Friday, May 3, 2024
A quick look at the weather shows rain over the next 10 or so days which means that more than likely, I won’t be getting out for many photos during that time. In an attempt to get a photo fix in before the monsoon season, I decided to take advantage of the building clouds this morning. According to the hourly, there would be some high clouds right at sunrise with increasing clouds into the early afternoon when the rain was going to start. I wasn’t positive, but it was seeming like a good opportunity for a sunrise. There was enough of a chance for me to get up at very early o’clock so that I could be on the road by 5:20.
My destination was a simple one because I didn’t have much gas in the truck and the gas station wasn’t going to open up till 6. With that in mind, I chose to head up Hwy 16 to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Jumpin’ Off Rocks overlook. I’ve been here several times with moderate success for getting the rolling hills looking to the East. There are a couple of places to shoot from and the one that I normally use is down the hiking trail which comes out to an observation platform. I didn’t feel like doing that hike this morning, and I felt that I could get the same type of view from right off of the parking lot. That was just what I did, and I know it made me look lazy.
It wasn’t a matter of being lazy at all though. I knew that I was going to be shooting with a very long lens which wasn’t going to allow me any foreground. The distant views were pretty similar between the parking lot and the observation deck. In order to save about 20 minutes’ worth of walking in the dark, I chose to keep it simple and work just a little lower in altitude. It made life much easier, and I was able to work out of the back of the truck instead of hauling the bag all over the place. It also allowed me the flexibility to change up the direction and shoot to the West should the sky call for it.
When I arrived at the parking lot the sky didn’t really look all that great. There was a bank of clouds right at the horizon, which was probably going to snuff out the color, but there was a chance that it would move in the next 45 minutes when the sun would crack the horizon. I got out of the truck and looked on both sides of the street to see what my options were going to be. It was pretty clear that the light was only going to be interesting to the East, and it was also clear that 51 degrees with a stiff wind was a good deal colder than I was used to. Sometimes it is beneficial to have a jacket tucked away in the back of the truck, and this was a morning that I used it happily.
Looking at the sky, I could tell that there wasn’t going to be a lot of color in the clouds, if any. The biggest point of interest was the layering of mountains which was my main reason for coming out here anyway. To get those, I knew that I was going to need the telephoto lens, but even with that, I doubted that I was going to have the reach and compression to make it work the way I wanted it to. Fortunately, I have a 2.0x teleconverter in the bag which will double the focal length of the long lens giving me 400mm of reach. I was going to need every bit of that for what I was wanting to capture. In fact, I kind of wished that I had the 100-500mm lens for the EOS R5 which will eventually be a part of my landscape kit. There was no time to waste wishing on different gear, I had what would be sufficient to make the photo work, and I got everything built up on the camera. There was no need for any filters because I was shooting straight into the sun and wanted the silhouette effect of the backlight.
I started off by working a composition on the tallest mountain which I have shot before. It was effective, but somewhat boring with the light. I moved to some different angles and started to work with the areas where I could see the repeating patterns of the mountains. The light was still very low at this point and I was using a 30 second exposure for most of the frames. That did allow me to realize that the clouds were moving away from me and towards the horizon. This was promising because I needed the sun to get underneath of the clouds to make the sky light up.
At about 20 minutes till sunrise, the clouds had thinned at the horizon and the sky was starting to show a red and orange glow that I really loved along with the blues in the mountains. This was when I started firing off a lot of shots with different compositions just hoping that one would work out the way I was wanting it to. I didn’t want to get bogged down with a single composition because it all depended on where the light was looking the best. Most of the compositions were based around Pilot Mountain in the distance. I had done this a while back but didn’t use nearly as long a focal length which made that landmark fade into the background too easily. This time, I was in a position to really focus on that mountain because the sky was only colorful right above the horizon, and I was able to get two layers of colors in a very small space.
The only thing that I changed was how the patterns of mountains proceeded through the frame. Occasionally, I would pick up a closer mountain as a visual anchor, and towards the end, I used some of the tall trees as a foreground element. There were a total of 18 frames shot as the sun approached the horizon. Right before that happened, the colors washed out completely and I lost interest in continuing with the series. The winning image was number 11 and that is the one that you can see above. It was the only photo that I thought had everything that I wanted. The colors were all there, the right composition was present with the layers in both the mountains and in the sky. It was one of only a few where you could see the two different tones in the sky which added just that one more layer from dark to light.
I took one more look across the street to see if the light was looking good on that side. It wasn’t, and the clouds were too thick to the West to give any visual interest to the sky should the sun hit them. I paused and pondered my options. I had shot sunrise, and that was looking to be all that I was going to find here to work with. It felt like I was just getting started though, and I still had some creative energy brewing. Thanks to the construction on the Parkway, I was on a very small section that went from Hwy 16 to the Trading Post. There wasn’t much along here to work with, and I was needing gas anyway. The decision was made to pack it in and head back down the mountain to get some push water.
