Thursday, February 27, 2025
No….no….no, I’m not saying that this will be the last time I go out with the camera. I’ve still got a lot left in me when it comes to photography, so don’t worry about that. What I am referring to is that this might well be the last time that I shoot this particular subject. If you have been following my work for a while, you will probably recognize the star of this entry, and there is a good chance that you have a print on your wall featuring this particular Pontiac. I have lost count of the times that I have shot this old car, and it took a little digging into past entries to figure out when I actually found this car. As it turns out, the first time was in 2013, which is over a decade ago. You can read the full entry from December 29, 2013, to get the full effect of how that day went. I’ll go ahead and apologize for the photography in advance. I wasn’t that good back then and was even worse at post processing. I continued to work on this scene, and I generally regard this one subject as one of my decay photography teachers. Everything I tried with this car was new when I first found it, and I figured a lot out along the way. I even decided to go out there and do some light painting late in 2019. The most recent visit was on January 12, 2023, which I think was my most successful trek there to date.
Here we are two years later and still talking about this old Pontiac in Yadkin County. Why is that? Well, it happens to be rather visible from the highway, so I always check it out when I am going through Yadkin County. Throughout the summer months, I was actually kind of concerned that it wasn’t there anymore because I wasn’t able to see it anymore due to the vegetation that had overgrown it. I knew that the neighboring property had been for sale, and it looked like it had been purchased. My concern was that they were starting to clear the property to make way for whatever neighborhood was about to move into the area. The house where this car was sitting has been vacant since I first saw the car in 2013 and has not seen any changes at all short of a barn falling in on itself. I know that it is just a matter of time before this property is cleared for something new.
That is the risk of working with decay subjects, there will come a time when they are no more either because of getting moved or just fading away. When summer ended, I was able to see the car again, but I could also see that it was covered with vines, and this was from the highway a good distance from the car. Even if the car remained there, I had a feeling that it was going to get so overgrown that there was going to be no way to successfully shoot it, even in the winter. I didn’t really put much more thought into it than that simply because I knew that I had photographed this car enough times over the years that I really didn’t need any more photos of it in my collection.
As it turned out, a few days ago, Toni and I had been returning home from a trip to Winston and I took us on a slight detour to go and get a closer look at the old Pontiac. It was like going to see an old friend in a lot of ways. I pulled off on the side of the road that the house was situated on and looked a bit closer than I was able to from the highway. It was definitely being taken over by vines which meant that I was going to have to think about compositions a little differently than I had in the past if I were going to try and shoot it again. I did have an idea that had popped into my head a few days before that which would include the clothesline that was very close to the car. Usually, I have to get in close the car, right beside the pole to shoot the composition in order to avoid the pole as a distraction. This time, I felt like the clothesline could add to the story, and if I played my cards right, the house might work in the frame as well. Looking from the road though, I wasn’t sure that any of it would work because the lines of the car were now compromised by the dormant vines. At least this time of year the car was still mostly visible, but for how many more seasons was anyone’s guess.
We went on home and I kind of let the scene percolate in my head as I determined if it was something that I wanted to try and shoot or not. The smart money was to let it go and pick something else to photograph the next time the weather was looking promising. The only problem was I didn’t really have anything in mind that I wanted to shoot. The locations in Traphill had kind of dried up for the moment which left me looking for other locations like a spot in Catawba County that I had shot earlier in the month. Without having much idea of where to shoot next, I found myself getting more and more comfortable sitting at home. Fortunately, the weather was starting to warm up a little and I was able to get the Miata out for a little topless driving at least.
While getting the Miata cleaned up on Tuesday, I was considering going out with the clouds on Wednesday while Toni was at work. It was looking like I would have clouds until about 10am or so. This would put the sun on the wrong side of the Pontiac, but it still might be worth going out there to see if I could get another few shots of it to show the progression of age. As it turned out though, the clouds were very thin and didn’t do much for the lighting. I ended up staying at home and in a surprise twist, I shelved my completed Behind the Camera due for publication on Saturday in favor of starting a brand new entry from the ground up. This took most of the morning, but I was able to get the full entry finished and scheduled for publication. I’m looking forward to this one because it speaks to a long overdue topic for new photographers. It also means that I’ve got the April entry already finished and ready to go which puts me well ahead of the game.
