Monday, March 13, 2023
When I last left you, I had just come off of a very difficult trek where I kept running into difficulties in accessing the places that I wanted to shoot. I’ll have to be honest with you here, that last experience kind of set me back a little bit. I found myself not wanting to go back out there to try other locations because of the sour taste I had in my mouth from that last encounter. I considered spending some time shooting landscapes where permission was not nearly as big of a concern. Even though we have had a bunch of warm days and Spring is definitely here, I don’t feel that the landscape is ready for me to really start shooting it. I could do waterfalls, but I haven’t been in the mood to do those much either. When it came right down to it, I just didn’t want to do any photography at all. I recognize how dangerous this frame of mind is for me, and I have been actively trying to overcome it. It would have been a great time to focus on some portraiture, but I don’t currently have any bookings, and I wasn’t really feeling like doing a random test shoot. The only option that I really had was to force myself to get out there and photograph something.
I attempted to do that the other day without success. I drove over 100 miles during the course of a day with most excellent lighting and some great clouds, but just couldn’t find anything that I wanted to shoot. Well, that might not be completely accurate. I did drive by the house where I had seen an old Buick sitting beside the shop. This was the third or fourth time I had stopped here to see if I could get permission to access the property to get some photos. Each time, I had been unable to get anyone to come to the door. I found a couple of other locations that I thought would make for decent photographs as well, but there was no answer at those doors either. I could find nothing at all that I wanted to shoot from the road, or that would be easy enough to capture without having to access somebody’s property. It was just a very long day of driving around with nothing to show for it.
By the time I got home, I didn’t even feel defeated. My reaction for the day was more of relief that I didn’t have hours of editing and blogging to do. This is very uncharacteristic for me because I do enjoy that phase of the day quite a bit because I get to make the photos my own by choosing how they will be presented. That second phase, that typically lasts longer than the field work, is where I apply my own touch to what was captured by the camera. It is the really rewarding part of the experience and it allows me to fulfil my creative vision. I just didn’t have anything to go through, so I had just left the camera in the truck and came on inside.
Since that time, I have all but finished up the next Behind the Camera as my bit of creative outlet. Normally, this will get my creative juices flowing with the need to create new works. It didn’t really have that effect at all. I was satisfied with just typing away about what the options are when you just can’t find a photograph even though you have a good subject. It seemed appropriate for the frame of mind that I was in. I even thought about starting another topic that I have tossed around for a few months now. I’ve been getting closer and closer to being able to write about whether or not photography even matters any more. Yeah, I was in that frame of mind for sure. That one is going to be hard to write about, and I really don’t know what my position will be on it quite honestly. I did know that I didn’t want to be in that headspace any longer. I had to do something positive with the camera, even if that meant going out and shooting dormant landscapes. I just had to figure out where I was going to go.
Despite having had several warm weeks recently, it cooled down quite a bit here recently and we even had some wintery weather yesterday. I stayed put in the house while it rained and sleeted through much of the day. I went back through an old lighting book which I didn’t fully understand the first time I read it. I was pleasantly surprised that this time I actually knew what he was talking about and had utilized many of the concepts in my recent portrait work. The thought did cross my mind that instead of reading about photography, I needed to get out and actually do photography as that is the best teacher there is. I started to look at the weather and saw that there were going to be good clouds in the morning hours with clearing as the day went on. There was even a chance for some fog during the early hours of the morning. This could be my chance to capture a group of trees that I have been wanting to get during a foggy morning. It was a good landscape idea and something that I could do without having to ask anyone for permission. With the recent time change, early morning wasn’t nearly as early as it was last week.
Toni got up early so she could go and work out before starting her day. I will occasionally go with her, but it just wasn’t going to happen this morning. I did ask her to tell me if the trees were foggy on the way to the gym since she would pass them by. I was partially awake when she left, well before sunrise. She said that there was no fog at the trees when she arrived, so I tried to go back to sleep. It wasn’t happening, so I just went ahead and got up. While doing my morning routine in the studio, I was watching the weather. Reports of patchy fog kept coming in and I started to think that I might just get lucky. I got things finished up downstairs and went up to get my socks as Toni was getting home. She confirmed yet again that there was no fog at the trees. I figured it was a longshot as a destination, but I needed to try it. The fog was getting thicker here at home and I only hoped that it was the same out that way.
