Wednesday, December 1, 2021
I’m feeling just a little bit satisfied today. I started the day off by getting something off my chest that I’ve been battling with for quite some time now. Secondly, after about seven weeks or so with only going out every couple of weeks or so, I actually managed to get out on another trek with decent weather just a few days after my last one. Things are almost feeling normal here at the editing desk as I am going through new images before the last ones have fully settled into their places in the folders. The idea for today was pretty simple. I was going to wake up and see where the clouds were since the forecast was calling for partly cloudy skies through most of the day with some heavier clouds shortly after noon. As you know, clouds are the preferred element in my photography and I love to make use of them whether I am doing landscapes, or decay photography.
Since the clouds weren’t supposed to really come in until later in the morning, there was no reason to wake up early which made for a nice morning of sleeping in. I actually woke up much later than I was hoping for and had to get moving right away. I checked the weather, and it was showing mostly sunny in the area, but I could see that there were clouds outside which gave me reason to believe that the forecast was on track to be right in a few more hours. I pulled up the radar and looked for the cloud formations. They were all to the North of Purlear and seemed to be tracking from West to East just on the other side of our back yard. I started to look at the hourly cloud forecast for some different areas and found that much like my last trek, I was going to be looking at the areas of Alleghany and Ashe Counties.
Since I had spent some time out there recently, I knew of some spots that I wanted to work and knew that there was a lot of potential between the two counties. I gathered up my gear and loaded into the 4Runner. I got a few things taken care of around the house and was on the road shortly after noon. While I much prefer going out early in the morning, doing the afternoon treks is a nice change of pace because the light will steadily get better as the sun drops in the sky. When I go out in the morning, the light quality tends to get worse as the day progresses unless I have really good cloud cover. The clouds were not all that thick, but there was some definition to them which I liked.
I made my way out to the area where I had spent most of my time the other day. I knew that there were two different locations that I wanted to shoot but was going to need the property owner’s permission before I could make that happen. The first stop was the old house that I had knocked at twice already. The potential subjects were spread out in the yard and were going to make for some very interesting compositions. At least that was what I was hoping for. I parked in the driveway and got out to knock on the door. Remembering that the owner is a bit hard of hearing, I knocked loud, but not so loud as to frighten him. Like the other day I was met with silence in the house. There was no sign of any life inside and nothing had been moved from the previous attempts. I waited for a couple of minutes before going back to the truck. This was my third strike in two days. It was starting to look like I wasn’t going to be able to get this location shot. That was ok though because I had another location just down the road.
I was there before I knew it and was looking hard at all of the cars on the property. They were all jumbled together, and it was going to be hard to pick out compositions. There was still just the one car that I felt that I would have an easy time with. The only problem was that the sun was starting to poke through the clouds, and it looked like I was going to be in for some very uncertain lighting for the next little while. I continued driving down the road as I considered my options. If I were to knock and they allowed me to work the area, I was going to need a good bit of time, and if the lighting was constantly changing, that time was going to be exponentially longer. If the sun decided to stay out, I would have wasted my ask with them as I don’t like to return and ask to work the property again when the light is better. As I drove back by to look at things one last time to make my decision, I realized that there were no cars at the house that would indicate that anyone was home. I went down the back road that was behind the property and could see no signs of anyone being at home. With the sun not playing nice, and the fact that it looked like nobody was home, I decided to take a pass on this location today and wait for a time when I was sure that I would have a couple of hours of consistent light to work with. That is just part of the process when it comes to asking permission. I try to only bother folks when I think I have a good chance of getting the images that I am after.
I was now 0-2 for the locations that I had in mind. I didn’t really have a direction at this point, so I just bounced between the two counties and found a lot of side roads to explore. I will say that this area probably has the best population of potential subjects for my wants and needs so I found myself really being particular about what I was going to capture. There were a lot of locations that I would have been happy to photograph, but as I looked at them critically, they mostly ended up being single subject compositions without any complimenting elements in the scene. I wasn’t after the post card shots today and while there is nothing wrong with filling the frame with a single subject, I was really wanting to do more story telling than picture taking today. That allowed me to be more selective in my subjects which I do like.
As I poked around on the side roads, I kept going further and further North until I entered Virginia. There is just nothing quite like rural Virginia and I have found some very unique scenes out this way when I do venture into the state. Today was no different, but I was realizing that the clouds were thinning out noticeably and that started to dictate the directions that I could shoot in. As luck would have it, the locations that I found to photograph were facing the wrong way and I would be shooting into the sun which just wasn’t going to work out. I continued hunting and taking turn after turn. I found quite a number of dogs that seemed to want to play with the 4Runner as I drove through some of the back roads. It is very hard to keep track of where a medium sized dog is when it is barking at your front tires. The last thing I wanted to do was run a dog over, but I was completely unable to see where it was at any given time. I just proceeded slowly hoping that he knew enough to stay out from under my tires. One of these dogs pursued me for about a tenth of a mile before getting bored. That was a very long stretch of road inching my way along, but I did finally get free of the dog and was back on my way looking for something to photograph.
