Monday, August 18, 2025
I hope you have had enough time to rest after a bit more than a week of daily blog entries. I’ve enjoyed the recovery time, but it hasn’t really been restful. As I mentioned, I had a fashion shoot that happened last Thursday evening. After my last trek at the beginning of the week, I was pretty content to just calm my brain so that I could switch gears in order to get ready for the session. By the time Thursday came around I was fairly ready for the shoot and had the studio all set up with several ideas ready to go for the client. The shoot took just at two hours, and I had something like 127 frames to look at and process. The end result was 26 keepers that were delivered to the client digitally. This was actually a really good percentage considering I was working with some very difficult lighting and a few techniques that I was not overly familiar with. The following days were spent doing some editing on those photos and working with a few other clients for other jobs. It has been pretty busy with all of that going on.
During that time, I had seen a post on Facebook where someone had shot a photo of their Mustang in front of a building that still had the old Rambler Sales and Service sign painted on the bricks. This caught my eye because I wasn’t aware that we had an old Rambler dealer anywhere near here. I did some research on the building based on the clues that were provided and tracked it down to Hickory, NC which was only about an hour from home. In addition to the Rambler sign that was on the building, there was another banner of sorts that went between the bay door and the window stack that said “Age of Chrome.” This kind of sealed the deal for me and made me very interested in capturing this building.
I started to do a little more research on the building itself and what was around it. There was a new business that was occupying the structure and their sign had nothing at all to do with the aspects that I wanted to capture. There was also an attached building to the right that appeared to be quite a bit more modern in appearance and again had nothing at all to do with the story that I wanted to tell with this scene. I sat there for a while looking at the photo and street view and tried to come up with some idea of how to photograph this building.
The simplest way would be to stand in front of it and crop into both sides to eliminate the aspects that I didn’t’ like. There was an asymmetrical curve to the roof of the building that I liked which would show up in that type of composition. The more I thought about it, the more boring that it became and the large bay door would turn into the focal point and visual anchor for the whole scene. In essence, I was taking a photo of a single wall with no depth to the scene. I thought about doing what the Mustang owner had done and using the Miata as a focal point in front of the building. But then I would be looking at having to include the new business sign which was for a detail shop. That wasn’t the story that I wanted to show for this building either, not to mention that the Miata had nothing at all to do with a Rambler dealership. I was kind of at a loss because I really liked the signs on the building but was really running into dead ends with how to make it an engaging photograph.
I considered it more and more over the next day or so. I kept going back to the photo on my phone and trying to figure out a way to make this look interesting. I began to concentrate on the curve of the roof and could tell that I would be able to amplify that with a wide angle lens with the right location. That got me thinking about perspective distortion and how I could use that to my advantage with a composition. I mentally moved my position closer to the building and started to look at the angles and how things might appear to the camera. I started to see all kinds of diagonals coming into play. The bank of windows to the left started to become a framing element for the signs. The bay door was no longer a focal point, but another framing element with the line of windows at the base becoming the lower frame of the composition. I was pretty sure that the “Age of Chrome” sign would be able to be roughly vertical beside the bay door while the Rambler sign would trail off to the right with a diagonal tilt down. This would leave a bit of sky overhead, but not much.
The composition was actually coming together in my mind quite nicely. The inclusion of the sky gave me the opportunity to make this a color image which I had been doubting would work initially. With the bricks being the main color of the building, the image was looking to be largely red in hue, with black and white added in for a bit of contrast. It was still going to be overly red with no real balance to the colors. Now that I was looking at having the sky in the composition, I had the opportunity to bring in some blue sky, or clouds depending on what I was after. I liked the idea of the blue sky the best because it would balance out the red brick on the building. If I could get lucky enough to get some of those puffy “Simpsons” clouds overhead, I might be able to really link the sky to the text of the signs. I really liked that idea.
It was the idea of the clouds that brought another idea to the plate and that was using a long exposure to smear the clouds in the sky to give a sense of movement to the image. That would be easy enough to do provided the clouds were moving and occupied the same space that was included in the composition above the building. If I could get that to work out, an exposure of around three minutes should be enough to give that soft transition in the sky that I was after. I just needed to figure out when would be the best time to go out there.
