Sunday, March 17, 2024
Before I get started, I just want to put this out there. I first found the subject for this trek several years ago and convinced myself that it wasn’t worth stopping for because of how close it was to the house, and the amount of distractions that were around it. In my defense, I had a limited toolbox available to me when it came to compositional ideas that could be used in situations like this. Here we are some years later, and I finally felt that it was worth stopping to ask permission to photograph it. Not to ruin the surprise, but I spent a total of 40 minutes working the car and shot 33 frames which is less than a roll of film. I came away with ten photos that I liked, and eight of them turned into keepers. It was a very successful day for a quick trek, but only one of the five locations that I had in mind worked out at all. Fortune gives and fortune takes when you are a photographer.
OK, so how did this all come to pass? Well, before I set out on my trip to the Outer Banks at the beginning of the month, I was contacted by a friend who is really good at spotting great subjects that he thinks I might like to photograph. There were several locations that he sent me to, but there were two of them in pretty close proximity going out to Traphill which has always been a favorite location of mine when it comes to my decay photography. Since I was fully involved in trying to get my mind wrapped around working landscapes of a coastal nature, I didn’t want to derail that process by going out to shoot decay. Although, in retrospect, I don’t think it would have caused a problem. Now that I am back and reasonably recovered from the week’s worth of editing, I am feeling like going back out with the camera again. I have just been waiting for some cloudy days since that is my favorite type of weather condition to work in. Earlier this week, I took a quick ride out in that direction to do some scouting. The first location I was unable to get to because the pavement ended, and I was in the Miata. A good dip in the gravel road would have swallowed that car up without a problem. I did go and check out the second location which was just a couple of turns down the road.
The second location was supposed to be a ’57ish Oldsmobile which I felt like I had seen by a garage in the area a while back. I was being told that this car was now closer to the road which appealed to me. As I was following the directions he had provided, I found the car which turned out to be one that I had forgotten about. It was a Buick which I had stopped and considered photographing several years ago shortly after Toni and I moved into Wilkes County. I remember thinking that there was really nothing much there because of how close the car was parked to the house. There wasn’t much way to get an overall shot of it in a way that I would have liked. I took a pass on it that day, even though I was desperately searching for something to shoot.
Nothing much had changed with the car or the surroundings though which kind of made me start to dismiss it once again. As I was driving around though, I was considering what I had seen. This was a Buick, which I don’t get to see that often, and it looked like all of the trim was on it, which was a huge bonus. This provided some compositional possibilities that I don’t normally get to see out of the tri-5 cars. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to work the car in terms of isolations rather than as a full subject. By the time I had finished with my drive, the Buick was on my short list for photos.
While I was out, I also found a ’63ish Cadillac parked near the road that might provide some interesting photos as well as what looked to be an early ’50’s Chevy truck tucked in behind the tree line a short distance from the Cadillac. In that short drive, I had found several possibilities of places to shoot. Even though I hadn’t been able to get to the pair of Chevys at the first location, there was a property full of old cars in various states of decay which interested me. That brought the total of locations within a few miles to five. That would be enough to keep me busy for most of a day provided I could get permission to access the properties.
The weather patterns were just not cooperating at all with me though. There was more sun than anything else it seemed and the one day that had clouds, also had rain. I wasn’t sure when I was going to be able to get out and try some of these locations. I was feeling pretty good about the two Chevys at the end of the gravel road though because I did have the contact information for the property owner, so I wasn’t too worried about that one. He had already relayed to my friend that he was fine with me photographing the cars, I just was going to need to give him a call and confirm with him so that I felt comfortable with it.
Saturday brought a return trip out to the area, but this time it was for a print delivery. It was one of my recent photos done on metal and it turned out fantastic. It just so happened to be a photo of a hood ornament from an early ’50’s Chevy which really kind of got me in the mood to shoot some isolations again. Since I happened to be right in the middle of the area that I was wanting to spend some time it, I started to put a lot of thought into when I could get out here under proper conditions. Looking at the weather, there was a decent chance of clouds through Sunday morning with another chance on Monday. Both of these forecasts were showing readings that could be great, or just very thin clouds that wouldn’t quite be what I was after. It was at least something other than sunny skies which was a start at least.
