Wednesday, November 3, 2021
Creative slumps are hard to get over if you let them get ahead of you like mine has done. It kind started around the middle of October after quite a few back to back treks that resulted in some really good photographs. This is usually that time when a creative is floating on air and feeling really good about their craft. That is true to a point, but the other end of the spectrum is that producing all of those photographs tends to tap my creative energy unless I have time to recoup between shoots. With the Fall colors coming into the area along with several days of great weather I didn’t have that luxury and had to keep pushing myself to get out there and create more new images. I finally slowed down when the cloudy days were over and the bright sun was back in the forecast. That forced my hand and made me take a break. It was at that point that I realized just how drained my creative side was. With a maternity shoot just around the corner, I started to redirect what little creative juices I had left for that session. It ultimately got canceled which left me hanging in the wind with a drive to create images but no subject to work with. That started the downfall which lead to my creative slump. The following two weeks were spent waiting for a reschedule of the maternity shoot which never happened while watching mostly sunny skies. On the odd occasion that there was a good day to get out and do a bit of photography I was tied up with other things. It seemed like I was just not meant to get out there and get any photographs any more.
The longer it went without going out the more I was seeing the leaves changing colors and I was slowly realizing that the Fall season was now passing me by and I was left watching it instead of photographing it. This was a bit depressing for me, especially knowing that there were tons of photographs being made of the colors and if I was determined to get the photos I could join in on these sunny days. It just wasn’t the conditions that I liked to work in. Was it that I wasn’t as well versed in lighting as others? Maybe I was just looking for excuses as to why I wasn’t going out. The more I thought about it, the more I started to feel like I really wasn’t as good as I had been hoping that I was. That stupid Imposter Syndrome started to sneak into my head as it often does when I have down time away from photography. To make matters worse, I had a portrait shoot scheduled for the last weekend of the month which was supposed to be a studio session. Because of that, I had purchased roughly $350 worth of backdrop and floor which I was going to be using for this session. A few days before we were scheduled to do the portraits my client had a change of heart about driving out to Purlear and decided to do a location shoot at her home. This wasn’t a problem as I can do location portraits as well, but with the change up came a lower price. It also meant that the equipment that I had bought specifically for the shoot wasn’t going to be able to be used. I had officially spent more for the portrait shoot than I was charging the client…and couldn’t even use what I had bought for the shoot. This really added to slump that I was in the middle of. For the first time since 2019, my business was in the red.
With the hopes of getting a little bit of creative spark back in my head before the location portrait shoot, I decided to head out to the county line where there was an old General Store on Hwy 115 which I had decided held a little potential for a photograph. The clouds didn’t last long, but they were there long enough to allow me to get a couple of compositions completed. It was nice to get back out there with the camera and it did help my creative slump to create something once again. The downside of it came during the post processing when I had to learn a whole new aspect of Lightroom with the most recent upgrade that added masks to the local adjustments. It wasn’t particularly difficult to learn, but the last thing that I needed was any additional hurdles in my creative path. I managed to muddle through and ended up with two images that I really liked. It was a start!
On the day of the portrait shoot, I got a print order from a good client of mine who ordered two 13×19″ prints. Between this order and the payment for the portrait shoot later that afternoon, I was back in the black again and I was feeling better. I was still having a lot of doubts about my abilities behind the camera though and I was very glad that I had been putting together the latest Behind the Camera weeks before. In years past, I would typically write the entry on the day that it was set to release. Had I waited, there was no way I was going to feel good enough about my skills to try and teach anything. Fortunately, I had already worked through a very in depth discussion on how I form my compositions and it was all ready to be published on the first. When it happened, I felt a little better about my abilities as a photographer and decided to go out and do a little photography on Tuesday the 2nd.
Spoiler alert…it didn’t go well. To make a long story short, I had set my course out to Lenoir after hearing about an old country store out in that direction. I was interested in photographing that, and I knew that I was going to be able to find something else to shoot while I was out there. I had been out there before and had seen a lot of potential so I had high hopes of finding something that would bring me out of my slump. Well, I drove about 90 miles that day and never even pulled off the road to look at something closer. I still saw potential, but nothing excited me and I wasn’t moved to create images with anything that I saw. I also never did find that store, so I don’t know if it is still there or not. But, it put me right back into that negative mindset once again. This is a dangerous place for me to be as a photographer because it is all too easy to dwell on those negatives and forget all of the accomplishments. That is why it is really normal for a photographer to base their self worth solely on their last photograph. I didn’t say that was a good thing, just a simple fact of creative life.
