Thursday, September 19, 2019

Idling by the Corn Field on a Chilly Sunday Morning

My photographer friend, Nick, wanted my help with a photo shoot on Sunday morning. After picking me up in his vintage 1965 Dodge, he took me to a country lane. It happened to be the same lane where I had taken sunflower photos back in the summer.

He had been there too, not with Bob and me, but on his own, and enjoyed a very nice sunrise. But he wanted to get his vintage car in the photo too. His idea was to get me to approach his camera while driving the car. He wanted to get a bit of blur on the car, and I don't think that quite happened, but he did get a very long trail of exhaust.


Then he took one of me standing beside the car.


These were the shots that he wanted, the first one anyway. But we continued to shoot. Most of my driving work was done, so I could now take some photos as well. You will see that my versions are more saturated, for I decided that in the absence of a nice sunrise, I would liberally apply a warming filter in post. I also chose to shoot from the other side of the laneway.


I moved closer to the car and took some photos of Nick.



I'm glad that Nick had the idea, even though he was disappointed with the banal sunrise. He is very good at coming up compositional ideas, and I can learn from him.

8 comments:

Marie Smith said...

Creative ideas indeed and they worked out well.

Barbara Rogers said...

A fun time to capture the pride of a man and his car. My fav is the one of you standing in the door of the car, with the asymetrical balance of road and barn roof. I've never been one for straight on photos.

Anvilcloud said...

Barbara. I know what you’re saying, but I personally don’t prefer the overly asymmetrical composition in this instance. It leaves no breathing room on the left side. Also, to me, including the whole barn is not the best idea because that is not what the photo is about, and it pulls the eye away from the focal point. That’s how I see it, and you and Nick see it differently, and the world shall go on rotating.

Anvilcloud said...

Just to clarify further. When I went back to look at the photo one more time, I found that my eye was indeed pulled to the barn straightaway, It’s like I couldn’t resist that pull. That is not where it is supposed to go in this composition. I think it is partly because the photo is brightest over there, and eyes are pretty much drawn to the brightest part,

William Kendall said...

I like these, for different reasons.

Marcia said...

Amazing what lengths photographers go to to get a shoot.

Joanne Noragon said...

I am quite fond of that second shot, with the hilighting of the golden tips of the corn (I think).

Jenn Jilks said...

What a fun project! It's great to have a buddy!