Monday, November 7, 2022
You know how my treks start off with looking at the weather and determining where the good light will be? I then follow that up with figuring out what I want to photograph based on the weather conditions, figure out how much time it will take to get there. Work out an alternate plan in case the first location doesn’t pan out. Then I wake up early in the morning, check the weather and get ready to go. Once I get to the location, I have time to contemplate the compositional options and I will start to work the scene before the light hits just right. You know how all this planning will result in several images that I will post sometime around midnight?
Well, this ain’t that story.
Looking at the weather for the weekend, I had seen rainy conditions for most of the weekend, so I made no plans on going out. I had thought that Monday would be a good day to go out with just cloudy skies, but I hadn’t figured out where I wanted to go. Saturday wasn’t nearly as rainy as forecasted and there was even a bit of sun through the day. It would have been a good day to go out, but I didn’t have anything in mind. Sunday was supposed to be a washout, so I had no plans on going anywhere that day either. There was a lot of rain, but there was also a good bit of time that I could have been out…had I had a plan. I was starting to work out a plan for Monday and saw that the clouds were pretty much going to be non-existent except for around Boone. I started to lose my want to go out because of that. Adding insult to injury, the high temperature was supposed to be near 80 degrees. Nothing ruins my cooler month creativity like a hot day that makes me want to see green vegetation. Since my photographs are all about mood, I want to actually experience the mood that is in the photo. Sunny and hot in the middle of November is not my idea of setting the right mood. I decided that I wasn’t going to bother with any photography on Monday as I had to get ready for my decay workshop coming up this weekend.
I didn’t get to sleep at any particular time and had no intention of waking up at a set time. Toni had to get up and get ready for school, but that wasn’t until 7:30, which is positively sleeping in for a day behind the camera. We both woke up before her alarm thanks to the shift in time. She happened to look at the weather and seemed surprised that the forecast was showing sun all day long. She had still been under the impression that it was going to be cloudy today. We had a brief discussion about how it was going to be a Summer day and she got up. When she opened the blinds, it appeared very cloudy outside. I was sure it would clear off very soon.
I got up and as I was getting ready for the day, I was noticing that the clouds were turning to fog. The light was looking really good too. Well, the sun would be burning that fog off soon enough, so there was really no sense in worrying about where I could go and get photos. I had about 30 minutes at best. I regretted not getting up earlier and being out and ready for this weather. It was absolutely perfect and felt like a real Fall Day, with the exception of the 65 degree temperature. I had missed my window though, but had I?
I was thinking back to a text that I had gotten from John a couple of days ago where he had found another car beyond where I had shot an old Dodge a couple of times. I have to give John credit here because he followed one of my rules when I apparently didn’t. I am a big proponent of the “plus 1” rule that I got from my time as a police officer. It simply means where you find one, there is likely to be another. Of course, in that context, we are talking about knives, guns, drugs, or even offenders. I’ve found that the same rule applies to decay subjects. Where this is one, there is usually another. This works out enough times to make it very worth looking into the location further.
Well, I hadn’t done that, and John had. I like when the student does better than the teacher, and there was a certain pride that I felt after the sting of not having finder’s rites to the scene faded away. Knowing that there was another car out there to photograph seemed important at this moment. I had fog and great light, but I didn’t know how long it would last. I knew that it was going to take me about 30 minutes to get out there and locate the car. I decided that it would have been a great subject, but I would have needed to be out there at this particular moment to really make it work out. It was going to be better left for another morning. This time of year, fog is usually plentiful, and I would have another morning to try it.
I went downstairs and got my morning tasks done, but I kept thinking about the car. I hadn’t really given it any real thought up until now because the photo that John had sent from his phone showed a very complex scene which would be difficult to photograph. The fog would help it though. I got done with the bare minimum of things that needed to be tended to and went back upstairs. I was looking out of the windows and saw that the fog was still hanging on in parts of the yard. There was a chance that I could make this car work as a subject this morning, but more than likely it would just be a scouting mission to find exactly where the car was and what the location had to offer.
I went ahead and told Toni that I was going to go out and give it a try real quick and if nothing else see if there was a photo to be had there. I grabbed my wallet and keys, went downstairs, and grabbed my shoes and camera. The sun was out in force by this time, so I wasn’t holding out any hope at all for any photos. However, as I was driving down Boone Trail, the sun went away, and the clouds returned. I was right at the edge of the cloud line it appeared. With the clouds came a bit of fog, although nothing like what I had seen earlier. I might actually get lucky and have good light by the time I got there. At least there was hope where I had lost it all minutes before.
When I arrived at the location where I knew the car to be, I wasn’t sure exactly where to go looking for it, so I grabbed my bag and tripod in order to save time. I went with the path of least resistance which took me through an area that looked to be a dumping ground of sorts. I kept my eyes out for any indications that I wasn’t allowed to be here but didn’t see any. I got deeper than I really felt comfortable being and still wasn’t seeing anything resembling an old car. I just kept looking and eventually came to the end of the graded section and the last pile of debris. Just behind that pile I saw the front of the car I was looking for. I turned around and saw that I was still within sight of the parking lot I had come from. I hurried down to the car knowing that I was going to shoot this fast.
