Monday, June 23, 2025
Yesterday, I had the crazy idea to go out at night and do a bit of a photo walk at night through North Wilkesboro. By the time the sun started to set, I was not feeling like going out and was ready to wind down for the night. I’m not a fan of sunset being after 9pm, it just isn’t natural. Knowing that I had several more days of full sunlight I was wanting something to photograph that didn’t require clouds in the sky. My options were kind of reduced which brought me to the idea of the stroll in the middle of the night. The idea was to use the practical lights that were around for a bit of light on the scenes that I was wanting to photograph. I’ve attempted this several times in the past, but have never been able to land on a scene that I liked, or wanted to photograph. The more I considered my history with the concept, the less I wanted to put shoes on after sunset.
Since I ended up getting up early this morning with Toni heading off to work, I considered my options once again. The temperatures were still below 80 which meant that I would be comfortable for a brief time before the temperatures soared over 90 this afternoon. Without any clouds at all, I was really needing to find something where I could work with shadows and contrasts. I again landed on a photo walk because I just didn’t know what I wanted to shoot. I figured my best bet would just be to walk around slowly and let the scenery dictate what I shot. With that in mind, I wanted to go somewhere other than North Wilkesboro as I have worked that area many times over. It is a great location and offers up a lot of options, but I’ve also had decent luck with Elkin the past. That was where I ended up going.
When I finished up with breakfast, I set out to downtown Elkin to walk around and see what I could find. I got there relatively early in the morning, around 8am, so there wasn’t much traffic around, and it was almost like being there on a weekend. I started walking around, but nothing was really jumping out at me. The light wasn’t all that inspiring and I just wasn’t seeing the visual interest that I had wanted to see. Several of my ideas were negated when I walked passed the areas. Things had moved, things weren’t quite what I had remembered from previous visits, and some things just weren’t going to work like I had thought they might. I kept on strolling around to see what hit me, hoping that something would at some point.
After a little while of walking around, I came upon the back of one of the buildings that I had shot some years ago. The stairs had always interested me with their zig zag patterns and hard lines. They were kind of in the sun this morning which added some shadows that increased the amount of angles that were visible. I knew that there were compositions here, and had shot several the last time. This time, there were more areas of clutter on the landings, and the stairs had ben painted which I had viewed as a bad thing shortly after the painting had happened. I had really liked the aged look of the stairs with evidence of rust on them, so the fresh paint kind of took the decay aspect away. However, now that I was looking at the steps in the sunlight, the dark paint added to the scene. While it wasn’t rusty, the lines were more defined now which I saw as a good thing.
I went ahead and pulled out the camera and fitted the telephoto lens so that I could really pick out the part of the stairs that I liked. I moved the camera around the staircase in both vertical and horizontal orientations looking for a composition that worked. I finally landed on one that I felt was pretty strong. It was horizontal, and really focused on the diagonal lines with varying degrees of luminance due to the paint and the shadows. There was no reason for a polarizer as there was really no glare on the scene, and what was there helped to define the lines.
I fine-tuned the composition for a while and finally landed on what I liked the best. I made a single exposure and everything looked good with it, so I picked everything up and moved on to find the next subject. It was nice having the first image in the bag as I was finding it hard to get in a rhythm with the area. I was trying to listen to the landscape, but it just wasn’t resonating with me at all. I had a feeling it was my own mind rather than the location, so I kept moving forward to see if I could get on the right wavelength.
I found myself looking for colors and patterns mostly, but when I cam across the colors by the old theater, I noticed a neon “Open” sign in a window above a table. It was something that caught my attention, and I liked the teal blue of the wall, especially when combined with the tan wall a bit further down the walkway. The window and table made a perfect visual anchor, and I liked some of the detail on the floor as well as the exposed light bulbs along the ceiling. It was enough interest to prompt me to start looking through the camera to find the right angle and composition.
I was expecting it to be a bit harder than it actually was which was a nice surprise. What I found was by framing up a horizontal image, I was able to get a good balance of the colors in the scene as well as just a hint of the actual location. The marque is visible enough, the tiled entrance is showing just a hint of the name of the theater and there was just a hint of the bulbs on the ceiling. Nothing was so dominant as to distract from the simple table in the foreground with the three chairs under the Open sign. With a slight twist of the polarizer, I was able to get a little bit of reflection in the glass for some added interest.