While I was driving down the mountain, I was surprised to see that the sun was so bright. By now, the clouds were supposed to be coming in, but it appeared that they were going to be delayed. I started thinking about some local subjects that I could work. The first thing that came to mind was an old roadster at a car lot close to home. After spending the day with the Miata, this was kind of appealing to me. It was going to be a lot of isolations because it was situated under a shelter and surrounded by other cars. I was feeling like giving it a try at least.
When I got there, pulled into the parking lot and saw the owner cleaning out the interior on a van right in front of the car. This was a good time to ask permission, but I would probably be in his way. He was definitely going to be in mine. The car wasn’t quite as photogenic as I had remembered either. Just like that, the drive to photograph this car faded away. I was back on the road in search of something else. I remembered seeing a barn down Boone Trail a day or so before and wanted to see if the light was good on it. When I got there, the barn was in shadow, and the sky was boring above it. It wasn’t the setting I was hoping for.
I just kept rolling down the road in an attempt to find something else to photograph. There was another old barn not too far from here that I wanted to see. It is a very difficult barn to photograph because of its location behind a gate and next to another structure that was probably a house at one time. When I got there, I saw no light at all on the barn and everything just looked muddy with the shadowed tones under a bright sky. There was no sense in wasting time here, so I kept on driving.
I was looking at my gas gauge and trying to estimate how much longer I could keep the search going before I had to get gas. There was still time for some more exploring, so I worked my way back down Hwy 16 and decided that I wanted to check out a rat rod Chevy which I had been seeing through most of the Winter months. It was behind an independent dealership and hadn’t moved in quite some time. I had been by several times considering photographing it but had never found a composition that I liked with it. I knew that I wasn’t going to find anything that I could shoot as an overall composition, but I was feeling like getting some details which might just work out with this one.
When I arrived, I pulled next to the truck and looked it over. I don’t think that anything had changed with it since the first time I saw it. It was fully in the shadows of the building which made the tones very even on the truck. There were lots of little points of interest as is usually the case with a rat rod. One of the mor unique aspects were the license plates which had been used to patch the holes in the body panels. The customary Ridler wheels were also mounted which I had a lot of fun with on an Impala rat rod recently. It wasn’t an ideal subject, but it was one that I thought that I could work with.
Since this was a business, I went around to the front to see if anyone was there. The sign said that they didn’t open until 9am, and it was still well before 8am. I went back to the rear, which was also right along a roadway, and I parked on the edge of the property. There were no signs saying that I couldn’t be there, but I did see one that said that video cameras were in use. That didn’t bother me at all since I wasn’t going to be touching anything or moving anything. With the truck pretty close to the road, I didn’t see a problem with working on some photos with it.
The starting combination for the camera was the 24-70mm lens with a polarizer. I felt that this was the way to go because of the closed in space I would be working with. With that on the tripod, I went over to the truck and started to frame up compositions that I thought might work out. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I had been geared up to shoot landscapes, or that this truck was in an awkward position, but things weren’t really going all that well to start with. The compositions didn’t seem to be happening all that quickly and I was putting way too much thought into what I was doing. It took a little while before I was really hearing how this truck wanted to be photographed.
What started off as a forced exercise of trying the different angles got more fluid as I went. I wasn’t getting bogged down on any particular composition which left me free to move around the truck and just try different things. One of those little creative compositions that I tried was of the back corner of the cab between the windows. I shot this from down very low so that I could pull the sky into the frame and really concentrate on the stainless “Custom” trim. I really liked the way that the sky reflected in the rear window which pulled the photo all together.
I think that was the first photo that got me feeling confident about this truck. I had liked one of my earlier compositions, but it was kind of the expected one as shot from slightly behind the front left wheel. It was the license plates that made that one work as well as it did and kept it a little unique in my collection as well. I now had 17 frames of this truck and was starting to feel better about working it. The hit rate went up substantially from this point forward as I started to capture the photos that really described the truck.
Since I really liked the wheels and the license tags for patch panels, I went to the passenger side to see if I could work out a composition that featured that side. I found a different angle from what I had shot on the other side and managed to get something a little different. It was nice to show that the patchwork was done uniformly on the truck across both sides. That was part of the personality of this Chevy, and after a little while working with it, I understood that fact.
Something that was starting to come to mind was my lens choice. Even though I was working close in to the truck, I found myself at 50mm or tighter for most every shot. This was a good indicator that I probably needed to swap lenses to my long lens once again. The standard zoom was working, but it was having a hard time getting the framing and perspective that I thought would work best with this truck. I still can’t explain it, but for the past year and a half or so, the telephoto lens has been my best friend for so much of what I like to shoot. It wasn’t that long ago that I rarely took the lens out, and used it mainly for that extra reach, but here lately, I have found it excellent at working close in. I just need a little bit of space to stay away from the subject to let the lens work its best. That was going to be difficult, but not impossible.
