, but it just seemed too crowded top to bottom, and I wanted to have more of the trees in the frame. The end result was just what I had been thinking about when I decided that a panorama would be a good choice. It was a great start to this trek!
Now that I had that photograph captured, I moved in closer to the cars and switched out my lens for the wide angle zoom. I worked a few compositions with that lens trying to really get some perspective distortion on the lighter Bug. It looked good in the camera, but when I got home, all of those failed for one reason or another. That was really a surprise because I was pretty confident that I had the second shot in the bag at this point. Now that I had the obvious shots out of the way, I wanted to get in and do some detail work. I could have gone back to the telezoom, but with the curvaceous nature of these cars I wanted a bit wider of a view. That meant going with my tried and true standard zoom which has seen a resurgence in popularity with me this year.
With the standard zoom and a moderate macro capability, I got in close to the car and went wide to get some sweeping views of the shapes that the body provided. I started off at the rear of the car because there was an area above the rear fender and below the hood…or boot….or whatever you want to call the engine cover, that gave some really dramatic diagonals. I worked on framing up a composition here that was balanced and interesting. It was harder than I had thought, but the end result came out better than I expected.
While working with the same green car, I moved to the front and walked by the rear-view mirror. There was something about the way that the lines all came together around that mirror that gave me pause. I looked through the camera and determined that there was a composition there as well. Once I got the tripod situated at roughly the same height that I had spotted the composition, I started framing up the shot. It didn’t take nearly as long as the rear composition that I had just finished. It looked interesting in the camera, but it wasn’t until I saw it on the computer at home that the image really sung to me. I guess you could say that I was on a roll at this point. The photos were coming together quickly and that was a good thing.
By this point, I had my hand warmers on high and had moved them from the back pocket of the gloves to the palm, directly on my hands. My hands were sweating from the heat, but I still couldn’t feel my fingers. It was getting very difficult to press the little buttons on the camera, and even rotating the dials was becoming problematic. I had to take a break and get my hands in my pockets in an attempt to get some feeling back in them again so I could work efficiently.
After a few minutes of reheating my digits, I felt like I could give it another try. With a kind of fresh outlook, I returned to my composition that included both Bugs. I am really not sure why I did this because I was pretty sure that the wide angle shots were going to work out well for this composition. Whatever the case, I started to frame up the composition that I had in mind with the 24-70mm and just as I was getting it dialed in, a Mustang pulled in and parked over on the side of the lot which was a part of what I was including in my shot. I was firmly expecting to be run off at this point, but he was parked a good distance away which didn’t make sense if he was going to approach me. I just waved at him and continued working so it didn’t seem like I was nervous to be watched.
The problem was that he was now in my shot, so I decided to change up my composition and make it a bit more intimate. I moved over slightly, tightened up the frame while getting in closer. I carefully elevated the camera to where I felt that the building offered a good framework for the blue Bug. I then shot three slightly different frames in hopes that I had something that would work. As it turned out, this composition was very close to what I had done with the wide angle lens to start with, but I had done it better this time. Oddly enough, I had ended up with more distortion on the Blue Bug than I had with the other lens which actually made this image work quite well. It turned out to be a good thing that the Mustang had arrived because I don’t think that the composition that I had been working on was going to be nearly this effective.
Now that I had company in the lot, I became a bit more cautious about how I was moving around. I didn’t want to telegraph anything that might draw suspicion, so I just walked around the cars and looked for isolations. I had expected that the lighter car would have provided me with more options, but it was the green one that presented the best isolations. The next one that I worked was over the front passenger fender capturing the gas door. I let the actual door form a small triangle down at the bottom of the frame for a bit of visual interest while letting a sanded section with rust be the foreground for the image. The molding gave a strong visual element and the subtle body lines on the hood helped to balance things out. I really do enjoy working with shapes when it comes to automotive photography. It forces the viewer to look at what the designers spend months or even years working on before the car is even fully engineered.
Before I called it a day, I really wanted to get another shot of the blue VW. It had been featured as the foreground for a number of my photographs but hadn’t had any quality time of its own in front of the camera. I really wanted to make things right in that regard. The problem was that the car just didn’t have a lot of visual interest for isolations. I wasn’t going to be defeated by this car though. I just doubled down and looked harder for something to answer the question “what did I like best about this car?”
The answer came in the form of how the grass was growing between the bumper and body and was even growing through the opened lid. The biggest tuft of grass was too distracting to be included in an isolation because it would prevent the view of the taillight. The breeze was also blowing which was causing motion blur in the tall grass. I could have easily dealt with that or embraced the motion in a photo. The reality of it was that it was too dominant in the scene that I wanted to capture. This forced me to the other side where there was less grass, but the element was still present.
Now that I could see the taillight, I placed it in a key spot in the frame and rotated the tripod around that spot to see how the curves of the body and bumper filled the frame. I finally landed on this composition which pretty much fills the frame with the car leaving just a bit of the ground for context. I loved how the bumper and boot came together on the right side of the frame and formed a triangle that then framed the taillight. The orange of the light complemented the rusty tones on the bumper for a bit of color balance, while the warn tones balanced the cooler ones of the paint. It all just came together in this one shot. I think that anyone looking at this photograph will be able to tell the story of this old Volkswagen and understand what is going on. There is plenty missing though, which will have the viewer asking questions which is an aspect of photographing these subjects that I really enjoy.
With that photo, the day was brought to an end. I was chilled to the bone and was having a very hard time operating the camera. In fact, it took an act of congress to get the camera broken down and the tripod collapsed. Without any fine motor skills, doing anything along the lines of photography becomes very difficult. However, I did manage to get it all broken down and back in the truck. I was really happy to have a steering wheel heater and seat heaters in the Frontier. Those are two options that make my life so much easier on these cold treks. It took no time before I was…not really warm….but warm enough to know that I was cold.
Since I was only about 10 minutes away from Toni’s job, I decided to drive out there and surprise her. Unfortunately, the surprise was on me as she was having a very busy day and only had a couple of minutes to say hi. It was still a nice visit and I’m glad that I dropped by. I’m also not too upset that it was a quick visit because I did need to get back home to get the 44 images uploaded into Lightroom so I could start culling them and processing the keepers.
Out of those 44 frames, I ended up with six keepers which is pretty good all by itself. However, when you consider that there was a total of 19 frames dedicated to three potential panoramas, that really bumps my hit rate up for this trek. I am really happy with the outcome, and I hope that you have enjoyed seeing the photos that were created from this little spot in Elkin. Thank you for joining along with me on this very cold adventure. As always, if any of these photos speak to you, and you find yourself wanting to admire them on your wall, please let me know you would like a print. I will be happy to help match you up with the perfect size and media for your needs. You can also order the smaller sizes directly from the gallery store.
If you happen to be a photographer, and want to pick my brain (not too much, cause there is only a little there), don’t forget that I have two workshops coming up in the spring. The later one happens to be a workshop dedicated to exactly this kind of subject and photography in East Bend, NC. If you want to know more about decay photography, this is the one for you! There are still slots, but I’ve had two spots spoken for just this week, so they are going fast. Get you name in the bucket soon to ensure that there is room for you.
I’m going to get thawed out and get back to my recliner now.
Until next time….