I needed something to break free here. The Fall leaves were fading quickly and we were entering the phase that I like to call “the dirty Fall” because the bright colors are largely gone and what is left is the burnt tones in the trees that really aren’t all that photogenic. Everything just looks dingy and I start to long for the Winter when the trees are bare. Looking at the weather though, I was seeing even better clouds in the forecast for Wednesday. It was looking like the afternoon was going to be the time to head out which worked out fine since I had a client coming by to pick up another print which was ordered while I was out driving aimlessly in Lenoir the day before. Even when I’m not feeling like myself, I am still on top of keeping my clients happy.
My client dropped by at 9am to pick up the print and I was looking at the sky which was looking really good. The lighting was nice and diffused and there was a warm quality to it. I could see that the clouds were opening up to the West which meant that I wasn’t wanting to go in that direction. A quick check of the area forecasts told me that South and East were going to be the directions that I wanted to for the best clouds. I pondered my options for a short while and decided to head out to Iredell County. I had been out that way a few times here recently and had started to see a good deal of potential out that way. The times that I had been through had been under fully sunny skies so I wasn’t quite sure what the lighting would hold for me, but it was worth a shot and it was the best chance that I had for getting photographs. With them being at a lower altitude there was also a very good chance that I would still be able to find some more of that Autumn color which I had been wanting to capture.
I was on the road shortly after 9am and I headed down 115. I followed the route that I had taken during my first trip out here which I knew was going to end me up at a road closure. It was the detour that I had taken from here that brought me through some great rural back roads that I was now wanting to photograph. Before I made the turn off of 115, I spotted a scene on the shoulder of the road which caught my eye. It was an old tractor and an old building. They weren’t really close enough together to work as a single composition, but they were both interesting nonetheless. I pulled off and looked at the scene critically for a few minutes. I determined that the sky wasn’t right and the lighting on the scene wasn’t good at all. Essentially, I had good subjects, but lousy light, and a weak composition. Not enough to warrant pulling out the camera. This was not a good sign for the day though. The last thing that I needed was a string of excuses about why I wasn’t getting photographs. That though stuck in my head as I drove down the road. I had to be more determined to get something, but the perfectionist in me was determined to get something good, not just something that was there.
I saw a big white barn on the side of the road as I was driving by. I didn’t see a composition immediately, but the sky was good behind the barn and the lighting was good with the sun behind those clouds. I got turned around and came back to the barn. The light was even better from the back side, but there wasn’t nearly as much visual interest on that side. I drove slowly by watching how the elements moved in relation to one another to see if there was a composition there. I saw a couple of possibilities but I wasn’t sure if I could make them work. It was enough to justify turning around once again and pulling off on the shoulder of the road.
Once I got parked, I got out and started to look at the scene. I came up with two compositions, one from each end that I liked. The lighting was better from the back, but the composition was less interesting. The more interesting composition was from the front, but there were some issues with that composition. I knew that either one that I did was going to require the standard 24-70mm lens and I knew that I was going to want my polarizer to keep the glare on the roof to a minimum. I got the camera built and on the tripod before going to the front of the barn first. I tried the composition from both sides of the road and decided that it worked better from the far side of the road as I was able to get a longer focal length which helped with the background. I worked on the framing of the shot and decided that the tree to the left would be my foreground interest and I would have the barn off to the right of that tree. I started off keeping the tree completely separated from the barn, but that left a utility tower fully visible in the background which added an element which I thought was a distraction. By moving slightly, I was able to place a branch just inside of the roofline of the barn which covered most of the tower with the tree. I wasn’t sure which version I was going to like better so I shot them both. In the end, I decided that I liked the fact that the branch intersected with the roof which gave a bit more dimension to the image because you could now tell where the tree was in relation to the barn. It was just a hint and not enough to ruin the lines of the barn. The utility tower was also minimized to the point that I was able to clone it out in post with minimal issue.