The swap was made, and I kept the polarizer mounted to the front of it. One of the first compositions that I tried with the long lens was one of the rear wheel on the driver’s side. The wheel arch was hand cut to fit the large meats, and there was a hole for the exhaust pipe which added to the interest. After a couple of attempts at the composition, I was happy with the balance and how everything came together but wasn’t wild about the color. It seemed to lack some visual interest in color, but I could see a lot of potential for doing this in black and white. That is how it ended up being processed which I think turned out quite nice.
I then worked my way back up to the driver’s side cowl where I had tried a composition before with the standard lens. The light had changed on the truck at this point and there was a lot of sunlight raking across the dash and windshield. That seemed to add a good deal of interest, and the compression from the lens really worked for this view of the truck. Again, the color left it feeling kind of boring, so I did it in black and white as well. This allowed the textures to tell the story and for the focus to move to the dried-out inspection sticker with the sequential numbers. It turned into a much stronger presentation this way.
I could feel the energy coming back to me and I was on a roll. In fact, out of the first six frames that I shot with the long lens, three of them landed as keepers. The third of that quick bunch was another shot of the front corner of the truck. Both headlights were held in with zip ties which seemed too odd considering the nice wheels just around the corner. Yeah, any excuse to photograph those wheels. One of the hardest parts about this angle was the bumper which was still very much chromed out. I had tried this before with the standard zoom only to be stuck as a cameo in the bumper. With the longer lens, I was able to get further away, but I still showed up. The fix for that was to crop the bumper out which I preferred as it allowed a better visual weight on the other elements in the scene. The zip ties made for a nice counter point to the spokes on the wheel as well.
The sun was getting higher in the sky by this point, and I was seeing some interesting changes on the passenger side. The side of the cab was starting to get illuminated while other sections were still in shadow. This was the recipe for something good and I started to pick out compositions that I thought would get better with the change in lighting. I found that the trim on the cab corner was going to be the first to get the light, and I picked out a composition that I had one earlier here and waited for the light to hit. As it dropped, I saw some other opportunities developing because the reflection of the mirror was now showing a well-lit cab corner.
I repositioned the camera slightly so that the “Custom” script would appear in the mirror. I flipped the camera horizontal to be able to include that aspect as I had been avoiding the reflection until now. With the sun just starting to kiss the door handle, I was all set to make some images here. There must have been eight different vertical compositions of that trim, but it was this one horizontal one which really captured my heart. Everything just fell together so well because of that reflection in the side glass. The sun provided a natural vignette just below the handle which I loved, and the reflection of the road filled the negative space on the rear window as well.
As the light moved down the door, I moved my position further forward and started looking at different angles. I liked the door handle a lot by this point and wanted to frame up a photograph that featured that as a visual anchor. I didn’t worry about the “Custom” script this time and just concentrated on finding the best balance to the whole image. I worked at an elevated position so that there were a lot of diagonals in the frame, and then I waited for the shadow to hit the body line for a natural transition point. This created a triangle of shadow that helped to frame the rest of the composition while the shadowed body lines and inside of the bed gave a fantastic contrast to the sunbathed paint.
I committed to this composition and shot five frames with two different camera positions and three different depths of field to make sure I had what I wanted. That wrapped up my time with the truck as the sun was getting too bright and I was out of ideas with how to photograph it. I had shot a total of 69 frames through the morning and ended up with nine new keepers for the collection. Considering I went out with the intention of getting a sunrise which I figured would be limited, I was thrilled at the outcome of the day. The Chevy rat rod was the highlight for sure and confirms that I am still a photographer that leans towards the decay subjects. I still enjoy the landscape, but I just don’t get as excited about a mountain view as I do about a rusted vehicle. Yeah, there is probably something wrong with me, but I’m not complaining at all.
Hopefully, you have enjoyed this trek as much as I have. Remember, if any of these photos speak to you, consider purchasing a print. There is just no better way to enjoy a photograph than in the intended form. The intended form of my photos just happens to be large prints to hang on the wall. Everything that I shoot is done with that end use in mind and there is an indescribable satisfaction upon seeing one of my photographs in that form. Being able to share that with my clients is an honor and privilege.
Thanks for tagging along, and I hope to see you back here soon. I just don’t know when the weather is going to cooperate with me, and I have a lot of client sessions coming up here soon. I’ll be in Charlotte next week doing a dozen headshots for a corporate client of mine. I also have a branding photo session for a photographer based out of Asheville coming up in the next couple of weeks depending on the weather. There might also be another male model shoot coming up. It will be nice to get rolling again with portraiture. It feels like forever since I’ve had a people session and I miss it.
Stay tuned, and I’ll see you next time….