When I got home from delivering the print, I checked the weather once again and felt that it was a good gamble to give it a try. I called the property owner expecting to confirm that I could work with the two ’57’s beside his driveway. The call went straight to voicemail, and I left a message. Several hours later, I hadn’t heard anything, so I called again, and it again went straight to voicemail. With no response by 9pm, I sent a text hoping that maybe my number had been blocked at some point because it had been spoofed by John Smith at US Medicare Assistance Program for Seniors, or some such thing. Still no answer, but I knew that I would be able to get permission at least.
When morning came, I checked to see if there were any messages or texts which there weren’t. I went about my morning routine in order to get ready to head out. Just before I left, I called again, and the call went straight to voicemail once again. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, so I just grabbed my gear and planned on going up and knocking on the door. At least he would be expecting me to some extent. All the way out there, I was looking at the sky and seeing the blue parts showing through to the East. As long as they stayed away from where the sun was wanting to shine through, I would be happy. I needed the clouds that were overhead blocking the sun as the light was perfect.
When I turned on the road that would eventually turn gravel, I started to look for the cars because I really couldn’t tell where the road ended, and the driveway started. It was longer than I had thought, but eventually, I reached the end of the road where the address point was. There was an open gate, but signs indicating that I shouldn’t’ enter, and trespassing wasn’t permitted. This was one of those situations where I would turn around and go somewhere else, but since I had a form of permission, I decided to proceed through the gate. Shortly after crossing into the property, I found the cars. The setting wasn’t as ideal as I had hoped, but the cars were beautiful and worth spending some time with.
I came up to the house and it really didn’t look lived in, and I saw no motion at all around it. It was still kind of early and I just had this weird feeling about where I was at. Not wanting to press my luck, I got the truck turned around and headed back down the road. I was going to need to confirm that this was the right place before I made contact with the owner because I really thought that the owner was going to be living somewhere else.
Strike one…
I wasn’t upset about this at all because I had the other property at the bottom of the street that had quite a collection of derelict cars, of which, about a half dozen interested me to some extent. I knew which house to knock on based on the satellite view and the mowing patterns between the property sections. I pulled up to that house which had several cars out front, and I knocked on the door. I heard a dog bark which works better than a doorbell most times. I waited….and waited, but no answer. There was no need to knock again because if they hadn’t heard the dogs barking, there was nothing that I could do with my bare hands on the door that would make a difference. I slowly went back to the truck, hoping that somebody would come to the door, but they didn’t. I was really hoping that I would be able to work this property, but alas, that wasn’t going to happen today.
Strike two…
I still wasn’t upset because I knew that there were lots of other options out here. I drove on down to the Buick that I had seen before, but had a freshened interest in. It probably wasn’t a minute down the road and when I got there, I immediately saw a white Chevy work truck parked next to the Buick. This was not there when I was through the area scouting the other day. Having that truck so close, was going to prevent me from shooting a lot of the car, and with the chrome looking to be in decent condition, I was going to have a hard time with reflections on an entire side of the car. I didn’t think that this was going to work out, and I decided to write it off once again.
Ball one…
I drove on down to look at the Cadillac to see if I could do any better with it. It was still there, but the surroundings weren’t all that great for it, and there was a 2×4 posted in front of the bumper which probably held a For Sale sign at some point. I could see a few isolations here, but I was liking the Buick better in terms of isolations. If that was what I was going to shoot, I could do that while restricted to one side of the car. It was the side that was getting the light from the sun, which even though it was covered by clouds, was still directional.