I had my first shot in the bag and I was relatively happy with it. However, I knew that the better light was on the Eastern side of the barn so I moved over to that side. I had the composition already planned out in my head so I went right to it. I struggled with the balance of the elements and finally found a workable solution to the scene. I shot a few different images as the sun came in and out of the clouds. I thought I would like the full light on the barn, but that was just too harsh and didn’t look right. The more diffused images lacked punch. In the end I decided that the composition was just too weak to carry the image and the visual interest on the barn was lacking on the back side. Those images were cut during the culling process in favor of the more visually engaging front of the barn with less than perfect lighting.
I had spent a while here, but that was to be expected. I wasn’t my normal fluid self where I was able to pick out the compositions quickly. Since I had been second guessing myself for the better part of two weeks now, I wanted to take the time and really think through the compositions. I was satisfied that I had at least one image at this point so I happily got back in the truck and started back on my way East. It was a few more miles before I spotted something else that caught my eye. It was a blue Ford truck parked next to a barn. I slowed down and started to look at the scene. There wasn’t a composition on the truck that I could make unless I could get onto the property. Sadly, it looked like the house was probably vacant and there were no neighbors to stop and ask about it. The barns were the next thing that caught my eye, but they were kind of tightly packed in and I didn’t really see a composition presenting itself. As I moved passed those barns, I saw another barn out in a field isolated from the rest. I know from experience that even a slightly boring barn out on its own in a field is usually a good bet if the light and the sky is good enough. I had a great sky, and the light was nice and warm on the field. To add to that, I saw some really nice Fall colors behind the barn. That was enough to convince me to pull off on the shoulder and get my gear out.
Since I had the 24-70mm already on the camera I started off with that lens. I realized very quickly that 70mm wasn’t going to be enough for the composition that I wanted. Sure, it was working at 70mm and I was getting a lot of the sky and the fall colors, but the barn was getting lost in the frame. I went back to the truck and swapped out for my 70-200mm lens which gave me more reach. I kept the polarizer on it as it was giving some nice definition to the sky and it was saturating the colors in the trees quite nicely. I found the angle that I wanted to concentrate on which placed the barn at the right hand side of the colorful trees allowing the roof to crack the horizon. I worked on the elevation of the camera so that the roof would be a good transition point from the lower trees in the distant background to the taller trees in the nearer background. I included just enough of the field so that you could make out the lines which were at the perfect diagonal to bring your eyes into the scene right to the barn. It turned into a very simple composition which I thought was quite effective. What I loved about it was that the sky looked like a long exposure, but it wasn’t one. They just had that silky look all on their own and they were captured at only a 1/4 of a second.
Once I felt that I had the right image of the barn from this angle, I decided to go back to the other cluster of barns and the vacant house to see if there was anything else that I could work while I was there. I kept the long lens attached as I had no intention on entering the property. As I walked by the barns, I could see an old rocking horse at the door to one of the barns which I thought made for a great photograph. The problem was that there was just composition from that angle as there would be no depth to the scene. I kept looking and saw that from a tight angle to the tree line I was able to get an interesting composition with both barns and a nice bare tree. This angle provided a lot of depth to the scene which I thought was key. The sky was passable in this direction, although not nearly as good as what I had just captured. Because of that, I decided to go with a tight crop on the scene to omit most of the sky.
I played around with the camera position until I found a spot where the main tree in my foreground wasn’t obstructing the barns. It was kind of framing it as a matter of fact. There was a secondary pair of trees which were growing up beside the background barn that would have to block the view no matter what I did. In order to make them a meaningful element, I positioned myself so that the foreground tree would overlap the background trees slightly so that there was an established relationship between them. It would also keep the visual interest in the sky that I was wanting. As I was framing things up I realized that I was going to be able to include some nice orange leaves in the background. There were also going to be a few leaves on the right hand side of the frame belonging to a tree that was largely out of the frame. This was not ideal, but with the larger orange tree in the background, I would be able to pull the attention away from that little bit of encroaching tree to the right. I would have rather cropped it out, but the only way to do that was to crop the trunk of the main tree out which I just wasn’t willing to do. There is just something wrong about floating branches, especially in the foreground.
I had my composition set up and I really liked how it was looking in the camera. I was honestly thinking that this was going to be a black and white photograph because the only colors that were really working out here were the orange of the tree in the background and the faded red of the two barns. The sky was mostly gray and the grass was losing most of its color. I may have shot it with black and white in mind, but when I started to edit the image I really felt that color was the way to go. The entire photo was largely cool tones with the blues, grays, and green. It was the splash of warmth from the barns and the trees that balanced that out nicely and by reducing the overall saturation I would be able to get that dreary monochrome feel but with the color to help tell the story.
