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esearing
3-Aug-2018, 02:57
Sometimes we pass by a place and think I will take a picture of this one day. But one day never comes and the scene is destroyed or changes or we never return.

So this thread is one of words only, no images. Try to describe that image you should have taken , intend to take, or missed. This is not for staged fantasy but real life places/objects, and the emotions they evoked. You can get poetic if you wish in the description and try to convey a sense of place.

Example
The old gas station is a landmark just off a corner crossroad near my home. it was once a local country gas and convenience store in the middle of an area with thriving horse paddocks and cow pastures. Suburbia has encroached on this area and filled it with subdivisions, strip shopping centers, and big box stores. I pass it every afternoon around 5:00 which allows me to see it in different light through out the year. In winter the sun will emit a light orange hue on the white stucco and the old rusty pump turns a brilliant orange brown. A crepe myrtle that was once lovingly pruned and tidy now stands 10 feet above the roof line but its twisted base casts intricate shadows on the walls. Recent road work has torn up the old parking area and even the roof that once covered the pump has now collapsed and been hauled away. Construction debris, broken concrete, and staging materials now clutter the stations surroundings. Grass has grown high in the now broken sidewalk. I had planned to photograph this station one day when clouds would tower above it, but it has lost its nostalgic charm and will likely be torn down and replaced with another strip shopping center.

vs
There is an old gas station I want to photograph.

Jac@stafford.net
3-Aug-2018, 12:44
Your post is appreciated, and with no disrespect it reminds me of how very difficult it is to write of moments of literature of place which also have an economy of words. Don't stop, but improve. Brevity is a virtue.

A general comment presuming the case: the image of the evaporating gas station and general store - have most of us not already seen pictures of the same? I do not know, but I suspect your description could be carved from those images. Does not the literature benefit from another kind of description of what we have seen?

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/p/648656/7979259/1292815447223/ford+garage+shelton+ne+web.jpg?token=Du8hEgXozdo9uDmAYREDMIvXIbY%3D

(Photo by Drake Hokanson)

With great respect for the creative process,
Jac Stafford

Mark Sampson
3-Aug-2018, 14:04
This may seem obvious. But properly done, words and photographs complement each other and create something greater than either part alone.
I'll suggest to you the work of Wright Morris, novelist and photographer. He was a pioneer (and master of) the genre; his concerns were with just what you're writing about. Such a talent and accomplishment as his is rare, but worth trying for.

esearing
3-Aug-2018, 14:32
Please limit responses to what was asked for. I don't want to turn this into commentary on someone elses working method or whether this is a good idea or not.

this came about due to a discussion I had with Corran on a recent outing. We both commented on locations we plan to photograph and I came to the realization that sometimes the place becomes romanticized due to our future plans more so than the actual photogenics of the place. Or that we become fixated with what we think we initially saw.

Another real example of a missed opportunity:

Up where GA 400 becomes a 2 lane road just north of Dahlonega, there is a farm owned by folks of Cherokee heritage. They have several painted ponies that wander the fields next to the roadway. At one time there was an authentic looking teepee that sat in the middle of the field. One fall morning as I was rushing to beat the sunset at a particular spot further north, the horses were standing in a line facing the teepee. A slight fog was in the air just above their heads which would have blocked the messy ragtag forrest behind them. What a nice shot that would make, if I had not already planned to be elsewhere. A month later the teepee was taken down, and the field rarely has the same appeal or quantity of horses.

Jac@stafford.net
3-Aug-2018, 16:07
Please limit responses to what was asked for.

Good luck with that.

Imagine posting in a writers' forum 'post pictures of what you fail to portray in writing.'

Jim Noel
3-Aug-2018, 18:31
Please limit responses to what was asked for. I don't want to turn this into commentary on someone elses working method or whether this is a good idea or not.

this came about due to a discussion I had with Corran on a recent outing. We both commented on locations we plan to photograph and I came to the realization that sometimes the place becomes romanticized due to our future plans more so than the actual photogenics of the place. Or that we become fixated with what we think we initially saw.

Another real example of a missed opportunity:

Up where GA 400 becomes a 2 lane road just north of Dahlonega, there is a farm owned by folks of Cherokee heritage. They have several painted ponies that wander the fields next to the roadway. At one time there was an authentic looking teepee that sat in the middle of the field. One fall morning as I was rushing to beat the sunset at a particular spot further north, the horses were standing in a line facing the teepee. A slight fog was in the air just above their heads which would have blocked the messy ragtag forrest behind them. What a nice shot that would make, if I had not already planned to be elsewhere. A month later the teepee was taken down, and the field rarely has the same appeal or quantity of horses.