Well, When I got out to the trees, there was no fog anywhere to be found. That was odd, because just a matter of two miles back, the fog was perfect. Here I was in a low area, and it was clear as a bell with overcast skies. It looked like it was time to go on a road trip to try and find something that I could shoot in the fog. I stopped and filled up the tank and off I went. I wanted to head out towards Traphill to see if the owner of the Buick was home early in the morning since previously, I had stopped by in the mid afternoon. The sky wasn’t perfect, but the lighting was good, and I thought that the fog might make things a little easier for me compositionally. Heck, at this point, I just wanted the chance to shoot some frames of this car since I had so much time invested in trying to get permission.
Well, when I arrived, nothing looked all that different. All of the vehicles were in the same locations as I had seen before. There were no lights on in the house, but it appeared that the shop lights were on. I was elevated enough that I should have been able to see any motion inside, but it all appeared still. It was still kind of early, so I didn’t bother knocking since it appeared as though I would get the same response to a door knock that had been getting.
Strike TWO!
So far, the day wasn’t turning out like I had hoped. It was actually starting to look like a repeat of my attempt last week to find photographs. The thought crossed my mind about throwing in the towel and running by the thrift store to check out a chair that I had seen posted on Instagram a couple of days earlier. That didn’t seem like the right thing to do though, and I decided to stick it out a bit longer. I was going through Hays where I have spent some time recently scouting locations but not finding much that I wanted to shoot. I went down some roads that were familiar to me, but that I didn’t remember exactly what was there. I kept seeing a lot of potential, but very few photographs in my opinion. The fog was back to a degree, and I loved the lighting on the area which made me hopeful.
After a bit of time, I found myself on a road that I have been on at least a half dozen times before. On this road was a Toyota pickup that looked like a late 80’s or early 90’s model. I had seen it before, but it hadn’t really grabbed my attention. Sure, it was inoperable and obviously in a state of neglect. I would even venture to say it showed signs of decay. Why had I not bothered to shoot it the other times that I had seen it? Well, for one, it was still rather new since I am having a hard time seeing vehicles that I remember on the showroom floors as being “old”. Secondly, this is a Toyota which is very much a different kind of vehicle from the Chevrolets, Fords, and Dodges that I normally shoot as my decay subjects. As I passed it by once again, I was almost shocked at the memory of the 300ZX I had photographed recently. That car broke the mold for me in terms of decay subjects and I was very happy with how the photographs turned out. There wasn’t that much difference between that car and the truck I was passing by.
With that thought, I put my Toyota in reverse and slowly evaluated the scene. There wasn’t much to it except for the truck which was about 15 feet off the road in a clearing. There were trees behind it and a few posts near the roadway. The bed had some trash and tires in it, but the truck certainly fit the bill for a decay subject. Had it been an old ’53 Chevy truck it would have been a no-brainer to stop and shoot a few frames. Why did this Toyota deserve any less? I gave in and pulled off to the side of the road.
There were no signs about trespassing, no purple paint, and the shot that I wanted to get was easily done within the easement on the shoulder of the road. There were no houses nearby that I might have thought belonged to the owner. It was a simple thing to get the photo, and I really needed to get one in the bag. I grabbed my camera with the standard lens attached. I fitted my Color Combo Polarizer because it really does make a huge difference with the saturation of the colors on vehicles. With it all mounted to my tripod, I walked back to the other side of the truck where I thought the best angle was. I set the camera up and found my first composition. It was pretty standard and really didn’t excite me much. I got the exposure all figured out, and then started to fine tune the composition. Since there wasn’t much in the way of secondary elements within the scene, I just had to focus on the truck mainly. I used an interesting tree to the right of the truck to help frame the photo, and let the left side go until I thought the image was balanced.