Ball two…
I went back to the Buick and tried to find parking. The driveway was kind of tight and I didn’t want to bring in another large white vehicle to reflect in the chrome, so I parked across the street in one of hundreds of Dollar Generals that have sprung up over the last few years. Not wanting to put the wagon in front of the horses, I left my gear in the truck while I went over to knock on the door. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be home, but I thought I heard a TV. I knocked once on the storm door, and I waited. After a minute, there was no answer, so I opened the storm door to knock on the glass of the front door. A few seconds later, I could hear someone coming to the door. This was a good sign.
When the door opened, I quickly read the body language and felt that this was not going to go well at all. I just got my introduction spiel out of the way and waited for the simple “no” I was sure would follow. Surprisingly though, I got just as quick of an answer where he said, “I don’t care, go ahead.” I fought back the urge to go into more detail of my intentions and to offer a print, and just said “thank you.” With that, I went over to get my gear and I started working.
It was as swing and a solid hit…
Now that I had the ability to really look the car over, I started to walk around it and decide how I was going to handle things. As I had figured, there wasn’t an angle that I could get an overall composition formed with this car. As wonderful as it was, everything around it would become a distraction and keep me from really telling the story that I was wanting to. It was looking like isolations was going to be the way for this subject. I couldn’t help but think back to the first time that I had considered shooting this car back in 2020, or 2021. I was at a loss of how to handle this situation because the car was not isolated away from other things and in a photogenic setting. Over the years, my skills in forming isolation compositions with these cars have increased exponentially. I was already starting to pick out what made this car unique from the other tri-5 models which would form the basis for my isolations.
Thoughts of my upcoming Art of Decay workshop started to flood into my head. This was the exact situation I planned on discussing with the participants while giving them the tools that they will need to deal with the compositional hardships that a location like this creates. Working isolations on vehicles comes in very handy when there isn’t an overall shot to take. Even if I could manage an overall composition here, there would be just one photo and I would be done. It is knowing how to work the details that will turn that single frame into several very different photographs. Even looking at this car for the first few minutes, I had no idea that I would end up shooting as many compositions as I did with it. This one subject proved to me the value of the workshop content and gave me a great opportunity to give a real-world example to the participants of how well the technique works.
At this point, I was really getting mentally involved with this car. I was feeling creative, and I was seeing lines and shapes with it. The restrictions didn’t matter one bit to me because all I saw were possibilities. This is a great place for a creative person to be in because it usually means that the ideas will flow freely. All I had to do was to keep any negative thoughts from shutting them down. Knowing that I had to deal with the reflections of the chrome, I decided to fit my telephoto lens which has become a workhorse in this type of photography. To that, I added a polarizer so that I could control the glare and contrast of the car in each shot. It was how I had ended up the trek to the Outer Banks and I really do love this lens, although it took me about 15 years to really see its value.
The first composition was more or less the expected one where I grabbed the front corner of the car to include the headlight, partial grill, wheel, and the portholes on the side of the fender. The composition came together easy enough and I had a shot in the bag. As you are looking through the photos, you won’t be able to find that one. It didn’t make the cut. It was too plain, and too expected. There were too many elements in the frame when I started to look at it and decided that I liked the photos where the number of elements was a lot fewer, and the attention was directed at just a few specific elements. The composition did serve a purpose though, it got that first frame captured which is the most important one for me.
It also gave me the idea to get a different isolation of the same area that focused just on the headlight, the character line on the hood, the grill, and the long bit of chrome from the front emblem. I worked out a composition where the elements flowed with a slight diagonal tilt which only required a little bit of a lean with the camera based on where I was standing. It was the shapes and contrast that drew me in here and from the beginning I felt that this was going to be a black and white shot. By the time the edit was finished, I knew that color had no place in this one at all. I loved the simplicity of the composition and the directness of the elements that I wanted to highlight. This was a much stronger photo than what I had started out with, and it was just the second frame that I had shot. There was one more frame of this composition with a different focal point just in case, but I didn’t need that one at all.