With Wednesday a bust for going out, I looked towards Thursday which also had a promise of clouds through most of the day. The only catch was that there was a decent chance of rain around noon into the early afternoon. My goal was to head out there in the afternoon which would put the sun on the driver’s side of the car for the look that I was going for. With the clouds, it wasn’t going to be direct light, but it would be directional diffused light which was what I was after. Toni and I went out to brunch during the mid-morning which was very nice. We don’t normally go out to eat other than dinner, so this was a nice treat for both of us. We stopped at the store on the way home and I happened to see that the clouds were starting to look rather interesting, and the light was finally getting right for the mood that I was after for the Pontiac.
Shortly after getting home, I changed shoes and grabbed my gear to head out to Yadkin County. It was right at the middle of the day, but the clouds were looking to break up during the midafternoon and I wanted to keep the clouds overhead to avoid having an overly bright sky to contend with. When I arrived at the car, the sky had lost some of the spark from earlier, but the lighting was still good and close to what I was wanting for the photos. I grabbed my bag and tripod and started walking up the hill to the car looking at my compositional options along the way. I had a few compositions in mind that I wanted to try and figured that I would be here for a bit.
When I got close to the car, I saw my first problem which had to be addressed. There were crews working on the recently sold property next door. There were a couple of Bobcats rolling up and down the new driveway which was just beside the barn which I was planning on using in a few of the compositions. The activity in that area limited my options greatly, but at least they were moving which meant that I might get lucky, and they would move out of the shot from time to time. The second problem was spotted right on the heels of that first problem. There was a new metal building in a new clearing just down the hill. I knew that this was going to be in the background of the shot that I had planned. There was really no way around it, especially with two trucks parked near the building. It was just taking up too much room. It was also foreshadowing the future of the area because it looked like the main office for a long-term construction project. I expect that it will be a development down in there as there is plenty enough acreage for them to build a nice little community.
With my compositional ideas getting shot down one by one, I was not feeling overly happy about this spot. In fact, I started to wonder if it was even worth pulling out the camera to try anything at all. Of course, it was, and the construction kind of forced my hand. Between that and the vines which had all but taken over this Pontiac, I wasn’t sure that this would be as photogenic after the winter was over. I imagined that through spring and summer, the car would be completely covered by greenery. By the time it all went dormant in the fall, the new growth would probably cover the remainder of the car. There was also a very high likelihood that the entire background would have newly framed houses with some in the final stages of building. The future was looking rather bleak for my old friend. I really felt like I owed it one more shoot before the scene was no more.
Not wanting to bother with the construction activities, I decided to stand in the cornfield and pick out a composition to get started with. It wasn’t going to be anything special, as I had shot this angle many times since 2013. What I found special about this time was that the clouds above the trees added to the visual interest of the scene and allowed me to include them as complete trees for the first time. This was one of the considerations that I had to make with the car being covered by the vines so thoroughly. I wasn’t able to fill the frame with the car because the car itself would get lost. I needed to make the car smaller so that the dormant vegetation wouldn’t cover the shape as easily. By making it smaller, the car became a focal point again as the vines and car combined into a single shape. The trees also became their own element rather than just a background of texture which is the part that they had played in the past.
There was only one thing that I really needed to worry about with this shot and that was the breeze. While it wasn’t terrible, there was a lot of motion in the scene between the trees and the vegetation on the car itself. A quick boost of the ISO got my shutter speed up to 1/25 which I felt was fast enough provided I wait for a lull in the breeze. Everything else fell into place nicely as far as exposure goes. I didn’t need to do anything with the sky in terms of adding filters because the clouds had it dark enough to balance with the light that was falling on the car since the sun was on the driver’s side as planned.