Since there wasn’t much of interest in the extreme top or bottom, I felt that I was probably going to crop this down to a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect ratio to really help focus the eyes on the truck. I framed the composition kind of loose on the top and bottom because I knew that I was more than likely going to be fine tuning that when I got to the editing process. I kind of had a general idea of how I was going to edit this one, and that was an important part of the photo because without having a “look” to it, this was going to be a very forgettable image. I wanted the woodsy flavor of the scene to really shine through, and I also wanted to make sure that I had plenty of micro contrast within the truck to make it pop from the scene. My hopes for this image are that the viewers will look at this and instantly remember when these trucks were rolling up and down the cruising routes with the thumping stereos or playing in the mud. This photo really has nothing at all to do with the actual subject, but I’m hoping that the photo brings a flood of memories to the viewer which transcends the actual picture. I am hoping for that reaction because that is what happens to me when I see this truck on the side of the road, and I want to share that memory with you.
I shot about six frames of the Toyota truck and felt pretty confident that I had one keeper out of the bunch. It wasn’t a fantastic subject by any stretch, but it was that much needed first image in the bag. I was now more motivated to find more subjects to photograph since I was going to be doing some editing now. It is always very anticlimactic to come home after a trek with just one subject shot, and in this case, just one basic composition. I end up editing that image and then doing a blog. The process will last about three hours for just a single photo. Now, had this been a top notch and amazing photograph, that wouldn’t be a problem. I knew that this photo was average at best and likely only going to appeal to me in the long run, which is fine. I just wanted to find something else to make the day fully worthwhile.
It had been nice to be able to shoot a subject without any hassles, but it was time to move on. I loaded the truck up and started back on my way down the road. I didn’t have a destination in mind, so I just started turning down this road and that road. Surprisingly, I found myself on two roads that I hadn’t been on before. They both had some really nice prospects, and there was even one house that had an old ’30’s Chevy truck in the backyard under a flowering tree. The house looked empty, but there was a car in the garage, so I stopped to knock on the door. There were no signs of life in the house, and it was looking more and more like this was a vacant house with the car there to give the impression that somebody lived there. I looked around to see if there might be a chance to find a property owner nearby, but the house across the street was obviously vacant. The one a bit further down the road showed plenty of signs of life, but there were about three dogs running around in the front yard. It was a fair chance that they owned the property or would at least know who did. However, since I have recently realized that my wheels are a magnet for dogs, I didn’t feel like getting marked by potentially three dogs while trying to get permission to access a property that was largely out of sight of the house. Since I could only see the top 3/4 of the truck, I didn’t know what compositional potential was there, so I hated to have somebody follow me down here if they allowed it, just for me to get up close and say I couldn’t get a photo. I knew that would look like I was scoping it out to steal something, and to avoid that, I would be compelled to find something to shoot even if there was nothing good there. I opted to avoid the potential conflict and the possibly lengthy discussion about why I was there.
Back in the truck I went and back down the road I drove. There was still no destination in mind, so I just kept working my way down different roads until I ended up near Stone Mountain. From here I had the idea to come back home by way of Elkin to see if there was anything that I wanted to shoot out that way. I ended up taking a different route and eventually found myself back on the main road that I take to get to Traphill. Several hours had passed since I had left home, and it was now about 11am. The clouds were parting, and the great light of morning was now fading into the harsher light of midday with only some passing clouds here and there. It was looking like I was done for the day with only the one photo captured. Maybe it will be a good one, I thought. I set my course for the thrift store to check on that chair and then I was going to get started editing a single photo. At least it was something.
As I was driving down the road, I was going to pass the Buick once again, and I figured since I could see it from the main road, I would see if there were any different cars around. I wasn’t planning on anything different, but it didn’t hurt to look. As I passed by, I saw the Buick, and a dark car under a tarp next to it like they had appeared for quite some time now. The main driveway looked the same with the single car there, but I saw something new in the back yard. A service truck was pulling down the driveway. I had yet to see activity here, so I took the left turn and went to the house. Without really giving it much thought, I turned into the shop driveway and saw that the truck was a HVAC service truck. I parked and went over to the crew to see if the owner was home. They pointed me to the shop, and I went and knocked.
The funny thing was, I had given very little thought to the weather as I was pulling into the driveway. The sun was out and there were some passing clouds, but nothing like what I was hoping to have. It was appearing like I was going to have to deal with whatever the weather was if I was going to possibly get permission here. I had been trying for so long, I really didn’t care what the weather was because I really wanted to get this car out of my system.
