Tuesday, March 4, 2025
I’m going to try and keep this one quick, although I’ll go ahead and warn you that won’t happen. As you can see from the title to this entry that things were not looking good as the day started out although, I actually had pretty high hopes for the trek. It all started yesterday when I started to look at the weather. There had been some clouds forecasted for Tuesday with heavy rains on Wednesday. But when I looked, the clouds were actually looking really good through the entire day on Tuesday starting out with high and mid-level clouds at nearly 100% coverage with the cloud deck dropping by afternoon with a coverage around 75% or so. This was actually looking like a really good trekking day, and I started to think about where I might want to go.
Toni was off but was looking for some time at home by herself so that she could so some things around the house with the music up without worrying about bothering me. With the weather looking good for a full day of shooting, I figured that I could get ghost for a while without her missing me too much. I just needed to figure out a place to go. For the most part, I have shot the locations that I have been after here recently and things have calmed down a bit. However, my mind kept going back to the area of Traphill and the neighboring town of Hays where I have had a lot of luck here lately. I felt that I had shot most everything that I wanted to out that way, but I hadn’t been out there as much as I normally would once I start working areas.
With that in mind, I started to think back to a spot that I had tried to get permission to shoot for a few times over the last year or so. It isn’t too far from home, so it isn’t a huge deal to run out there and check for permission. There are several old cars in a field which I think I might be able to work with quite well if given the chance. The only problem is that after roughly a half dozen attempts, I have never managed to get anyone at home. I’m usually trying kind of early in the morning and on the weekends, so I thought that maybe switching it up to around mid-morning on a weekday might make a difference. It was worth a shot and if it didn’t pan out, there were always other options in the area because as we have seen, this is always a honeypot for me in terms of photographic subjects.
My morning started about like normal with lingering in the bed for a bit longer than I probably should, but not complaining at all. I got my morning stuff done and was keeping an eye out on the weather. The clouds were not nearly as thick as I had expected, but the hourly was calling for the clouds to start building around 10am. I figured that was about the time I had planned on being out there, so I was still on schedule. Around 9:30 or so, I packed up my gear and headed out to the property that I was wanting to shoot.
The entire way out there, the sun was actually getting stronger and stronger. The weather wasn’t looking like it was going to happen the way it was forecasted. Of course, I am used to this and while it was annoying, I was prepared to go through with the shoot if I could get the permission. By the time I got there, I was seeing more blue than clouds in the sky, but the sun seemed rather diffused which was really all that I needed. It was strike one for the morning, but I wasn’t going to let it get me down.
I pulled into the driveway and went to the side door as I always had in the past. I knocked a little louder than normal since it was later in the morning. As expected, the dogs started barking inside to let me know that if I was intending to do anything bad, I would be but a brunch menu option. I just waited at the door listening for any signs of movement inside that wasn’t canine in origin. I heard nothing and when the dogs settled down, I knocked one more time as I said hello a little louder than normal just in case somebody was outside within earshot. Still nothing. It was looking like this wasn’t going to work out yet again.
Strike Two!
As I backed out of the driveway slowly, I could see that the front door was open at the house across the street and decided that they might know something or at least how to get in contact with the property owners. I pulled into that driveway and went to the front door. Before I got there, I was greeted by the owner who engaged me in conversation. I explained why I was there and that I was trying to figure out how to get in touch with the property owners across the street. She let me know that they both worked and were not home at the moment. She would be happy to get me in touch with them later on.
Ball One!
The more we talked; she realized that it wasn’t that property in particular that I was interested in. I cleared it up saying that I was wanting to photograph the collection of old cars behind that house. She said that was owned by another gentleman and she was friends with him. Oh boy, this might work out after all. She said that he normally comes by in the afternoon and she would talk to him then. I figured that since they were friends that she might be able to call him or give me his number. Well, as it turned out she didn’t have his new phone number and that wasn’t a possibility. I was back to having to wait, but at least this time I had a solid contact with the property owner that hopefully will come through.
It was still Ball Two though.
You know, you would think that I watch baseball with all these metaphors from the sport that I’m throwing in. I don’t, but maybe it is the spring fever that I am experiencing right now that is making me think of baseball. At any rate, I needed to get some runners on the bases and start making something out of the day. It just wasn’t going to be here unfortunately.
I got back in the truck and started driving out to Traphill, not quite sure what my destination was going to be. I was thinking about the different areas that I have had luck in, and for some reason I decided that I wanted to go down one of the roads that had been suggested to me when I had finally met a property owner after many years of trying. She had told me about roughly 200 cars that were parked out behind a relative’s house. When I went out there, I thought I had the property tracked down, but that didn’t quite materialize. I ended up going back out there and working a different property a couple of days later. Based on everything that I was hearing the property with the 200 cars had sent them all to the crusher. There were still several spots that had promise, but nothing that I had been overly excited about. I was hoping that one of these spots would speak to me today so that I could get a few photos in the can to show for the time away from home.