This was the most complex of the images that I shot for the day and it is one that I like fairly well. It wasn’t my favorite by any means from the day, but when Toni saw it she loved it. Granted that reaction was because of the tree in the foreground. She loves a bare tree…even more than I do. She usually is a pretty good indicator about how successful an image will become so have pretty high hopes for this one. Interestingly enough, I had already gotten the skeleton of this blog done before she even saw the images from the day. When she told me that this was her favorite, I was pretty happy to tell her that I had already chosen it for the featured image for the entry. Guess we are both seeing potential in this one.
When I got done shooting this scene, I went to the other side to see if there was any way possible to get the old truck. I saw no way to get a good angle on it for anything other than just a snapshot which I wasn’t interested in taking. I looked at the house to see if there was any interest there as well. I gave it a few minutes worth of time, but found no other compositions after the two that I had already shot. I was happy though because I had one image that I was really happy with, and I had a few more from the barns on the side which I was hoping might turn out. So far, my morning was going pretty well for my first time trekking in this area.
I was feeling pretty good about things at this point and when I got back in the truck I started to turn down roads around where I had detoured before. I knew that there were different scenes out this way that had potential in the bright sun so I was hoping that I was going to see even more potential in this really good light. My luck seemed to be changing though. Everything that I passed by wasn’t going to work for one reason or another. Most of the time it was a matter of no way to get where I needed to be for the photo, whether it be because of signs or dogs. It was beautiful country out that way and I was enjoying seeing the different farms. It was definitely worth it to come out here and I knew if I stuck with it long enough I would end up with something else on my memory card.
Sure enough, as I was going down one of the back roads I could see the roof of a barn through the trees off to the left. I slowed down and watched as the trees cleared showing a nice barn with an extension built onto the side. There were some orange trees in the background and sky was great overhead. I knew that this was going to be a good photo even though I hadn’t quite figured out the composition just yet. I got turned around and pulled off on the side of the road out of the way. I grabbed the camera with my 24-70mm lens back on as I knew that this was going to be the lens of choice here. I added my polarizer and prepared for adding some ND Grads to hold the sky back.
I walked over to the fence and started to build up my composition. I found the best angle was going to have the left side of the frame right up against the trees that I had just cleared. I made the right side of the frame at the top of the tallest tree to the right to make a natural bookend to the composition. Had I gone further out, I would have introduced a distraction to the image as the tree really stood out and to the right of it, the trees dropped back down to the standard height. That left me with the only decision being at what point to place the barn. Since the sky was looking really good, I decided to place the barn low in the frame at roughly the lower third. The roof was pointing towards the sky from right to left which then caught the lines of clouds that brought your eyes back to the right until they hit the tree at the right which would knock them back down to the barn again. The composition was good, and looking at the histogram, I had enough data from dark to light to be able to capture this scene with a single frame without any additional filters. I got it all fine tuned and started to make exposures as the light changed. With the clouds moving over the sun I was getting everything from full shadow to full sun and everything between. It was that between lighting that I decided worked the best. I had a little bit of pop from the sun, but not enough to overexpose the roof or cause anything to go out of balance due to shadow.
This composition didn’t take long at all because there was really very little options on how to set the shot up to begin with. The lighting changed out pretty quickly allowing me to get a full spectrum of options relatively quickly. Probably the hardest part of the whole thing was the cows in the background. They were nice enough to pose for me, but occasionally one of them would move. While I wasn’t using a slow shutter speed, 1/10 of a second was enough to allow for a bit of blur if the cow was moving quickly. That just meant that after I had a good set of lighting options, I started to concentrate on the cows with the lighting as a secondary concern. The hope was that I would get an image with the cows sharp and the lighting as good as it could be. It really didn’t take long with the ever changing light and I was pretty sure that I had at least one image where the light was good and the cows weren’t moving. I was correct in that assumption and I ended up with the image that you see here. I’m really happy with it and it is one of my favorites from the day.