The fog had gone, but the lighting and atmosphere was still there. I got in close enough that I didn’t have too much vegetation to try to work through in order to capture the car. There were trees that were surrounding the car as well as some tires and other trash that was littered around the car. I had a clear view of the headlights which was a big consideration for me since they were key to the personality of the car. There was one tire that was leaning up on the grill which I didn’t really like, but I could make it work because it was framing the bumperette on the passenger side. However, to really incorporate this element into the scene, I needed to add context. For that to work, I had to include another tire laying on the ground to the left of the scene. Using this tire as a foreground was going to allow me to have a bit of an implied S-curve to the scene that I thought would help direct the eyes. On the opposite corner, I was going to have to deal with the sky which was pretty much a featureless gray mass. there were trees that were covering the sky, so I was going to have texture, I just had to be careful about the luminance values of the sky so as not to pull too much attention from the main subject.
Knowing what I wanted included, I selected my 24-70mm lens and added a polarizer. I just opened the tripod legs without extending them to keep the camera low because I felt that was the best way to incorporate the tire off to the left. I framed up a shot that I liked and made my first exposure. I had been here for no longer than 5 minutes at this point. The exposure looked good, but I could tell that I had a lot of clipping in the sky. That didn’t bother be for the loss of detail as much as it bothered me for the brightness. I decided to slide in a 3-stop soft edge ND Grad and keep it covering just the upper right corner. I could see the filter brought down the overall exposure of the scene, which allowed me to dial in an extra 1/3 of a stop of brightness to the lower portions, thus brightening the car in relation to the sky. That exposure worked out much better. I made a couple of small adjustments to the composition and then tried to elevate the camera to put the extra tire on a different plane.
I wasn’t too happy with the tire so much lower than the car was, even though that took out the sky. I tried to get in closer and fill the frame with the car to try and minimize the trees. I actually liked how that was looking and shot a few frames like that. I had now been here for 10 minutes and had seven frames shot. I did a quick look to see if there were any isolations that I might want to capture. There was nothing really at the front of the car that struck me, so I walked around to the back of the car. There was nothing there either. However, I did like the lines along the rear quarter panel, and decided to check that out a bit more.
I started out with a horizontal composition that accentuated the fender, but that didn’t feel all that great. I flipped the camera vertical and tried a different type of crop. I kept things very close and allowed a large leaf that was beside the rear wheel to fill the area at the lower corner because the colors were similar to the rust. I wanted to get the curve of the back of the car, so I let the trees add the textures to the upper left corner. The rest of the frame was filled with the car, and I focused on how the lines fell in the frame. The part that I had to work with the most was how much of the windows to include. If I eliminated the door window, I had a better balance at the bottom, but the top of the frame allowed an exit because the leading edge of the quarter glass was exiting at the upper right corner. By including a bit of the lower corner of the door window, I was able to include all of the quarter window which kept my eyes in the frame and introduced another triangle into the mix. The negative space created by the less rusty door complimented the woods in the back by adding contrasting textures and color tones. I shot a single frame of this composition and decided that it might be a little better than the horizontal one, but I still wasn’t excited about it.
By this time, I had been here for just under 15 minutes and had shot nine images. I didn’t want to press my luck by just hanging around here, so I decided to pack it all up and head back to the truck. By the time I got back there, the sun was starting to come out. I felt really good about the images that I had just shot considering there was no planning involved, and I just went in and started making exposures without really taking my time. The whole morning had been about reactions. I reacted to the weather which was different than it was supposed to be. I reacted to a potential scene that I had only seen through a cell phone photo. I then reacted to the subject as I first saw it in the existing light. The whole process had actually been quite fast and without anywhere near my usual care and consideration. If we are going on pure reaction though, I love the photos that resulted from the morning’s outing. I think that both of these images capture the exact mood that I was wanting to when I started thinking about what to photograph in the surprise weather I woke up to. It is not often that I go out on a spur of the moment like this and spend so little time with the camera that I come away thinking that it was this kind of successful.
If either of these images speak to you like they speak to me, I would love to discuss making a print for your own collection. You can order stock sizes through the website, or we can discuss options for larger prints and different media. There really is nothing quite like holding the tangible photograph which is the ultimate realization of the photographer’s vision. Personally, I think that both of these would look amazing on metal which is not usually my first thought for a print. There is just something about how these capture the textures of the scene that I think will lend itself beautifully to a satin metal print.
If you are struggling in your own photography and feel that there is something that I might be able to help you with, I do offer various levels of mentorships. While I don’t have any openings for the advanced programs right now, I can still take on hourly mentorships as needed. Contact me to find out more about the programs and to see if we will be a good match.
Until next time…
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