Now that I had the first shot in the bag, I flipped the camera back to landscape orientation and worked a few frames like this. I knew that this angle worked well in both formats. It took a bit of dancing to get the right scaling between the trees and the car in the horizontal format, but I finally landed on the right place to set up the camera. I shot roughly twice what I did with the vertical composition and had ten frames to show for the effort. Only one of them made it through the second round of culling though, and none of them made it to the keeper stack. At this point, I was 14 frames into the day and looking back, there was only a single keeper out of those. It was a slow start, but everything that I had planned for this car had fallen through. I was now trying to just improve on compositions that I had shot previously.
The next angle that I went for was from the passenger’s side where I added the barn in the background. This was roughly the same composition that I had first shot in 2016, and then shot again in the fall of 2017, which was titled A Rusty Streak. That photograph went on to win first place in the Dixie Classic Fair photography competition in the professional color category in 2018. That same photo is still hanging framed in our living room and is enjoyed just as much as when I shot it back then. I have revisited that composition many times since then and even shot it at night. It is just a natural composition for this car since the barn is in the background as a balancing element for the scene. This time, I did have to watch the metal building in the background with the two trucks parked nearby. Fortunately, I was able to get the right focal length and position to allow the car to block those distractions and allow me to get the composition that I was after.
You know, in this age of AI this and AI that, it would have been very easy for me to just shoot the photo and then remove any distractions by way of software. Most photographers do this, but it has always seemed like cheating to me. In case you missed it at the beginning of the month, I would much rather spend a bit more time in the field to get the composition right. This statement means that I will work through a composition until the distractions are eliminated or minimized before I will shoot the photo. This is a prime example of what I meant by that. Had I just plopped the tripod where I normally have it, I would have seen both trucks, and a portion of the building. By adjusting the focal length and my position slightly, I was able to hide it all behind the rear pillar of the car. The composition looked good and there was nothing to remove in post except for a couple of sensor spots. This is the type of post processing that I enjoy. It is rewarding to tweak an image to fit how you viewed it at the time of capture, but very frustrating to clean up messes that you made along the way.
When the photograph was all finished, I couldn’t help but look at it and compare it to my previous photos with the same composition. You can really tell how much the car has been covered by the landscape when you look back to 2017, and especially the scene in 2013. I really have my doubts that this car will be visible next year, but for the moment, I found myself embracing the vines covering the car. They were starting to help tell the story and as long as I was careful about how I scaled the car in the frame, I was still able to create compelling compositions with this partially hidden vehicle.
With that in mind, I decided to go get a rear quarter shot of the car which I had first shot in 2016, but later reprocessed in 2019 for one of my Behind the Camera entries. Since the trees were rather empty of leaves, I had to be careful about the angle so as not to reveal too much of the road. The highway was also visible with the passing traffic. I had to time my shots to make sure that there were no cars visible in the frame. Most of the time, I would press the button just as a car was coming into view through the trees. It was frame five out of six where I managed to capture no traffic in the frame. This is what became me keeper from that composition. When added to the four frames that I had shot of the very successful front quarter view with the barn, I was up to a total of 24 frames shot with this car. As you can see, my success rate with the photographs was improving greatly now that I was getting into the groove with the car and embracing the same compositions that I had shot in the past.
In many ways, this was a fun trip down memory lane for me. It was one of the first decay subjects that I had photographed, and I think that it had a lot to do with me becoming a decay photographer. The fact that I have been able to revisit it so many times has given it a very special place in my heart. I think that I could have developed similar feelings for a Ford pickup that I had shot earlier than this car, but had only been able to return to it a single time before it was sold. Funny story about that truck actually. You see, Toni had arranged for me to have a featured interview on Roy’s Folks which was a local news feature to highlight interesting people in the Piedmont. This was in 2010 if memory serves and one of the photos that I highlighted in the interview was one of this Ford truck that I had shot the year before. It was nothing particularly special, but it was the first time I had really done a photo around a rusty old vehicle. It was one of those moments that eventually changed my photography, but I had no idea that it was going to be that instrumental until years later. Anyway, shortly after the piece aired on TV, I received a call from a guy asking if I was the photographer that shot the photo of the Ford truck. He went on to tell me how he owned one and was restoring it. I listened with interest and all the time thought I was getting ready to sell a print because he was emotionally connected to the photo.