When I got there, I drove slowly down the road and looked around. Not much had changed which made me happy, but I wasn’t really seeing anything that jumped out at me. There was this one pair of properties that were side by side that had a collection of cars behind the houses, but they were all parked uniformly and quite close to one another. There would be really no way of getting anything but isolations with them. There was also the matter of the bright sun still shining with the clouds only attempting to build up. I decided against thinking too much about the two clusters of cars because I just didn’t see anything that looked promising and would have needed to make contact with two owners in order to get permission to work the area anyway.
I just continued down the street until I got to the end to see if there was anything else that I could work with. Seriously, at this point, I was just looking for some low hanging fruit to get me started for the day. I wasn’t feeling anxious about anything, but I knew that it would happen eventually if I didn’t get the camera out and start making some photographs.
After I got turned around, I continued up the road slowly because I knew that things would look different from the opposite direction. They did look different, but still not any more promising. However, when I drove past the first of the two properties that had the jumble of cars, I saw a guy working on a truck behind the house. In terms of making contact with property owners, this is the best time to do so, at least in my experience. I backed up slightly and pulled into the driveway and around to the shop.
I got out and introduced myself and explained why I was there. I remember saying that if I were really lucky, he would be able to give me permission for his lot and the neighbor’s. He didn’t miss a beat and said that the cars between both properties belonged to his family, and it wouldn’t be a problem for me to photograph both sets. In baseball terms, I got a solid hit on that pitch, and I was off!
I parked my truck out of the way and grabbed my gear. The sun was still very bright, and the clouds were kind of thin, but the sky was interesting which was a good thing. Even though the lighting wasn’t what I really wanted, there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to work with this many subjects. As I walked around behind his house, I started to see another issue developing. I wasn’t really seeing anything that I wanted to photograph here. The cars were very close together and most had been stripped of parts or had major body damage. None of those things were fatal flaws, they just stumped my creativity. Not wanting to get bogged down forcing myself to create a photograph, I walked over to the other property and started to look around at the cars there. It was more of the same unfortunately, and I just wasn’t seeing anything that was begging to be photographed.
After about 10 minutes of walking around with an empty tripod in my hand, I realized that I was looking for low hanging fruit as I had been earlier. That wasn’t going to happen here because everything here was going to be a bit of effort to photograph. I had to get creative and really focus myself on what I was looking at. I guess that little conversation played a big part in what started to happen because once I determined that I was going to have to work for it, I started to see things that grabbed my attention.
It wasn’t the full cars as I had been hoping for, I started to look for isolations, colors, interesting framing, and shapes. With my eyes looking on the smaller scale, I was starting to see more and more compositions. The first car that I stopped at was a green Road Runner that was kind of at the edge of the field of cars. I liked the colors of the car with the rust and the green paint because they were very complimentary colors. The question was, what did I want to photograph on this car?
Since it was the colors that I liked, I started to look for shapes that I could feature the colors with. Since the grill had been removed, and the front end was in the shadows, I didn’t feel good about doing my standard corner shot. Of course, I’m glad that wasn’t an option because I have done that composition many times over now and doubt it would have stood out. What I haven’t really shot was an angle composition on the hood that featured the Plymouth emblem on the leading edge with the hood bulge leading to the hood emblem. This gave some great geometric shapes to work with along with the colors that I liked so much. That concept was responsible for the first image in the can, and with that, I was off and running.
I stayed with the green Plymouth for a bit longer and moved to the cowl area which I knew would give me some more interesting shapes to go along with the colors of the car. This worked out quite well, and I was very happy that I had learned about doing this composition a not terribly long ago. It was the perfect answer to this car and gave me an abstract image for the day.
Feeling like I was more in the right mindset for doing these isolations, I moved my attention to an orange Road Runner because the color caught my eye. It was banged up pretty hard and missing large portions of the body. However, I saw that it was parked next to another green Road Runner which I knew would make for a wonderful complimenting color to the orange. I just had to figure out how to shoot the two cars together.
Fortunately, the Road Runner emblem was still in place on the door. This gave me a focal point for a composition, and I started to work shapes around that emblem. Wanting to bring the green car in, I shot over the trunk, as if I had a choice as close as the cars were parked. This gave me a foreground, which I then blurred by limiting my depth of field through a wider aperture. This brought the attention right to the emblem and the door of the orange car. When it comes to settings, the most helpful answer is always the why behind the actual setting. By limiting that depth of field, I simplified the composition and helped tell the viewer where to look within the scene. The rest became shapes in support of the overall composition. You can’t even tell that the front clip of the car is missing, that the quarter panel is completely caved in, or that there are lots of parts stored on the crushed roof of the car. All you see is that wonderful color and the identifying type on the door, all framed by the complimentary green color.