It took several knocks to get anyone to the door, but the owner finally came out to talk to me. The conversation went very well, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. He was happy to give me permission to photograph the cars which was so nice after all of the recent hassles I’ve had when it comes to getting permission. I parked the truck out of the way and grabbed my gear. I went with my long lens because I had really felt that this car was going to be a series of isolations because of its proximity to the shop and the other car. There was also a pickup parked in front of both cars which was going to be a consideration. The long lens had served me very well in similar situations and I was hoping that it would work its magic here as well. As always, I added the Color Combo Polarizer to the lens so that I could get a little extra saturation and contrast while removing glare from the glass.
I went over to the car and started to look at the elements that I had to work with. I knew that I wanted to do something with the hood ornament and the port holes on the fender since these were very specific to the Buicks. I honestly can’t remember the last Buick of this generation I had shot which made this quite exciting, even though the sun wasn’t doing me any favors. I didn’t really see any compositions jumping out at me to start with, so I went for the low hanging fruit which was the hood ornament. I fought my instincts to get the element centered for a symmetrical composition like I would usually do. For this one, I wanted to have a bit more drama to the lines since the ornament was “V” which is just a pair of diagonal lines. Having those diagonals show up across the image would give it a cohesiveness that would really help to set it apart.
While I was setting up the composition the sun kept going in and out and I saw the shadow stretching off to the side. This was going to be yet another element in the composition, so I shifted the framing slightly to include that shadow. I set the exposure for a stop under what the histogram was showing in anticipation for the next blast of sunlight. As the light levels changed, I adjust the shutter speed slightly and fired off shots as the sun peeked out. Hey, if the sun was out, I might as well make use of it, right?
I wish that I could say that I had this photograph all figured out as I was shooting it, but I really didn’t know if I was going to be making this a color or black and white image. I also shot based on the light, and not really how well the image read from left to right. It wasn’t until I got the image home and started to edit it that the real story started to come into play. When I started to look at it, the composition was strong, but the image lacked punch or interest. It was enough to make it to the three-star level in Lightroom, but I was questioning if it would go any further. I started to do an edit on it, and started to feel that even though the composition was good, it was a weak image because of the large amount of similar colors with the chrome being the exception. I started to think about how I wanted this image to appear, and that was really the first time I had given it that much thought. I decided that black and white was the way to go since the color was really getting in the way of seeing the image. I found the right black and white profile for the image and started the edit from there. That was the right choice to make because the image started to take on a very dramatic look and I was really loving the overall effect I was seeing.
When I finally got it all finished, I did an evaluation on my edit. It all worked very well, and I didn’t see anything that needed to be changed with the exception of there still being a problem with how it read left to right. There seemed to be a bit of salmon swimming upstream to my eyes which I didn’t like. I wasn’t sure if it would help or hurt to flip the image horizontally, but I gave it a try since there was nothing to indicate the “correct” orientation of the image. Everything fell into place with that simple adjustment, and it read so much smoother at that point. This image was now 100% a keeper and I was so glad that I had shot it.
That was the first image in the bag from this car which got me on the road to seeing other compositions. I had been spending so much time trying to shoot this car that I hadn’t given that much thought to how I actually wanted to make it happen. I knew that isolations were going to be my best bet for the location that the car was in, so I started to look at the different emblems and body lines. That led me to the next area that I chose to work with. That was the rear quarter panel where the “Century” emblem was placed. This was very specific to the Buick because to my knowledge, none of the other variations on this body style had an emblem in this location.
As I was looking at both sides to determine which one I needed to shoot, I realized that the shape of the “C” matched the subtle curve of the body right above it. That became my next composition. I chose the area that was in the sun because the light gave more depth to the body line. There was also a bit more tonal range to the rust on that side of the car. The problem that I had was the Mercury that was parked maybe four feet to the side. This gave me very little room to work, and since I had the long lens still attached, there was no way that I was going to be able to get a squared-up composition. I actually didn’t mind that at all because I wanted to avoid the perpendicular compositions with this car and force myself to work from angles. The long lens gave me the ability to frame the shot as I needed to and I was on my way.