One of the side roads that I found myself on brought me out to an intersection where there was a farm. I saw a single barn in an open field that had some rolling hills behind it. I was looking at the back of the barn unfortunately which was not quite what I was wanting. I noticed that the road continued around to other side of the barn, so I made that left turn and started to look at the scene from that direction. The composition was stronger and I could see a horse grazing from that side. The problem was with the sun. I was now looking into the sun and the barn was totally back lit. With the dark wood of the barn, I didn’t think that was going to be a good idea, not to mention that the clouds were really boring in that direction. I didn’t like the look of the barn from the properly lit side, and the side that had the best look was horribly lit and would likely not be in good light for the rest of the day. I just said “forget it” and went on down the road to search out new subjects.
After about 10 miles of finding nothing any better, I decided to go and give that barn another look. When I arrived, I came in on the opposite side as before and saw that the sun was still back lighting the barn which I didn’t care for. The horse had moved over to the side of the barn now and I would be able to see him from the original vantage point that showed the back of the barn. I drove around the property and started to look at the barn from the same angle that I had originally. There were a couple of things that were different now. The horse was now in the field, visible beside the barn. That gave an engaging element to the scene. The clouds had also turned a bit more interesting overhead. There wasn’t much definition in them, but I knew that I could pull out the little bit that I was seeing. The clouds were very soft and almost had a long exposure look to them. It was enough to interest me into making this my first official stop of the day.
I pulled off on the side of the road and grabbed my camera. Looking at the distance, I thought that I might need my 70-200mm lens, but I really wanted to capture the sky and get a little more sense of place to the scene. I opted for my standard 24-70mm lens which would give me a lot more flexibility in compositions. Since I knew that I was going to be paying the sky particular attention, I decided to screw on my Lee adaptor and mount the filter holder to the lens in case I needed a grad filter. I added my 105mm polarizer with the clip-on mount because I wanted to give the sky a bit of contrast and to pull some of the glare off of the tin roof. I mounted it on the Acratech ballhead and Manfrotto tripod for stability and then went over to pick out the spot that I was going to need to set the camera up.
I started to really pay attention to the composition at this point. I knew that I wanted the barn to be the visual anchor for the whole image and I wanted to have the horse with it. Since the horse was to the right of the barn, I needed to have the barn in the left side of the composition so that the horse didn’t get pushed up against the edge of the frame. I had to pick the right side edge to compliment the barn and the horse which turned into the tall tree that was just to right of the barn. Beyond that was a small shed where a tractor was stored. I decided to keep that in the frame as well as it made a good terminal point for the composition. There was a trail behind the barn, to the left that I wanted to capture as well for the depth that it added to the scene. I started working my way left and right until I had the trail close enough to the barn, and I was able to get the tree to cover some of the other barns in the distance that were going to be a distraction.
I had all of the elements in place and started to look at the composition. It was a wide field of view and that left me with a lot more information on the top and the bottom of the frame than I wanted. I went to the in-camera crop and figured out that that this scene really looked good as a 16:9 crop so I dialed that in for compositional sake. Since I was shooting in RAW, I could change that crop later on if I wanted to. I had the scene figured out, and the light was good across it all. I just had to wait for the horse to work his way further from the barn. As he was getting there, I started to make test shots to make sure that I wasn’t going to need that grad filter. The exposure was fine, but the shutter speed that I had was just too slow for the horse. The head and occasionally a leg would blur from motion. I ended up boosting the ISO to 200 which allowed me a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the horse in most cases. From here, I just sat there and fired off frame after frame hoping to get the horse in the best pose possible. Ideally, I wanted him to have his head up and a full profile. Sadly, Mr Ed was hungry and never once lifted his head, but he did give me several profile views, so I was thankful for that.
I think I shot about 30-some frames here waiting for the horse to move around into different positions. When I thought that I had a few that would work out I started to look for other compositions around the barn. The horse had moved over far enough that I could concentrate on the barn, and even started to work the landscape to the left which included the trail a bit more. I didn’t commit to any of these compositions and only shot a few frames each because I just wasn’t all that thrilled with how they were looking. I was much happier with the first composition that I had shot. That feeling carried through to the editing process as well.
I had spent a while at this location and was certain that I had at least one keeper out of the batch, so it was time to load up the Lowepro bag and continue on with my hunt. It is always nice to get that first image in the bag and I was feeling fortunate to have that out of the way. My luck was seeming to change and I was hoping that it would continue this way. Things were not quite that easy sadly. I was back into the rhythm of finding good potential, but lousy lighting from the directional sun. About an hour had passed and I was still looking for something that I could shoot with the directional sun which made things quite difficult. If I were to head home now, I would get there before the sun went down and could pick up the trash along the street when I took the trashcan down for pickup. I had one picture at least and that was good enough
But was it???