I was really liking how the orange was looking in the sun, so I decided to work another composition with that car. This time, I went to rear of the car. The bumper was missing and there were items on the trunk lid, but I did like the shape of the taillight. There was another Road Runner emblem near the passenger side light that I wanted to frame into a composition. I managed to get that put together and shot two frames before I realized that it was quite boring. The orange was too exciting for the composition that I had chosen, and the photo felt off. However, in making that composition, I noticed how the taillight was looking at the angle that I was shooting. It almost looked like a flag with the body curve captured from an angle. I decided to move in closer and frame up a vertical composition of just the light. It took a minute of getting the height of the camera right so that I had enough room to crop a little off the bottom to make a 5:7 frame for the vertical photo. Once I had that dialed in, the composition took off. The colors matched the dynamic composition, and the photo felt much better than the one that included the emblem.
I would have liked to have done more with the orange car, but there wasn’t much of the car left to work with. I moved over to a black car that was nearby and started to look for some compositions with it. The first thing that struck my eye was the C pillar which had the wonderful chrome trim that still looked really nice. The side molding was still attached, and I knew that there was a composition here from experience with similar shaped cars. I worked out the right location to place the camera, which was right next to another car, but I wasn’t able to get any closer for fear of becoming a cameo in the photo. The distance was enough to remove me from the scene which was all that I could have asked for.
Once I got done with the pillar composition, I moved to the passenger side door and quarter panel. There was a great little bit of trim there which I wanted to capture as much for the shape of the trim as well as the fact that there was rust beneath it that had stained the black paint in a way that I have always loved to see. I started out with a pretty basic shot of the trim that turned out fine, but it was just fine. I wanted something more, so I started to work the scene a bit more and see if there was something else that I could add to make it better. Before long, I found that the door handle and keyhole gave the much-needed added bit of interest to the scene. It also allowed me to create a diagonal with the main trim so as to keep the balance in the scene. The diagonal element with the door handle above the body line elevated this composition from “just fine” to something quite interesting to look at.
I felt that I was firmly on my way to making this stop something very much worthwhile. I just didn’t know that it was going to turn into a grand slam. The photos that you see here are just the start of the session. As I’ve proven time and again, this area of Wilkes County always delivers in terms of great subject matter, and even after living out here for nearly five years, I’m still running into locations that I haven’t shot yet. This one was one that I wasn’t convinced would work from the street, and honestly, had the owner not been outside, I doubt I would have wasted the ask.
The irony of the whole things was after talking with him briefly, I came to realize that this was actually the property that Kim had been talking about which I had thought had recently gotten rid of all the cars. It wasn’t what I had pictured from her description, but now that I was here, it was certainly proving a target rich environment for me and the camera. In a relatively short amount of time, and in less than ideal light, I had shot a total of 33 frames up to this point. I’m not going to say how many I ended up with but just know that I was just barely getting warmed up. You will have to wait until tomorrow to see the next part of this trek. I’ve got to get to bed here shortly because I have an early morning tomorrow, but I will most likely have the next part finished up by early evening. Stay tuned for that one!
In the meantime, if any of these photos connect with you and you would like to see it on your wall, please let me know. I would love to match you up with your very own print. There is no better way to enjoy photography because no matter what you are looking at the digital images on, you can’t be sure that your monitor or device is calibrated like mine is. Only by getting a print can you be sure that what you are seeing is what I created. When you purchase a print, you are also helping my photography business out because remember that these treks and blog entries are brought to you by…..me, and only me. I’m not sponsored, nor do I sell add space on my website. The income I earn from these blogs comes from the print sales that follow, and that income helps to allow me to continue to spend the time doing these blogs as well as going out to get the photos. If you don’t have room on your walls but still want to support me, consider “buying me a cup of coffee” through the donate button below. Any amount is appreciated and will go a long way to helping me fund these adventures.
Also, I’ve got a couple of workshops coming up very soon in case you want to spend some time learning some of my tricks that will hopefully help to improve your own photography. Not only will you get a chance to pick my brain, you will also be spending the time capturing plenty of photos for your own collection or portfolio. I don’t just provide a tour guide experience though. I also teach throughout the workshop as well as providing the participants with handouts that serve as notes from the day. It is a great experience, and if you haven’t joined me on a workshop yet, I would highly recommend that you do so at some point.
I should be back tomorrow with the next part of this trek, so….until then…