I didn’t shoot but a couple of variations on that emblem because I felt that the composition was fairly straightforward. I was also not sure that the idea would work, so I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. The time that I did spend was very much worth it because it resulted in a photograph that I actually kind of like. It started out kind of rough during the edit and there were several times I almost tossed the image. I ended up with a workable one that had the right amount of contrast added back in which I showed Toni when she got home. I expected her to not be overly impressed with it, but she said that she liked it. When she likes one of my decay images, I have to take note because this is not her favorite type of photography. Of course, she is going to read this statement and call me out for saying it. It’s a fun little game that we play now.
Anyway, with her seal of approval, I started to make a few more tweaks to it which adjusted the colors a bit more to take some of the extreme warmth away. Black and white hadn’t worked, but going with a different color profile did the trick for. I was finally happy with it, and it found a home on the list of keepers. Let me know what you think about it, and we will see if the Toni gauge is as accurate as I have come to expect in these matters.
Once I had gotten done shooting the side emblems, I walked around to the back of the car to see what I could do with the taillights. Sadly, the chrome was in very good condition and everywhere I stood, I was making a cameo in the bumper or trim. I did like the way the chrome was reflecting the blue of the sky as it added that splash of coolness to the very warm scene. Most of my normal compositions would not work here because of the highly reflective surfaces, so I had to really try and figure out how I wanted to capture this back corner.
There was another problem that I was facing back here and that was a large tank situated right at the rear corner. It was right where I would need to be standing in order to capture the rear corner effectively. I could have gone to the other side, but the reflections of the house were just too distracting in the chrome. I had to shoot it from this side, plus there was a nice dent in the quarter for a bit more visual interest. I just had to figure out what to do with the large tank.
What I ultimately decided to do with it was to include it. This seems like an odd idea coming from me, and even Toni called me out on my choice. I don’t know if it works as well as I’m hoping, but I’m going to send it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. The theory behind my choice was to add a bit more cooler tones to the image to balance out the reflections of the sky in the chrome. It would make the rusty surface of the car more an element than a background of negative space. By adding the tank, I established a different form of negative space, and created more shapes within the composition. A side benefit for this was that my reflection was hidden by the tank so there were no photographer cameos to deal with in post. Something else that I didn’t realize until I got home and really started looking at this was that since there was no wheel attached, having the open wheel well would have been a little awkward. With the tank in place, I could crop in close at the bumper to eliminate that one pesky reflection of me and keep the crop above the bottom of the fender to eliminate the ground. It was just another way to establish shapes and not complete body parts from the car. Again, I have no idea if this works from a viewer’s perspective or not since I have yet to really try this type of composition before. Let me know what you think about it.
I will say that the edit was rather easy on this one because short of fine tuning the colors, I just popped a bit more light into the rear lenses to add a little life to the car. The rest of it all just fell into place very quickly. I cropped the image to a 5:7 aspect ratio which allowed me to take a bit more of the tank out of the frame since I had originally composed it with the entire handle in the frame. Doing it that way forced the handle to become its own element and not just a part of the tank. The slight crop fixed that issue and made the whole thing flow much more smoothly.
While I was at the rear of the car, I wanted to do something with the rear trunk emblem and trim. This was a very wide piece and something that I would normally shoot at a 90-degree angle and probably go with a 16:9 crop. Not wanting to shoot this car the way that I have done so many others, I looked for a very different way to present this scene. I decided to remove the symmetry of it all and add some visual tension by cropping out one side of the badging. It took me a little playing around before I settled on how it looked the best in the viewfinder. I decided to move about 45-degrees to the right of the car, and then cant the camera counterclockwise in order to give the overall diagonal element to the composition. The keyhole was kept in view to balance out the scene and provide a triangular look to the elements.
While this composition looks quite simple, and almost haphazard, there was more fine tuning to this composition than most of the other ones that I had shot during the day. I believe that it is the first time that I have shot an emblem quite like this and I wanted to make sure that I got it right. It was this final frame of the series that I ended up keeping. The difference between this one and the other best one was about one degree of camera tilt up from the last. That gave the proper balance to the image.