The next area that I liked was the rear door because it had the “Century” emblem on it as well as another unique character line in the metal. The whitewall tires were interesting as was the trim that went over the rear wheel arch and down on the door. The whole thing had a very dynamic look to it. I got the camera down low in order to capture the shapes without any distortion. It was the simple way of doing it, but with the grass growing over the wheel cover like it was, it just felt right. I framed it just under the door handle because to include that element would have spread out the visual points too much. I shot the photo and only after looking at it in the image review realized that thanks to the focus breathing of the lens, the edges changed slightly from how I had framed it up. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, but that door handle was creeping into the top of the frame. I had missed it because that little detail was behind information on my live view screen. It was no problem though, I just adjusted the focal length to counter that, and refocused. This time, I made sure that nothing was on the edges that I didn’t want there. The second frame was what I was after, and it was time to move on.
I tried this same composition from both the front and the back to add a little drama to the composition, but neither of them worked out. I didn’t even find anything that I liked enough to press the shutter button. I did try to work the compositions out though; it just wasn’t working out the way I thought that it should. Instead of getting bogged down trying to make that work, I moved on to the next area that I was interested in. It was still there on the passenger side, but this time, it was the top of the door with the C pillar. I loved the shapes that the chrome trim created around the rear window and framed up a variation on a composition that I have used on Chevrolets of this body style. Another two exposures down, and I was happy with that photo.
I love it when I am able to just take a frame or two of each composition and not feel the need to continue to press the button. It usually comes down to I either love the composition, or the lighting is not changing much. In this situation, I was seeing both factors coming into play and I was feeling very confident with how the shoot was going. It was at this point that I decided to revisit the composition that I had been working on before but reducing the scope of it as I had done with the front corner. I chose to concentrate on the wheel since the hubcap was positioned with “Buick” right side up, and the grass was growing over the side of the wheel to show the element of the story that I wanted to capture. The concept was solid, and I felt that it would work as either color or black and white.
I felt so confident about it, that I shot a few different variations on the composition before I really liked it. Then it was a matter of freezing the grass which required another couple of exposures as I worked the shutter speed up. By that last frame, I thought that I had something great. When I got the images home, I found that what I had captured looked like a snapshot and didn’t have the merit that I had been hoping. This was the composition that I had put the most energy into up to this point, and it goes to show you that when you try to force something, it us usually not that good of an image. At least that is what I have found in the past.
I knew that I wanted to spend some time with the portholes on the fender because that is a very characteristic feature of these cars. I found a composition shooting slightly forward that included the portholes as well as the front wheel. I had to be careful about what I included at the top of the frame because there were several items laying on the hood which were coming over the side of the fender. I didn’t want to include those items that were being stored on the car which made things quite difficult in a lot of respects. However, working around obstacles like this is what I have come to really enjoy about detail photography.
Once again, I thought I was onto something and kept tweaking the composition as well as the exposure values and focus point. I ended up shooting three frames and thought that I had nailed it. When I got the images home, it was the third one that got two stars, but when it came time to edit it, I didn’t feel inspired by it at all. It just felt too blah, and I let it go. Once again, a composition that I had been excited about at the scene had turned into just a snapshot and not a considered composition. Not everything that I shoot works out, and I still make my share of creative missteps.
The next composition that I started to work felt much stronger and was more like what I was used to photographing. I had flipped the camera over to vertical and was once again at the front corner of the car, only this time, I was on the driver’s side. I really loved how the headlight, turn signal, and the bumper protrusion all worked together with the character line on the hood as well as the bit of the front emblem that stretched out to the sides. It was a lot of elements, but still much less than the composition that I had started out with.
The problem that I ran into was the white Chevy truck that was parked next to the Buick. I could see the truck in the bumper in great detail. I was thankful that it was white as opposed to some bright and saturated color. At least the white didn’t really draw the attention. I liked the composition enough to frame it up and give it a try. There were two exposures here as I was a little overexposed on the first shot. I was thinking that black and white was going to be the way to go in order to minimize the truck’s importance in the frame. I liked the idea but wasn’t sure that it would work on a larger view. Just in case, I moved to the other side to repeat the composition because it would work in either direction.