I was so excited and was ready to give Toni a big hug and kiss to thank her for arranging the whole thing. It had obviously worked to promote my photography, and I was getting ready to make a sale which at this stage in my photography career was still rather rare. I kept biting my tongue not to interrupt my client on the phone as I just waited for that question of how much for a print. The question did happen, but not the one that I was expecting and honestly, I didn’t see it for what it was. He just asked me where I had found the truck. I told him about the area on 158 that I had spotted it and described where it was in relation to the road thinking that it would be impressive that I was able to get the shot that close to the road. He thanked me for my time and ended the call.
Now, I went back through that phone call and tried to figure out where I had gone wrong and why I didn’t have a sale. My prices were in line with what I was creating, and he obviously liked the photo. Why else would he have called? Well, I wasn’t asking the right questions of myself and totally missed it. It became clear about a week later when I was driving down the road and I looked over to the right to see my favorite little Ford truck.
Wait…..
That was where it was just days ago.
Where did it go?
Then it hit me. My client had no intention of buying a print, he was looking for a parts truck for his project. He had come and bought the truck off of the owner. Yep, bought the truck, and not the photo. Right then and there, I learned my lesson which has stayed with me to this day. I don’t reveal the locations of these vehicles unless the owner asks me to or tells me that the vehicles are for sale. Part of the reason is because I don’t want to lose great photography subjects, but something that is an even better reason is to keep all these little private properties private. There is an uptick in interest around photographing these old cars, and the last thing I want to do is be creating a brochure of all the locations they can be found. That would result in increased traffic to these locations and eventually, word would get around and I would never be able to get permission to access a property again. It just isn’t worth that to me because most of what I am shooting these days requires me to be on the good side of the property owners.
Sorry about that little trip down memory lane, but working this Pontiac really makes me nostalgic and really happy to look back over my path of learning in relation to decay photography. I did come out here to try something different with this car though, and it was time that I really gave that a chance. I had given up on using the house as a background which I thought would have worked well. In reality, there was a riding lawnmower parked next to the rear porch that I felt was a distraction. There was also a Toyota parked on the other side of the house that I felt didn’t add to the photo at all. I had tried to crop into the house to avoid those two things, but the house then became a distraction. I ultimately abandoned that concept of a composition. I also tried several different things with the clothesline but couldn’t find a way to make it part of the scene while telling part of the story of the car.
I was down to working the details of the car, but the vines really didn’t help the situation. Everything that I thought to photograph was just too blocked by the vines. The only thing that seemed like it wanted to be photographed with the vines was the hood ornament. Now, we all know that I love shooting the hood ornaments on these old cars, and I’ve even shot this one a number of times. There really was no compelling reason for me to be drawn here as the vines were obscuring it for the most part. However, after being here for a while and listening to what the car was telling me, this was the shot that it wanted me to take.
I got in close to the hood and looked at the ornament. It was still in very good shape considering the rest of the car. I also noticed that the vines thinned out around the flying Indian giving a bit of a view to the chrome. I had my standard zoom still attached which would give some roundness to the hood that I thought would help it jump out from the vines. I framed up a shot and did a total of three variations on the concept. It looked really cluttered in the image review, but I knew that when it was viewed larger that it would make more sense.
Sure enough, when I got it home, the third of the three frames nailed it. The shallow depth of field with the detail falling on the head of the Indian showing the cracks in the chrome and the sculpting detail just made it jump off the screen. After a quick round of processing to tweak the lighting on the hood, I found an image that I really enjoyed, and it was something completely new from this car. There was a bit of abstract to the decay, and enough of a clue as to what you are looking at that you can kind of imagine the rest of the scene. The vines framed the hood ornament nearly perfectly. I was excited about this shot and was very glad that I had taken the time to get it captured.
From here, I noticed that the sun was starting to come out and I decided to go back to the original spot on the driver’s front quarter to try for another horizontal shot. I liked how the light was working but was having a hard time getting the composition right. I was also battling with the wind at this point which was becoming very strong. I had to kick the ISO up another stop to speed the shutter up a bit more to counter the blowing branches in the tree. The light was moving around quickly, and I was firing off shots left and right. I just wasn’t totally happy with the composition.