The editing process on this one wasn’t too terrible, but I did go through a few different color profiles before I landed on the one that I thought would work the best for it. After I got that under control, it was all about color grading the rust and reflected blue in the chrome that I felt was very necessary to get just right. This could have easily been done as a black and white image, but the blue checkerboard in the emblem matched the blue sky so well which then complimented the rusty tones nearly perfectly. The color here was an important part of the story and a part that I didn’t want to lose just because I was worried that the rust would overpower the scene.
At this point, I moved to the front of the car and started to work with the port holes. These were a very important part of the car and something that I wanted to capture. They were grouped in fours on each side of the car which made things difficult. I didn’t want to include all four since compositions with odd numbers of elements generally look better. I tried to get a pleasing composition with only three of them, but everything that I tried to do turned out really quite boring. I looked at them in black and white but didn’t like that either. I tried angles from the front as well as the back, but just couldn’t make anything work. I moved around to different areas and tried some different things as well but kept finding nothing as far as interest goes in the compositions.
This car was just too good to give up on though. I knew that there had to be something else that I was missing. The problem was, I wasn’t able to find it with the long lens. Since I had run into some issues with close focusing and wanting to go wider than 70mm at times, I decided to switch lenses to my 24-70mm. Of course, this is a wider lens, but it also has some macro capability which will allow me to get focus much closer than the 70-200mm I had been using. With the lens swap, I moved over the Color Combo Polarizer as well before getting back to work once again.
Just for fun, I decided to see if I could get an overall shot of the car since I had the lens that could do it. Not wanting to include the shop, I went to the passenger side of the car which gave me the ability to include the Mercury to the right. It was not a good subject for photos all by itself, but it did work well when shot alongside the Buick. For the angle to be right, I had to place the camera right up against the side of the building where a drum lid was placed. The tripod leg went right under the curve of the lid and my knee was brushing the lid. That tells you how close I had to be for this to work. The lens was also at 24mm. I could have gone wider with another lens, but I liked the gentle perspective distortion at 24mm and didn’t see a benefit to going wider.
As I was getting the composition worked out, I realized that I had to get really low for this one to make sense. With the wheels removed, I wanted to show the blocks that were holding it up. I also wanted to have the nose of the car completely unfettered by the trees in the background. Getting the camera very low to the ground accomplished all that I wanted here and gave a unique perspective on this old car. At this point, I could tell that the exposure was going to cause some problems. I had a very flat histogram that extended from one side to the other with some clipping at both ends due to the fact that I was shooting the shaded side of the car with the clouds illuminated by the sun in the background. I figured that the best way to deal with this was to add a grad filter, so I went back to the truck and grabbed a 3-stop soft grad to slide into the holder. The change to the histogram was subtle, but it helped to pull the right side back to the left slightly. I now had a very shallow bell curve, but it allowed me to pull the shadows out about 2/3 of a stop while keeping the highlights under control.
I started to make exposures and began to see a really cool photo developing. The sky was looking fantastic above the car, but the car was falling flat in the frame. I looked up to see where the sun was hoping that it might provide a bit of help. Currently, it was behind some clouds, but there was a break heading for it, so I decided to hold what I had for a bit longer. It took about seven minutes for the clouds to break away from the sun for a brief moment. That was all that I needed to drop the exposure by a third of a stop to compensate for the increased light on the front of the car and adding even more drama to the already beautiful sky.
I grabbed two frames before the sun went back behind the clouds just in case I caught a flap of the tarp that was on the Mercury. With the light gone, I checked the two exposures I had just made and found that neither of them showed any motion in the tarp. That was all that I needed to see. I had already been happy with the composition and that was the last bit of the puzzle to make the image work. Satisfied that I had what I wanted from this side, I went to the other side to see if I could get a composition of the Buick all by itself.
From this angle, I had the shop to contend with which was going to have to appear in the composition. There were also several items on the side of the shop that could very easily be distractions for the viewer. There was a yellow piece of machinery along with a couple of sawhorses which I wanted to minimize the best that I could. There was also the large propane tank behind the car and the Mercury that was just feet away from the Buick. If you were taking notes, you would also remember the Chevy Silverado that was parked in front of both vehicles which limited my shooting positions.
