Sunday, February 03, 2008

Out Junkin'

I was on a mission yesterday to find something, anything, to use as a subject for a photo challenge on one of the Yahoo! Groups in which I participate. The challenge theme was Junk/Trash and it could be anything - the interpretation of the theme was strictly a personal matter. I had been struggling trying to find an idea for this challenge. So Saturday morning I headed out, stopping first at a local indoor flea market sure there would be some "good junk" there. It was really an unpleasant place with loud, blaring hip hop music - but I did manage to get one good picture of a doll that I used for the Photoyear 2008 group. After leaving the flea market, I came to an intersection where I always turn right to head on my familiar paths around town. But for some reason I decided to turn left instead and there, less than 1/2 mile away, was a veritable gold mine of the types of items I was looking for. It looks somewhat like a graveyard for old farming implements, trailers, etc. I wandered around here for over 2 hours having the most fun I've had in a long time - composing angles, changing settings on my camera, playing with the polarizing filter (love that thing!), stepping in mud and over strips of angle iron and telephone poles, pressing my nice, new leather jacket into dirty tires of old tractors to steady myself! The place is actually a tractors and accessories business but they were closed and I was uninterrupted (well, except for once when the police decided they needed to check to see what I was doing). The area where I was exploring looks like old junked parts but these are actually items that are for sale. There were also 4 or 5 used 18-wheeler trailers.

I took over a hundred pictures and the majority of them came out as good as I had hoped. I'm proud of the pictures. I am so drawn lately to "abstract art" types of photos and most of these fit into that category. Some of the pictures have been tweaked a little in curves in PaintShop Pro and some have been cropped for tighter framing, but they are for the most part reasonably close to straight from the camera.

I'm really on a roll. I obtained permission from the building in which I work (yes, permission is required) to take pictures of some of the details in the building and they turned out great (imo). I liked these so much that I actually sent 4 of them off to be printed at mpix.com so that I can frame them. They look more like paintings than they do like photographs.


1. Bars, 2. Gate, 3. Spoke, 4. Gear, 5. Drum, 6. Door

2 comments:

Cheryl said...

Wow, those are some really cool photos...the photos themselves are not junk! That sounds like a neat Yahoo Group.

Laurie said...

Wow Ernie! These photos are wonderful! You really do have the "eye!"