As I was following my GPS back home and crossing back into NC I found myself on a dirt road which is always a lot of fun for me since that is where I tend to find my best subjects. This road was narrow and there was nowhere to pull off, but there were some very interesting locations that I was passing. Generally, everything was in the shadows at this point because the sun was getting very low in the sky which made photography not quite a good option. I just kept on going and made some mental notes before the roadway turned to pavement once again. I just kept on trucking as things opened up a bit and the shadows dissipated. Just before I came upon one last stretch of dirt road I saw a barn on the left side of the road. It was not all that special looking at there were a couple of tractors parked next to it that really didn’t do anything for a composition. I did slow down and look at it more carefully as I drove by. The other side of the barn was free of distractions for the most part, and there was a smaller shed just down the hill from it. It was interesting looking, and I looked at it through my rearview mirror as I cleared it. When it all came into view, I could see that the distant hills were bathed in the sunlight while the barn was generally in a light shadow. The sky was also pretty interesting above the barn and you know how I feel about the sky. That was enough to get me to turn around and pull off on the side of the road to get a better look.
I left the camera in the truck as I got out and looked at the barn in more detail. I had to contend with a roadway just to the left of the barn and some houses on the other side of the scene. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to get everything organized in the composition, but the light was really good on the scene and the sky was looking great. It was enough for me to pull out the camera. I opted for the same setup as before because I was thinking I was going to need that ND Grad filter for this one. I got the camera all built and started to move the tripod around to see how things were falling together in the frame. I started off by including the road. Since it was straight, it just made a visual obstacle to overcome so that wasn’t going to work at all. I went to the other side of the road where the barn was and started to look for compositions from that side. The smaller shed kept blocking the barn and as I got closer to give separation, the houses started to come into view behind the barn. I wasn’t liking the perspective from this angle either and wanted to go with a longer focal length. I found myself back on the other side of the road trying to frame up an image from there. The road kept creeping into the frame and ruining the composition. The barn also made no sense with the background with the tighter focal length.
I went back to the other side of the road once again and started to frame up another idea. I was starting to realize that the wonderful light that I had seen on the background was fading fast. I was going to have to get something to come together here quickly, or I was going to lose one of the aspects that I loved about the shot in the first place. I got in closer than I had been before and found that the houses in the background were firmly in the frame at this point. But they were just on top of the roof of the smaller shed. Since I was in so close and shooting at 24mm, I had a good deal of separation from the foreground to the background which meant that I could actually hide the houses behind the small shed. It was close, but by dropping the camera down I was able to just get them hidden while not interruping the horizon line and the distant hill that was still lit by the sun. I had the composition finally after what I am convinced was about 10 minutes of working around the scene.
I dialed in the composition and exposure and realized that the sky was just too bright for the scene. With my tripod set up right on the shoulder of the road, I ran the 25 yards back to the truck to get my Galen Rowell 2-stop soft edge ND Grad which I ran back with just as the light was disappearing from the distant hill. I slid the filter into the holder and adjusted the exposure to compensate before firing off a quick series of images as the clouds were moving in the sky. I had about 5 minutes left before the light was gone and I was hoping to capture at least one frame where the clouds made sense with the composition as a whole. Fortunately, they were moving quickly and I got several different appearances from them before the light was gone off of my background.
Since there was no wind to speak of on the ground, I seriously considered doing a long exposure, but I didn’t have the luxury of time before the light was gone to get an exposure figured out and decide if I would want a 5 or 10-stop filter. I knew that I would only have one chance at a long exposure and I just wasn’t willing to risk it since it had taken me so long to find the composition here. It was a decision that I’m glad that I made because I really like how this image turned out and don’t think that it would have been as effective with a long exposure. As it was, I was still shooting with a 2.5 second shutter speed which I really thought would show the motion. It didn’t, but that was fine.
This may look like a simple composition, but it was one of the hardest ones that I had worked out in recent times. It seemed that no matter what I did, the elements just wouldn’t come together. Right at the wire, I figured out a location for the camera that worked and provided a nice composition with just enough separation from the elements to make it work. When I showed the two images to Toni, she said that she really liked this one as well so I must be onto something.
It is really nice to be back in the swing of things and feeling a little bit more normal about my photography once again. I’m still not in that confident place that I usually am, but I’m getting there and with some more cloudy days on the horizon I’m looking forward to building on what I have started here. I’m really working to make an effort at upping my game behind the camera. Since I have pretty much left social media, I’m not interested in a constant stream of content anymore which leaves me the ability to really be selective about what I am shooting. While it is frustrating looking for those compositions, I’ve always found it to be more fulfilling in the end. Why should I pick the low hanging fruit when I would much rather find those scenes that really speak to me?
Thank you for joining me on this trek today. I do hope that you enjoyed it, and hope that you don’t mind having back-to-back notifications in your email. For those that aren’t getting notifications about blog entries, be sure to subscribe to my blog on the front page of the website. Those who are subscribing will have notifications on every post that I make here which will allow you to see all of the new images as they are released. You will also get the first look at my 12 most significant images of 2021 which I expect to have published shortly after Christmas. That list is always a fun look back at the year to see some of my proudest moments with a camera.
Speaking of Christmas, there is still time to get your print orders in. There is nothing quite like the gift of art because it can say something about the giver as well as the receiver. Just let me know what you are wanting and I’ll be happy to make it happen for you!
Until next time….
Remember to use the code KISER10 to get 10% off your purchase