I ended finding a spot where I could zoom into 30mm to fit the car in the frame just as I wanted it to be. The sun was shining on this side of the car, so the exposure was looking much better than it had from the other side. I was able to remove the grad filter and just work with the polarizer for this one. This was another case for lowering the camera very close to the ground to show the wooden supports beneath the car, but also to provide a more visually interesting perspective on this one. My main concerns for the composition were that I had the hood ornament framed by the siding on the shop and that the roof line didn’t interfere with the lines of the car. What I ended up having was a roofline that flowed into the car and pretty much created a triangle within the frame. That was a happy accident and one of the best uses for a distracting element like a shop building.
As with the other side, once I got the composition right, I made an exposure to evaluate the frame. It looked good and the exposure was very good, but as with the other side, it just felt flat. It needed the light to show up again and really make the warm tones of the car pop. Again, I found myself sitting and waiting. This time it was much longer because the cloud that was over the sun was a very large one. I couldn’t see the end of it over the trees, so I wasn’t sure how long I was going to have to wait. I think it was around 10 minutes, maybe even 15 before the sun started to poke out. I watched as my histogram shifted heavily to the right and I increased the shutter speed to counter the increased light levels until I had a proper looking histogram. I fired off several shots as the light levels changed. In a matter of a minute or so, the sun was gone again. I reviewed what I had captured and saw that I had nailed each of the shots with some very good lighting. It was going to be a matter of figuring it out on the computer when I got home.
When I got home, I tried really hard to decide between these overall shots of the Buick. In the end, I liked them both quite a lot and felt that because of the added elements in both, that they told very different stories. I decided to edit the second of the two first since I was most excited about the saturated colors thanks to the sun illuminating the entire side of the car. I went through the whole editing process and really loved how the photo turned out. It was full of impact and I thought captured the car very well. I gave it a 5-star rating and moved onto my next image to edit.
Several edits later, I returned to the overall compositions and started to work on the one with the pair of cars. Since shadows played a part in this one, and the neighboring car was black I decided to do this one as a black and white image. I did a full edit on that one without any color and found it to lack the punch that I thought that it would have. There was something missing with it. I brought it back to the drawing board and started a color edit on it but decided to go with a very desaturated color profile to start with. As I worked through the edit, I found that the visual punch I was looking for was tied up in the colors of the scene. They weren’t nearly as saturated as the lone car was, but somehow the colors were more powerful in this one. That brought about a comparison between the two images that I didn’t want to have. Initially, I wanted one in color and one in black and white so that they existed in two different worlds. There was no denying that the pair of cars needed to be done in color, so that left me with my initial favorite that now seemed to be a little over the top in terms of saturation which did no favors for the very strong composition.
I’m sure that upon a second look, I would have pulled some of the saturation down, but after the initial edit, this one just looked over the top compared to my new favorite of the two. I didn’t want to toss this photo though because I really felt that it was a strong image. I took a deep breath and looked at my options. I could keep it as a color image and choose which one would be in my portfolio, or I could do another edit on it and try it as a black and white which would put me right where I wanted to be. I reset the image and started the edit all over again, only this time, I was editing knowing that this was the last chance for this image to survive.
The conversion went very slow at first because I couldn’t even decide on a proper color profile for it. Nothing was really working for it, but then I tried a profile that I rarely use…the blue filter. I usually hate the effect that this filter gives a black and white image and when going with a color filter, I will typically choose red, green, or orange. In this case, the blue filter gave me a perfect amount of contrast with the patina on the car. The clouds looked good overhead, and everything seemed to render close to how I was visualizing it. I went through some more adjustments in contrast and tone before I decided that I was liking this version better than the color one before. I had been on the right track about doing one in color and the other in black and white but had gotten the assignments confused. Now that I had worked these two images out, I was very happy with the outcome, and both of these are at the top of my list of favorites from the day. That is actually kind of hard to believe since my assumption for the scene had been to shoot isolations only because of all of the conflicting elements around the car. I’m just glad that I had the presence of mind to try these compositions out.