We are still in that odd period where it is either sunny or stormy with very little variation between those extremes. Looking at the week ahead, I had a few days when I could get out for some photos before having to get ready for a headshot session this coming Saturday. Monday was supposed to be sunny all day, with Tuesday bringing back the chance of storms in the afternoon with Wednesday being a washout of sorts. It was looking like Tuesday was going to be the day that I would probably shoot this building.
Sunday night I realized that I had pretty much figured out everything about this photograph, but I have not laid eyes on it in person as of yet. There could be all kinds of things that have changed with it since the street view photos were shot and since the Mustang was photographed. In fact, the Mustang could still be there and blocking the view of where I was wanting to be with the camera. I needed to get by and give it a look before I committed to rolling out there with the camera during what might be a good opportunity for another location to photograph.
That was where the Miata came into the equation once again. I was needing to drive it since it has been relegated to the garage for about a week now as I have been busy with other things. With Monday looking like a nice day, I figured I could take it out on a nice cruise and check out the Rambler dealership. It was a solid plan until I got a call from my eye doctor in Walkertown saying that my trail set of contacts had come in. Well, I needed to get those picked up to try them out so that the full order could be placed. That became the Mata drive for the day and was just a little longer than going to Hickory.
After I checked the weather and found that even though storms were now in the forecast once again, they were holding off until after 8pm. That would give me plenty of time to get to Walkertown and back before any rain started falling. I left a little after 10 and pretty much went there and back. It was a great drive, and pretty decent weather even though it was a bit hot. On the way back, I was looking at the building clouds in the sky and figured that if those clouds stuck around for a while, I might be able to get the Rambler dealership shot this afternoon. I would have the time, and I was still wanting to go by and scout it out anyway.
I got home around 2:30 and looked at the weather. The clouds were pretty well locked in with some scattered rain happening South of us. The clouds were low, just like what I was seeing overhead. I stepped outside and looked at the speed of the clouds in the sky to see if the long exposure idea would work. They were moving at a decent pace, but not fast at all. I wasn’t looking at a lot of sky that needed filling, so the speed would probably work out pretty well. I could still be home before the major storms hit and might actually dodge the rain completely if I was really lucky. I figured that with an open afternoon; I would head out there and give it a try.
The camera was loaded in the truck, and I was off to Hickory. The trip down was spent thinking about how I might want to fine tune the composition as well as how I might want to edit the photo whether it be in color or in black and white. Lots of options were rolling around in my head as I drove, but the biggest question would be whether or not the conditions would work out. Looking at the map, it appeared like the building would get the best light in the afternoon. The sun would be on the right side, of the sky, but how harsh would it appear this early in the afternoon? Would I have to wait for it to drop in the sky? Would I even be able to get permission to set up in the parking lot for more than a couple of minutes since the business was supposed to be open according to Google? There were lots of questions, but the biggest one was whether or not my idea for a composition was going to work out or not?
There are many times I create an image on the fly. You read about those all the time in the pages of this blog. The most recent was that last trek where I spotted a single car that interested me, and I ended up spending several hours on the property photographing many different subjects that I have never seen before. There is another side to that coin, and that is when I have seen a location and have a solid idea of how I want to photograph it. I’ve thought about it and worked out the details beforehand. This is called Previsualization and is a valuable tool for any photographer. Essentially, you take a scene and figure out how you want to photograph it with an end result in mind. In all honesty, I do this before every single photograph, but sometimes that process only take a few seconds to work through. Those times, I don’t really count the process as being previsualized, it is more reactive than anything. The previsualization that I am talking about with this trek is one that takes days, and I work through just about every movement and thought that I am going to have on location.
The result of previsualization is having a much more streamlined approach to the photo when I get to a location. In the case of this location, I had been thinking about it for days and working through some very difficult compromises. This was hopefully going to allow me to work quickly and get into position with the right gear without causing too much disruption to the business. I liked being able to work efficiently when I am potentially going to be in the way, and for this particular subject, I really needed a solid idea for a composition before I started the process in front of a business.
The trip out there was a bit over an hour, and the clouds would come and go during the route. When I arrived, the clouds were in the sky, but they were kind of sporadic at best. I pulled in and parked my truck over on the corner of the property. The business actually looked closed with no cars out front at all. The neighboring business that was attached was open and there was a lot of activity around it. I went in and stepped up to the counter. I asked the lady at the desk if it would be OK for me to spend a little time trying to get a photo of the Rambler sign. She said that wasn’t their business and somebody else was renting out that part of the building. He wasn’t there and only came in on certain days at this point. She didn’t care if I went out there and shot some photos. That was good enough for me and I went out to get the camera out of the truck.
