I know there are millions of pictures of red barns in the world. This was just low hanging fruit, out the passenger window during a drive through Montana. While the landscape offers graduted tones culminating in the mountains, the red contrasts with all of them. I just liked what I saw. That is my only justification for taking this picture. I imagine that plenty of other people will like it too, but would it sell? Hard to say. But at some point, I am going to find out.
I would like to say that I was so good at timing my shot that I captured this exact moment. The truth is that I was actually practicing following action with video. This is a still from the video. The idea is that you cannot simply expect to capture exactly what you want if you haven't worked through the use of your camera in the situations you are shooting. This may have been the third or fourth try to follow the skating up and down the street and get ready for this trick, which was always at this exact spot on the pavement. I knew the angle I needed to center the action and shoot from well below eye level to enhance the effect of the jump.
This photo was taken with my iPhone while waiting for the start of a show at the Fox Theater in Detroit. It happened to be a stop on the tour of a famous true crime podcast. Needless to say, the decor added greatly to the chilling atmosphere. In case you didn't know, the Fox languished for a number of years as a movie theater showng second-run files (Kids, ask your parents) but was purchased by Ilitch Holdings in 1987 and then restored. For a little more on this and a view of the entire theater from the stage click here.
This picture was supposed to be stylish when I took it, but now it's nostalgia in several ways. First, in a recent flood my only print of this picture was lost. You are looking at an edited scan from the negative. Second, it was taken more than two decades ago. Third, at the time I took the photo I lived about a half mile from the scene. And finally, this bakery, which opened in 1931, recently employed a family member.
So what was supposed to be stylish? The two red streaks across the photo. They were created by opening the shutter using a shutter release on the bulb setting while a car crossed the entire field of the lens. Just a fun technique I was trying out.
I took this picture because this bridge is considered a landmark of the town in which it stands. In fact, it is depicted on some of the city documents. The bridge is part of a park at one end of the city, and nearby is a dam with historical signficance, while in another part of the park is a small railroad museum. I meant for the picture to make the bridge look as inviting to the viewer as it did to me, snowy surface not withstanding. Many times I crossed that bridge to check out a city fair, the trails on the other side of the water, or the catch of several people fishing in the river. Now that I look at the composition I realize that the horizon is at about the halfway point in the frame, but I believe that this is remedied by the dynamic angle of the bridge itself. A look at the sky and water tell me that I likely used a polarizing filter, but did not record the fact.