I wasn’t done with the session just yet. I went back and tried some of the compositions that I hadn’t really liked with the long lens and found that I still didn’t like them. That left me with one more idea that I wanted to try which I wasn’t able to do with the long lens. I went back to the rear quarter glass which was cracked in a very interesting way. I started to work out compositions back there with the standard lens around 50mm. I wanted to include the shape of the quarter panel as well as the character line on the broad side. The C Pillar was another important aspect to capture, but I didn’t want the door frame. The glass was included not only for the cracks which was one of the main reasons for the image, but also for the cyan/aqua colors that the delamination was causing. I knew that this was going to be a great color complement to the rust tones of the body.
There was a little fiddling with the composition to get everything to line up well in the frame. It came down to some very subtle movements of the camera. Once I had it all figured out, I began to shoot some exposures. I did my normal thing of covering the lens with my hat to keep the sun from reflecting off the back of the polarizer. Sadly, upon image review, I could read the graphic on my hat in the reflection on the back window. I tried it again with my hand on the other side of the lens as far over to the right as I could make it. Nope, I could still make out the hat. I tried using just my hand, but I could see that as well. As a last-ditch effort, I just tripped the shutter and hoped that the sun wasn’t going to cause any issues with the polarizer. I checked out the image review and didn’t see any weird ghosting or lens flare which made me happy. I could still see the lens encroaching into the frame from the right which didn’t make me happy. It was the best that I was going to be able to get with the proximity of the Mercury and keeping in mind that I needed to avoid including the door frame which was right at the edge of the composition just out of frame.
When I got this image home, I realized that the overall balance was slightly off with too much weight being given to the rear window. I changed the aspect ratio to 5:7 which cut most of the camera out of the frame. What was left, I was able to remove with some simple content aware fill. It was a very small portion near the bottom of the glass that just can’t be seen at this point. The rest of the edit was all about find tuning the lighting and making sure that the colors appeared as I wanted them to. That was pretty much it.
With that last composition finished, I was satisfied with the location and very happy that I had stopped once again to give this a try. After I packed up the camera, the owner came out and I went over to chat with him. In almost a 180-degree change from my last experience, we talked about my photography for a bit and then he offered up another location where he has a ’50’s Pontiac stored in a field kind of by itself. I was familiar with the location but had only seen newer cars there. I now had a reason to go out there and do some exploring the next time that the weather is good. It is times like these that my faith in how I pursue photography is restored. I love getting tips on other locations from different property owners. It really takes a lot of the stress out of the picture when it comes to finding new subjects. I’m really looking forward to checking out this Pontiac in the very near future. Since it is a junkyard, I imagine that I will find several subjects to work with which is what usually happens.
I hope that you have enjoyed this trek as much as I have. I know that the general vibe of this blog entry is much more positive than my last one which I’m sure makes for better reading. It sure made for better writing which explains why this one has gone on a bit longer than a normal one. Remember, if any of these photos strike your fancy and you feel that your life would be more complete with a print hanging on your wall, rest assured that I can handle that without a problem. I can don prints at just about any size, and on a variety of media like fine art paper, canvas, and even metal. You can select stock sizes here in the gallery store, or you can contact me to discuss larger prints, or different media. If you aren’t sure what you might want, I am happy to offer suggestions and give you different quotes based on your options. My goal is that you get the print that you want, and in a form that makes you very happy. Trust me, there is just no better way to enjoy photography than to hold the finished product in your hands and hang it on your walls.
Don’t forget that my spring workshops are about to get started. I still have plenty of openings in all three classes. In just over a month, I will be hosting my first classroom workshop here in my studio where I will be discussing exposure in the digital world. The following month will be a location workshop at Doughton Park where we will learn how to create compositions in a variety of conditions. Wrapping that up will be a workshop on how to focus to get the sharpest images in June, also at Doughton Park. These are the three areas that I constantly see in my other workshops that seem to trip photographers up more than anything else. If you can get a handle on these three aspects, your photography will improve quicker than with any other learned skillset.
Keep in mind that the links that I have included here to the gear that I use on these treks are affiliate links. If you use these links to shop at the retailers, I get a few cents from your purchase without it costing you anything extra. It is a nice way to support my photography and this site while you are getting any type of items from the retailers. It doesn’t have to be what I have linked, just use that link to access the retailer, do your shopping, and check out. It is that easy, and you really are helping me out by doing that.
Thanks for joining me, and I hope to see you again very soon on the next trek.
Until next time….
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