By the time I nailed the composition, the light had started to fade away leaving the even lighting from before over the scene. Not wanting to lose the composition, I stuck it out as the light would return every so often. Looking back, I spent the most time on this one composition between the 10 frames at the beginning and the 21 frames that I was currently shooting. Some quick math tells me that 31 of the eventual 48 shots in total of this car was dedicated to this single composition. There were three candidates from this investment that made it through the second round of culling and were looked at as being keepers. It was the very last shot of the day that ended up with that honor. The light wasn’t perfect on it, but the composition had the best flow, and the light was marginally better than most of the shots. The best light was dinged by having a very rushed composition that was shot from the wrong height which put several of the elements in poor positions within the frame. It was the more polished composition and decent light of this great subject that won me over. I had two and a half wins out of three when I only needed two for a strong photo.
After I fired off that last frame, the wind was kicking up seriously and the rain was starting to fall. I figured that was my clue to call it a day. I was sure to have at least two keepers out of the bunch which I should be able to get processed and written about before bedtime. not bad for a day that I wasn’t even sure would have resulted in a trek.
You might have noticed that there were no black and white images here even though many of the photos had a limited color palette. I had really planned on doing a few black and white presentation with these, but after looking at each of the keepers, I found that to be a less-than-ideal decision. When it comes to choosing photos for black and white, I need a reason for that decision. Many times, I choose this based on a limited color palette or to simplify a complicated scene. Both of those reasons should apply with a few of these images between the warm overtones of the whole scene or the vines that were obstructing the car. That was what I was thinking at the time, but the reality of the situation was that the car needed the color to establish its space within the frame because of the vines. Without the color, it would be harder to identify the vines vs the Pontiac. Since the Pontiac was my main subject, I needed to have as much contrast and saturation as I could to bring the eyes to it since there wasn’t much bright to draw the eyes. Because I was thinking about how the human eye sees a photograph, I was left with no choice but to keep the images in color. I think that I made the right decision and am very happy with how these turned out.
I hope that this isn’t the last time that I am able to photograph this car, but I think that things will have changed for the worse by the next winter when the vines clear off enough that I can work it again. At this point, I am not really trying to get better images, although I hope that I am able to do that each time. My main goal for this subject is to document the transition that it is making over the years. It is probably the one single subject that I have photographed this many times that has been left neglected for all these years. We really get a chance to see what time is doing with this car, and I find it fascinating.
If you feel the same and would enjoy seeing this car hanging on your wall, I would love to match you up with a print of your very own. Notice that I said a print, not the car. I’ve been trying to find the owners and even talked with the sales team for the neighboring property when it was for sale without any luck. This is a car that I would love to have on my own property because I do have an emotional connection with it at this point and would really enjoy having it to photograph on its own, and to use as a prop in my portraiture from time to time. Whether or not I am able to photograph it again, I will be keeping an eye out for any change that might indicate how to contact the owner. I hope that it works out, but I really doubt that I’ll be able to make it happen because my luck just doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, I do hope that you have enjoyed this trek as well as the photos….current and the previous ones that have been linked throughout. It is always fun for me to look back on these entries and you can see one of the biggest benefits of having these blogs available over the years. They are truly a dear diary for me and something that I can go back to at any time and remember how a trek went. It is also great to see my progress as I learn more and more about photography and the post processing that allows my visions to take form. The fact that so many of you enjoy them as well is just icing on the cake. If you would like to get notifications of new entries and photos, don’t forget to subscribe. It is free to do and will ensure that you get notifications on all the new treks and pictures. If you just wait for me to post the photos on Facebook or Instagram, please understand that I am about five and a half months behind at this point thanks to a string of very successful treks. Following this blog is your best bet to get that notification right when it is published.
Don’t forget to join me in a couple of days for the next Behind the Camera when I talk about settings and why nobody should care what the settings are.
Until then….