With the benefit of previsualizing this scene, I knew that I was going to need my wide angle lens to start with. I also knew that I was going to need a polarizer for the glass as well as the blue in the sky. That was how I set the camera up to start with. I moved over to the area where I thought that my angle was going to be. It was close, but not quite there. I moved around in about a six-foot circle until I got the perspective that I wanted. From here, I was able to see what the sky was doing. At the moment there was nothing at all happening in the sky. I switched the camera over to black and white which was my plan B for the day. This would allow me to get a nice dark sky above the building for a bit of drama. I got that shot taken care of, but hoped that I was going to get the clouds moving in.
I looked up and over the building and saw some clouds moving in. They were slow but would probably make enough difference for me. When the first of the clouds came into view, I shot a single frame to make sure that the clouds weren’t overexposing. There was no clipping, and I was at 1/8 of a second. With that information, I pulled out my Lee IR/ND app and dialed in1/8 of a second. I could then see which one of my ND filters would give me the right amount of time. I was still looking for around three minutes or so. The 5-stop wasn’t going to give me enough time, but the 10-stop would get me around 2 minutes. I could play with the aperture a bit to dial it in once I got an initial exposure done that showed the motion. I slid in the 10-stop filter and closed off the viewfinder to keep any extra light from getting into the camera.
The first exposure was for two minutes and showed just a small cloud near the smallest portion of the sky. The time looked good, but I didn’t like the cloud’s location. I waited until a larger cloud came into view and fired off another exposure. This was better, but there was not much detail in the cloud. I backed off on the time and made it one minute by opening up the aperture a bit. This helped, but the clouds still weren’t taking up enough of the sky. The next exposure waited for a cloud to enter the larger portion of the sky. This worked well, but there wasn’t enough motion in the cloud represented by the single minute exposure.
I changed the aperture and gave myself a bit longer on the exposure to compensate for the reduced light levels on the building. I was now at two and a half minutes exposure with the original aperture set. I just waited for a larger cloud to come into view. While I was waiting, I noticed that my battery dropped to 19% which wasn’t terrible, but if I ended up doing several long exposures back to back, that might cause some issues. I swapped out to a fresh batter just in case while I was waiting.
Eventually, a nice cloud came into view and several small ones around it. I waited for them all to peak into the frame and released the shutter. This one counted out for 150 seconds. When the exposure finished, it felt like forever before the image review popped up. When it did, I saw exactly what I had hoped to see. The exact image that I had previsualized was right there on the back of the camera. It was the twelfth exposure of the day, and without question the best one. Since it was exactly what I had hoped to see from this scene, I decided I was finished. There were no other photos that I could see here at the location, so I packed everything up and started home.
I hadn’t been there but 30 minutes and, in that time, had only shot a single composition waiting on the clouds to change. It worked out, and there was no fussing about because I had worked through all of those delays before I ever saw the location in person. That is the power of previsualization. The other side of it comes after I get the photos uploaded to the computer. I had already thought a lot about how I wanted to edit this one. I knew that I wanted to tone down the red, which was what the blue was there to do in large part. The other end was how I chose to process the photo. By picking one of my favorite desaturated color profiles, I was on the right track to start with. I was then able to really control the reds, while the blues took a stronger part in the color palette. I gave it a bit of a grunge look using a combination of sliders until I was happy with the overall appearance. A couple of local edits and I was really happy with this one. It had turned out exactly as I had intended it to.
It was only a single keeper from the day, but it really goes to show the power of previsualization in photography. I have in effect, taken how I saw this building and created a photograph for you to see. This is exactly what I was seeing when I finished working through my ideas of how to make a photo of this place. There was very little left to chance by the time I got there. When there were no obstructions in the way, and I had permission, I just went through with exactly what I had worked out prior to even getting in the truck.
I hope that you have enjoyed the trek and the single photo. I’m sure you have enjoyed the fact that this is only a single blog entry, and we are all done. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting out again this week or not as there are appointments and client shoots happening later on, but if I can get out for a few minutes, I do have some other ideas of places to go.
Until then….
