And the glorious details:
Image #1 from my trip to Lima, Peru in the Miraflores district. I was walking around and happened upon this red house that was being renovated. I was particularly struck by the different windows on this bright red house so I opted for this composition which highlights the three different window styles.
Image #2 from my trip to Minot, ND. I was walking around downtown Minot on the return from visiting rural North Dakota when I saw these grain silos. It was a sunny day, mid-day but I thought the blue sky worked as a nice background for the geometric and boldly colored structures. I tried to get a straight on perspective to emphasize the texture and lines in these rural buildings against that blue sky.
Image #3 back to Lima, Peru, this image was captured immediately down the street from my hotel. I noticed the playful geometry of the building facade alongside the speed bump and composed this shot as part of a later afternoon walk around the city.
Image #4 a blue door in a rural North Dakota farmhouse made for an interesting textural showcase. Instead of shooting it straight on, I opted for this more diagonal composition to highlight the peeling wall paint alongside that deep blue door.
Image #5 a blue couch from an abandoned North Dakota farmhouse. I was particularly drawn to the couches on this trip and this room drew me in with it’s blue peeling paint and blue faded couch fabric. I opted for a straight on composition to highlight the texture of the paint against the almost matching blue fabric from the couch.
Image #6 another North Dakota farmhouse, this time in the kitchen. The kitchen you see here is very close to the way they left it. I opted for the 3 point perspective style composition on this image to make it look more lively and almost playful, since the room was very full of items and I wanted to showcase that a bit in my composition.
Image #7 a bedroom in a rural North Dakota farmhouse. The home was abandoned but the bed was still made up and ready for sleeping. I wanted to reflect this tidiness so I opted for a straight on composition and tried to minimize elements in the image.
Image #8 a school house in Willow City, Texas. This was from a trip to photograph abandoned historic school houses in rural Texas. I shot this straight and put the desk in the center to highlight its importance and give it more weight within the image.
Image #9 a school house in Johnson City, Texas. This building dates back to early 1900’s and had been abandoned but left mostly empty and untouched. I played around with the placement of this chair a great deal, settling on this image which places it near the left hand side. I thought it balanced out the leaves on the floor and the lines in the wall so I preferred this composition over a more middle/balanced one.
Image #10 a church basement in rural North Dakota. The church is abandoned now but many items remain in the basement, as you can see from the image here. This was shot almost straight on but slightly high to give the impression that you are looking a bit down upon the scene. I wanted it to look a bit cinematic in nature so I opted for this line and composition.
I hope 2016 found a great crop of images from your pile as well.
The great photographer Ansel Adams once said, “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” It’s difficult sometimes to look back and fine anything of value but that’s the nature of what we do. I hope 2017 finds us all with better images or at least, you know, getting closer to the point of 12 in one year.
Until next time…
Author
Carol an excellent body of work. I really liked your selections. I hope you have a great 2017.