Antique Store

Near where I live, there is this little abandoned antique store, and this week I had the opportunity to take some photos inside. I can hardly believe a place like this exists. The building has been abandoned long enough for the roof to be caving in and the walls to be falling over, but it is full of the merchandise that was being sold when it was still open. In a lot of ways it is the opposite challenge of Springs Plant. Instead of overwhelming wide open rooms with industrial equipment, the antique store has small overwhelming rooms, packed full of things.

I am continuing to work on “the how” of finding great photos. So, like Springs Plant, my plan was to look for multiple eye catching things and find a perspective where they interact in interesting ways, and the challenge was formidable. Overall, I think I am pleased with the results and I am looking forward to going back and finding more!

This is from the first set of photos I took of this large glass orb that was once a part of chandelier. I was trying to get the broken picture frame (bottom right) and the orb, and once again completely missed the coolest part when I took it. When I got the photo in Lightroom I saw the orb’s reflection and was legitimately surprised. No matter how many times I remind myself to slow down and look at everything, I still miss stuff when I feel overwhelmed. I am finding it takes me some time to be comfortable enough to slow down when I am in a new or overwhelming environment.

Also of note, the photo is underexposed, which is yet another reminder to slow down and evaluate camera settings.

The final and edited product is pretty awesome though! Gotta say it is one of my favorites.

I think this or its counterpart (the header photo of this blog entry) is my favorite photo of the whole shoot. It was also intentional!!!

The original sad fan photo is also a little bit underexposed but that was intentional and I knew I could get the detail out in post. I put the aperture at f/32 and had a 30 second exposure, with low ISO. In retrospect I could have played with the aperture and ISO a bit more to get a brighter exposure without losing much. That can be an experiment for another day.

Edited sad fan is awesome :)

I thought might take my favorite photo award. However, It was dethroned by sad fan.

I am sneaking this in here! I took some of the feedback from my last blog post, thank you Robert and Cecilia, and played with the door edit some more and I got something I love! The broken glass was what I wanted to highlight in this version while keeping the brick wall in the background.

Addendum:

After posting this, I think I like the light from the un-edited sad fan photo better. Maybe I’ll include another edit of it in my next post.

Other Favorites:

Springs Plant

This is my second time in Springs Plant, and it is seriously overwhelming. There is so much happening in that place, I didn’t even know where to start taking photos. I was trying to find interesting things to tie together, but everything is interesting, and very industrial. So, I mostly ended up wandering and going off of my gut, but I got some really great photos! I was very critical of all of them at first, but on second round and after forgiving myself for not knowing what to do, I decided I like a lot of them.

This ended up being my close favorite, and it was a surprise (edited below). I have been trying to be observant of all the surfaces, but I gotta admit, I completely missed the brick wall when I took this (thank you post editing). The thing that actually drew my attention to the door was the broken glass, which I feel like I failed to make the most notable part of the photo. I like the texture of the door and the brick wall. Also, I will say I wish the picture was a little to the left to capture the transition of broken glass to nothing.

I thought this would be my favorite, and it definitely required the most thought (unedited below). I am always looking out for water and reflections (some of my favorite photos are playing with reflections). This room was dark and I wanted to get as much detail in the reflection as possible. I needed a small aperture, and lowest possible ISO. This shot was on tripod with a 30 second exposure at f/22, with ISO 500. I think some of the other photos from the shoot have a better feel, but this one was very intentional and I am proud of that.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I know I can continue to come back here and feel challenged. Overall takeaway for myself is that I need to keep looking for the small details, and trying to tie them together, and I will get better with practice.

Direction

So, I think I figured something out about where I am as a photographer, and what will get me to more consistently better photos. My goal in photography is to bring someone as close to a specific moment as possible. For sports photographers, maybe it is when the game winning touchdown was scored. For nature photographers when an animal is peacefully unaware of your presence, and does something incredible. For me, it is the moment when I am looking at something sad, and I think “that is beautiful.” Every moment that passes between that moment, and when it is captured, something is lost in translation. When I am editing, I usually find the first photo I took of a series, is my favorite.

So, where does that leave me? Needing a lot of work :). I still need to master camera settings so I get correct exposure and focus on the first photo. I still am taking first shots with aperture, focal length, and exposure settings from different light/style and get a dark first exposure (I will say the mirrorless exposure preview has improved this dramatically, I can see my photo is black 😆). Next, I need to work on framing and paying attention to the whole frame. I take photos where the first shot includes pieces of an unrelated building, or something that throws off the mood of the photograph (examples below). I am sure the list will increase in length as I improve.

I was really excited about this abandoned swing set, but when I started to edit I could see the top of a building and a car in the photo. I got tunnel vision on the swing set and wasn’t aware of everything in the frame. This would have been improved if I would have taken the photo from a lower angle.

Again, I was excited about the log and was trying to get an interesting perspective with the dam, and I didn’t pay any attention to the bridge. If I had payed attention to the bridge I could have taken a step back and toward the dam, then I would been able to frame the bridge, the dam and the log.

I need to figure out how to more consistently find those moments of perspective. I took a photograph this evening and it is one of my favorite (despite suffering from one of the problems listed above). The thing that brought it together? I saw two interesting features of the scene (maybe the most interesting), how they were interacting, and I tried to capture it.

“Direction” - My first named photograph! I have taken enough pictures at this point to feel like I actually know what I am trying to improve on, and that is exciting.

And… I have read it a couple times… BRING. YOUR. CAMERA. EVERYWHERE. I love this photo, and I love that my iPhone let me capture it, but I really, really, wish I had my canon. I can recreate this another day and it will be beautiful, but that is somehow less satisfying.