The main reason that I had started this out on the driver’s side was the fact that there was some very obvious wax residue under the headlight that I would have preferred to miss out on. I’m sure that this wax was applied years ago, but it struck me as kind of funny the longer I thought about it. I had never captured faded and oxidized paint with rusted chrome surrounded by fresh wax before. It was another fold to the story and might work out in a photo.
The same composition was framed up on this side and I got things fine-tuned so that it all made sense. It was the way that the character line curved similarly to how the bumper was shaped that made this composition work so well. The flow was just perfect, and again this was so much better than the original composition that included just too many elements of the car. There were three exposures made here as I played “Where’s Waldo?” in the chrome. I kept moving to the left and right attempting to get out of the reflection zone but had to confirm in the image review. It was the last of the three exposures when I finally escaped the reflections. This photo actually turned into one of my favorites from the day simply because of the way that the shapes all came together.
I didn’t want to give up on that driver’s side bumper though because I saw a chance to get a nice reflection of the grill in that bumperette from the angle I was now standing to photograph the passenger side. I turned my attention to the inside of that bumperette and framed up a very close crop of the bumper. I took one test shot and decided that it was too tight of a crop. I opened up the frame a bit and shot another three frames with slightly different exposure settings to work on the depth of field. I knew that one of those would be the winner.
I was wrong. It was that first test shot that was the closer crop. I really liked how it looked on the computer screen and it felt much more natural compared to the wider framing that I had liked in the camera. Fortunately, I did everything right with that first shot because that one turned into my keeper from this particular detail. Since it was pretty much all chrome, it was a natural to be done in black and white which was how I had the camera set up during the exposures so I could see how everything was looking as far as contrasts go.
It was at this point that I was starting to wind down on ideas and figured that I would go back and look at the taillights since they were pretty unique to this car. I bounced back and forth between the sides trying to evaluate the direction of light, patina, and reflections. After what seemed like way too long, I decided that the passenger side had the best combination of things going for it. I liked the directional light from this side which would indicate shooting from the right side catching broad light with the trunk going into shadow. There were no reflections to be worried about since the part of the bumper that I was showing up in would be cropped out to keep the balance right in the frame.
There were three frames shot here with slight adjustments to how the exposure was handled to get the shadows right as well as the highlights. Since the sun was starting to come out, I was seeing a lot more contrast at this point which actually really helped the composition but made me work a little harder to keep the highlights under control. I thought that the answer was going to be that last frame, but it turned out that my first exposure was right on the money, and the light was the best at that point. Sometimes it just works out that way.
The exact opposite happened when I turned my attention to the hood ornament. This was one of those expected shots that I kind of had to do here. This hood ornament was in too good a shape to pass up, and I liked the design of it. While the hood didn’t have much rust to it, there were paw prints from a cat that struck me as interesting. The building of the composition was simple enough and I essentially centered the ornament in the frame, but had it progress diagonally from top left to bottom right for a bit of drama. The polarizer was adjusted to allow the most contrast within the chrome giving a bit of checkerboard lighting to it. From this point, it was all about depth of field. Those were the three attempts, but it was the last frame this time that made it through the culling process and into keeper status.
The edit on this one was done in black and white since the color didn’t play into the story at all. I then darkened the painted surfaces of the car, added some heavy vignetting in two corners, and worked out the contrast within the chrome to come up with what you see here. More than anything, I liked how the polarizer caused the different areas of the chrome to go black or white and they alternated based on the orientation of the surface. This made the photo much more interesting than it had started out. Even the paw prints worked out with the added contrast to add some interest into the negative space along the same path as the main subject.
The last part of the car that I decided to work with was that rear pillar on the passenger side once again. I had already shot it once before, and that had turned into a keeper which you have already seen. What drew me in this time was the color of the back seat which was this marvelous crimson tone. I have to imagine that these were aftermarket seat covers because I just can’t see this being offered in 1956. Whatever the case, the color combination between the paint and the seat was really great. I hadn’t really paid that much attention to it up until now, but I saw a chance to make use of the color combination.