The scene looked pretty good in the camera and after I got a few little details worked out, I started to make exposures to get the depth of field worked out as well as controlling the highlights on the chair legs. There was nothing too difficult though, and I only worked the scene for a short time before moving on in search of something else. The potential subjects were rather elusive though, and I found that things weren’t coming as easily today as I would have expected or liked. Some days, it just works like that.
Eventually, I walked down an alleyway and looked up along the back wall of a business. There were three different conduits coming out of the wall and angling up. There was a bit of dappled light on the trio and I found it to be interesting, geometrically speaking. I went ahead and started to look through the viewfinder to see if there was a composition here. It didn’t take long to find one as I stepped off to the right. This brought the angles to a more interesting perspective on the wall. I was able to take vertical and horizontal lines and make them diagonals just by moving to the side. The bare metal was reflecting the blue of the sky which paired very nicely with the warm tones of the bricks and I was pretty sure that I had something pretty special framed up in the camera.
I got the tripod planted and then worked on the composition a bit more before starting to make exposures. As I was looking at the image review, I was almost certain that this would make a good black and white photo as well. I dialed in that setting on the camera and shot a few more frames knowing that it was going to end up being black and white. As it turned out though, my initial assessment of the color balance between the metal and the bricks was right on target. The black and white was nice, but there was something about the cool and warm tones that were presented here that I thought made the photo quite a bit more special.
By this time in the morning, things were starting to get hot and I was starting to sweat more than I wanted to. I just don’t like being that kind of hot and find that my discomfort will start to affect my overall outlook on things. It was getting to be time to head home to the air conditioning, but I wanted to make a quick walk around the area one last time before packing it in. There were lots of little points of interest along the back alleyways and I was wanting to get at least one more composition before I started to melt.
What I found was some old power meter boxes on the back of a building. At least that is what I suspect that they were. Currently, they are serving no purpose except for possibly a greenhouse for a plant which was growing inside. The boxes were situated between a door and a window with weeds and vines growing along the door frame. It was interesting, but a rather complex scene to photograph. I took a little time to look around and see if I could find a good angle from which I could capture this scene.
I seemed to get a more flattering look from the right side because I could include more of the window and the little shelf below it. When I shot it from the left side the door became a little too dominant and forced me to close in the composition quite a bit more which felt kind of static. The more opened feel of the composition from the right was what I ended up going with. It seemed to tell more of the story of the scene, and fed into the decay theme more than the more isolated one did.
This was the photo that I liked the best, and it was also the hardest to work with. There was a bit of sunlight which was hitting the leaves that poked forward a bit more than the others. The glare from the sun overexposed these leaves in comparison to the rest of the photo which became a really big problem to deal with in post. I had shot the image where there was no clipping showing, but there was still very little detail in the leaves to work with. I shelved the edit and decided that I didn’t like any of the series as they all had the same highlight on the leaves.
Every time I came back to it though, I saw all kinds of points of interest in the photo that made me want to do more with it and try to make the leaves work better than they were. The colors and textures all worked so well in the photo that I hated to toss it because of a few “hot” leaves. This was the light, so there wasn’t much that I could do with it, and I did like the extra exposure on that section of the vegetation because it gave a third point of interest in the frame.
What I ended up doing here was a few local masks where I brought just enough of the green back into the highlights where I was comfortable and they didn’t look “processed.” This was a very fine line, but one that I think I walked very well. I suppose I could have replaced this with AI leaves, but that didn’t feel honest, or like something that I really wanted to do. This approach makes the light still feel natural but reduces the glare quite a bit at the same time.
That was the last image of the day, and I had shot a total of 14 frames during my time in Elkin. It was not all that productive, but I did enjoy getting out with the camera. I’m still looking forward to a good day with good light that I can work with for longer than I have been able to work here recently. I might have to wait until Fall for the light to get better as Summer light is just very harsh for the most part. This is by far my least favorite season to be a photographer. I just don’t care for the heat, nor the quality of the light. I’ll keep on working it though because that is how we get better, and I like to push myself where I can to overcome problems like these.
Thank you for joining me on today’s photo walk. I do hope that you enjoyed the trek as well as the new images that I brought home. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing any prints. I would love to match you up with your very own signed print of your favorite image.
Also, if you are in need of portrait services, keep me in mind. I offer headshots, fine art portraiture, family portraits, couples, and can even help put together a portfolio for new models. Give me a call and lets get your session booked.
Until next time….