This just emphasizes the point that you can not return to make an image. If you see one, make it then, i will not be the same later.

Tin Can
3-Aug-2018, 18:39
So true, you never see it again. Time changes space.


This just emphasizes the point that you can not return to make an image. If you see one, make it then, i will not be the same later.

Vaughn
3-Aug-2018, 23:16
Photographing along the same creek for 40 years, I see change constantly. In the cities change seems to come in fits and jerks.

The camera is set up 25 feet above the creek -- on top of a steep almost vertical bank of ferns and berries. The clear creek, perhaps 15 feet wide, forms a large sweeping curve, creating the bank we are on and an unusually wide, flat section of creek bottom. If it was mid-winter, there might be salmon spawning...but it is early October and the maples still have some of their golden leaves...those leaves shine, and a yellow filter will zap those leaves into brilliance.

Surrounding the flat, millennia-old redwoods stand tall...300 feet tall and more. Occupying the far side of the flat, in playful defiance to the domination of the redwoods, are the six matriarchs and patriarchs of the maples. Big-leafed, they do their best to stretch and reach up to half of what the redwoods boast. The redwoods may surround this small flat, but they can not keep the light from raining down into it, filling it like water into a redwood bucket.

One can not see the maples' bark. Moss and lichens cover all the branches and trunks -- ferns have taken root in the moss. They are reaching the end of their mayfly-like life span of a mere 300 years. One particular redwood towers over the creek from on top of the bank -- over-looking this generation of ephemeral maples and enjoying this wide place in the creek. But the flat seems a little out of sorts. High water had violently swept much of it clear of shrubs and small trees not too long ago...a decade or two or three ago, perhaps 1964. The maples occupying a slightly higher section of the flat were not touched, the ground below them covered with years of leaf litter. There is a little grass and flowers growing on the gravel beds between the creek and the maples, but the feeling is that there is a large empty niche, waiting to be filled.

The scene needs a wide angle lens on a 4x10 that I did not have until recently. I have a FujiW 180mm (inside lettering) that might do the job if the lens is carefully centered on the 4x10. But it is far too late now. Most of the maples have died of old age and have fallen over the past twenty-five years. The open flat along the creek is now choked with fir and alders (and blackberries, huckleberries and several others). From the camera position, the brush below top of the bank has grown to where I would need a 12 foot ladder to get a clear view. Even an ancient redwood has fallen, but across the upper end of the flat and out of view of my mental image.

Corran
4-Aug-2018, 09:31
This just emphasizes the point that you can not return to make an image. If you see one, make it then, i will not be the same later.

Yes

I am trying to be better at that. Sometimes when I am very tired, after a long day of shooting/working, I just don't feel like it and think "I'll do it next time," and sometimes that day doesn't come.

Leszek Vogt
4-Aug-2018, 14:40
Totally missing out and possibly a 2nd chance ?

Several blocks from me is a red house. The paint is fading and there was plenty of evidence of dilapidation and that no one lives there....urr unless there was a tunnel. Much like the house I saw (and not photographed) near the BC border, as the 10 feet high (appx) blackberries pretty much overtook the house's entrance. At some point, the one in BC was bulldozed and new structure was build, the red house is still standing tho. I kind of feel for the owner, since the property is right at an entrance to a bridge and there is plenty of vehicle acceleration and noise. Did I mention fumes ? Yes, back to location, location....

Under certain light, at least that was the idea, the photo would have its humor and contradiction of sorts. Most folks whiz by the place as if it doesn't exist....perhaps it's the familiarity thing. I've contemplated to stop by and bring my LF gear for this, and the best place to photograph would have been from the top of a building, which is across the 4-lane arterial and obtaining appropriate permission could be a hassle. Perhaps a tall ladder would have done the trick.

Hmmm, few days later I noticed workers cleaning up the berry's on that property and exposing the foundation and none of that was part of my plan. Either way, it could have been a great time lapse project. Few months went by, all activities stopped (for whatever reason), and with optimism in mind, the blackberries seem to be taking over the house once again.

Les

Jac@stafford.net
4-Aug-2018, 14:50
So true, you never see it again. Time changes space.