By photographing from in front of the door handle, I was able to get that swooping line of chrome that I loved, along with the shapes of the windows. The door handle was the focus point, and the color of the seat gave the composition a perfect bit of visual tension using color theory. While I liked the composition on its own, the addition of the warm tones really made it work by increasing the visual excitement and attention grabbing that it now possessed. I don’t think that it was a better photo than the first version of this area, but the two photos definitely tell two very different stories which I liked both of them. I know that my heart rate quickens a little when I see the red seat, but there is something about that overall cool color cast of the other angle. It just goes to show how important colors can be in a photograph when it comes to what reactions they might bring.
With that photo, which happened to be the last of three, I was done with the car. Something in my head said there was nothing else here to photograph. I was inclined to believe it because I had photographed so much more than I had thought possible from this car. A few years ago, I had written this one off because of where it was parked. I really didn’t think that there was anything much to photograph, even though the car itself was amazing. Now that I have added a lot of skills to my bag of tricks, I was able to knock out eight solid shots of this car in less than an hour. I can find nothing at all to complain about there.
Having worked the Buick to a great deal of success, I felt much more confident about hitting another location. I went by that Cadillac again and saw some isolations that I figured I could try but wanted to check out the truck first. It was only a couple of miles down the road, so I could potentially do both. The sun was starting to come out though which was not good. I knew that the Cadillac would survive the sun better than the truck which was in some trees.
When I got to the truck, I pulled into the driveway and went to the shop by the truck first. I knocked but got no answer. I walked over to the house and went to the back door since that was the one which was used obviously. I knocked there as well. There was no noise, and no answer. That was a real shame because the light was looking good on the truck, and it was in a position that I thought I could get an overall composition of it. That was going to have to wait for another day though because there was nobody home. There was no way I could shoot this from the street, so I was going to have to have permission to be on the property. I just got back in the truck and went back to the Cadillac.
When I got there, I went to the front door of the house and knocked. There was no answer, and I realized that I could see inside. It appeared that this was being used as storage for many different tables with no room to consider it a lived-in home. The yard was kept, and I could tell that the property was maintained which left me with hope. I started to knock on the neighbor’s doors in hopes that one of them might be the property owner or might know the owner. There were no answers at any of the houses that I knocked on.
I went back over to the car and looked at it again. It was in a short gravel driveway close to the intersection, well away from the home. It was almost far enough away that I could justify getting some photos, but I didn’t really feel comfortable doing that, and I wasn’t really sure that there would be anything grand to capture with this car. Not wanting to push my luck, I went ahead and got back in the truck and headed back home with a few quick detours along the way to check places that would normally have some good subjects. That wasn’t the case today though, and I ended up making it home shortly after noon with the 33 frames on the camera.
The day had started out with five locations that I could shoot. There were no answers at four of them, but I did confirm that there was good potential at each location. This means that I can come back later on and try to make contact again. It was that fifth location that worked out, and honestly, all I wanted was a single, good location. I certainly got that, and I am really happy that I went out to do some photography.
Don’t forget that I do offer prints of my photos, so if any of these speak to you, let me know. You can also order stock sizes on a variety of photo papers directly from the gallery store. There is just no better way to enjoy photography than in a physical form. I’ve never had an unhappy client after a purchase. Also, if you would like to learn how to capture compositions like these, consider joining me on my upcoming April workshop in East Bend, or signing up for a mentorship program. I think you can tell from my blogs that I don’t keep what I do a secret. I am happy to share what I know so that you might be able to see improvement in your own photography. What I share here is just the tip of the iceberg though as those who have worked with me in the past will attest to. If there is something holding you back in your own photography, I might be able to help you out. Just give me a call and we can have a short, commitment free consultation to see if I’m a good fit for your needs. I look forward to talking with you!
I’m not sure what tomorrow is going to hold, but the weather is still looking promising for another try at some of these locations, so I might be back here again tomorrow for some more adventures behind the camera and hopefully some more photos to share. We shall see soon enough.
Until next time….