Not wanting to be finished for the day just yet, I wanted to go out to Hwy 64 because I knew that there was a place right in Davie County that had a bunch of old rust tractors outside of the store. I also knew that there was an old Ford sedan sitting outside of a business which I had been interested in before. I went by both of those and looked critically before deciding that there wasn’t a composition that I wanted to shoot here today. No problem as I already had a good many images in the camera that I was pretty hopeful for. While I was out here though, I wanted to drive South back into Iredell County because there was a barn which had fascinated me for quite some time but I had never seen a composition there. The problem was it was surrounded by trees which blocked all of the typical angles. There was also a large light pole close to the corner of the barn which I didn’t want in any of the compositions that I had seen. I had never stopped and really looked at the scene, much less have a camera out and ready. Since I was already this far out, I might as well drop by and see what I could do.
It didn’t take but a few minutes to get out here and when I saw it, I just pulled off the road and got out. I wasn’t sure if I was going to take a photograph or not, but I knew that I had done the drive-by enough already to force this next step of getting out and looking. Sure enough, all of the negatives that I had seen were in place here. To make matters worse, it looked like somebody lived here, but I saw no vehicles or signs that anyone was home. That meant that I was going to need to stay on the outside of the fence which limited my composition choices quite a bit. In order to get the whole barn, I was going to need to shoot straight on which lacked interest and would also include that big light pole which held a solar panel and a satellite dish. Neither of which went with the scene that I was photographing. If I moved to the right, I would cut off the right right side of the barn, and if I moved to the left, the vines growing over the fence would cut off the view to the left side of the barn.
Weighing my options I chose to block the open bay of the barn to the left and concentrate the attention to the right side of the barn which gave a lot more sense of depth. Also, by doing it this way, I would be able to block the light pole with the vines and actually introduce a very effective bit of foreground on the left side to help the fence anchor the image. It was just a matter of lining up the fence posts with portions of the barn since I wasn’t able to elevate the camera high enough to provide absolute separation between the fence posts and the barn siding. I did find a good middle ground where the posts lined up with different aspects of the barn to decrease visual confusion. I monkied around with the position long enough that I was able to get the majority of the open bay in the photograph and used the light pole as a vertical structure to the edge of that bay. It is subtle and at first sight it looks like the two are connected and that was what I was hoping for. That way it gave separation to the vine and tree where the dark bay was.
With the composition figured out, I just had to wait for the clouds and the light which I was getting very used to by now. Fortunately, the clouds were moving overhead fast enough that the sunlight changed from second to second giving me an endless variety of lighting which I loved. That helped move things along so I wasn’t here very long. I did try a few other compositions before I left, but this was my favorite one. In fact, I think that this might be my favorite from the day. That might just be because I finally beat this barn after a long time of seeing it and not being sure of how to capture it. The trick was deciding to use that vegetation on the left side as an important element to the scene. The distance from the barn almost proved to be problematic from a focusing standpoint. I did do a couple of focus stacked frames just in case, but I ended up being completely satisfied with this single exposure at f/16 which was focused about 1/3 into the scene using hyperfocal distancing. It allowed everything to be in sharp focus throughout the image with no need for blending images in post.
When I was done here, I saw that the sky was starting to clear and that meant it was time to head home. I had been out for about four hours at this point and had worked four different scenes. After my last trek that was roughly this long and I didn’t find anything I was thrilled with this trek. It is too early to really tell, but I think that this one has done a lot to help get me out of my creative slump. I’m still fighting that imposter syndrome, but I know that will always be a part of me and I am prepared for it at least. It will just be a gradual process to get back to my normal creative self, but I’m sure that this is a strong step in the right direction.
I hope that you have enjoyed this trek as much as I have. I’m getting back into my decay subjects again after concentrating on the landscape for the most part over the last couple of months. I love having this avenue to fall back on when my favorite landscapes have turned dormant. It gives me plenty of things to shoot throughout the year which is always a good thing. If you see anything in this blog or any of my others that you would like a print of, please let me know, or you can order direct through my store here. Don’t forget, if you like the way that I go about composing my images and want to learn firsthand on a workshop, I have a new one scheduled for May 14th at Doughton Park where I will be covering the topic of composition in the landscape. It will be a very informative workshop and I think we will have a lot of fun. Get signed up today to ensure your spot and give me plenty of time to get some worksheets to you that will help get you prepared for the workshop.
Until next time….
Remember to use the code KISER10 to get 10% off your purchase