That's a good rationale for a long exposure, or sequences of the same to capture the demon of entropy at work.
.

LabRat
4-Aug-2018, 17:49
Well, the old saying is a picture is worth a thousand words, so the challenge is to allow the subject to speak for itself...

Steve K

Tin Can
4-Aug-2018, 18:27
Well, the old saying is a picture is worth a thousand words, so the challenge is to allow the subject to speak for itself...

Steve K

A few years ago I started an inverse thread. "Images only, no words, no discussion,"

Not popular.

My second mind only picture was a screeching head-on collision on a hilly road, I was in the woods, as usual, I was never near a road. Danger. The first 'picture' is on the same road when I walked home at 3. The third 'picture' on that road was the school bus spinning 360 on snow. We did not crash. But we ran though the T intersection. Adults.

I was perhaps 6 and still hadn't gotten glasses. I ran to the sound and discovered a steaming mess. A cnvertible with top down had collided with a hard top. Speed limit as I knew, was 55 mph. This was 1958, no seat belts, steel dashboards. 8 teenagers, couples, all dead, very bloody. The cars hissed, but it was very still. No groaning. I knew they were dead. No other cars came. There was nothing to do. No houses near. No traffic. Rural. I was alone, not scared, but after checking each body I ran home. Perhaps a mile through thick woods.

Since i badly need needed glasses it was a blurry scene, as I recall, but I didn't know my eyes were terrible. I saw colors, red, white creamy paint and blue. chrome bumpers. Bent metal.Hissing slowing, hot Sun, no wind. Time had stopped.

At home they didn't believe me, so they did not use the phone. I almost never lie. Cub Scout.

I did not go back. It was gone the next day.

Very much like a WeeGee image, except in color. Pictorial.

I can't forget it.

I have many such 'pictures'.

LabRat
4-Aug-2018, 18:57
Sorry you had to see that Randy, and any other disturbing stuff, but we are a witness to this life (and death), and is hard to explain to those who have not seen things that would change them... But, you have the curse of "may you have an interesting life"... But it does remind me a little of the pre-death scene in that movie "Blade Runner" where Rutger Hauer describes what he has see in his (temporary) life... Maybe we need to go back to the mothership to erase that part of the tape... ;-)

My point of the topic is that we can go from the past, present, to future in our mind's imagination, but often it is comparing apples to oranges as to what's there to see and shoot vs what we might imagine to be... (Try telling that to some academic writing critique about some photo...) words can't describe what might be happening (like Randy's accident scene), so we can let visuals tell a story (without words)...

Maybe there is a better story there than we can describe???

Steve K

Vaughn
4-Aug-2018, 21:14
I had a similar vision, much later in life, but not as bloody. Heading down Hwy 101 in the early morning hours, an over-night drive to Yosemite Valley for a show reception. About 2am on one of the few 4-lanes sections, I was slowly passed by a newish pickup truck with just an 60-ish man driving (with cab light on). About 20 minutes later, driving downhill on a 2-lane section, I see a semi-truck a ways below me. I then hear a large banging sound and see the trucks brake lights go on.

It took about 30 seconds to arrive at the semi. He was pulled off the road, no sign of any damage. About 20 yards pass the truck I came to a scene that seemed out of movie. A jack-knifed semi with its flat bed load of odds and ends steel parts spread across the highway, tractor's cab on its side, my headlights picking up the steam. The driver was spread eagle on his back on the road, head mis-shapen, dying. About 30 yards up the road was the pick-up that passed me earlier...in the right-hand ditch facing back up the road. The drivers side half of the truck had been run over by the semi-truck's tires, from the front bumper to beyond the cab -- someone had crossed the line. The roof of the pick-up was ripped off, inside no longer looked anything like a truck's interior nor a human being.

To have taken the scene with a LF camera would have created an amazing artifact. But I am glad I did not -- did not even think to break out the camera. The smell of death would have been difficult to express visually. Lighting provided by semis slowly making their way pass the steel would have been difficult to work with, and eventually there would be the Highway Patrol to deal with, etc. A Highway maintenance truck eventually showed up, and the guy told me to get out of there. So I was relieved to have a good reason to get the hell out of hell and I took off...leaving my old wool blanket over the truck driver that I had covered him with as he died. I drove carefully to Yosemite for the next 6 hours, thinking about the uncertainies of life.