Yellow Shack

I guess this photograph harkens back to the work of William Christenberry. It is roughly in that documentary tradition any way. That being said, Mr. Christenberry probably would have framed it a bit looser. Not wanting to stand in the middle of a busy road, I decided the tighter crop worked well enough. For some of these more documentary kinds of images, you can get away with some things. This structure is still around, so maybe I should shoot it again, and bring a wider lens this time. That's another lesson from Christenberry, go back and photograph a subject again and again over time.

You're Not Going Back...

This is a photograph from about 20 years ago. Looks like it was taken near Salem, Ala., a small town on the way to somewhere else. Not sure quite why I framed it up this way, but I bet I had my reasons. What caught my attention when I saw this photograph in my archive of old images was the purple and blue tones in the shadows. A more modern camera would certainly do a better job, but you know what, Christenberry shot plenty of his work on Instamatics and old polaroids, and they're in museums. Plus, I'm not going back anytime soon.

Finding beauty in unexpected places

 

Sometimes you can be caught totally off guard by a beautiful scene like this wonderful oak in a vacant lot nearby. I would hazard a guess that I am the only person to photograph this particular tree for a very long time. The image was captured using the Fujifilm X30. The sky is blown out, but in a way that reminds me of the photographs of William Christenberry. I saw one of his images in the Philips Collection the other day. It is always worth it to look at the actual work of famous photographers. Christenberry made most of his photographs in Hale County, Alabama, but he taught photography at the Corcoran in Washington, DC for many years. He is known to have shot with a box Brownie in addition to an 8x10.

Christenberry's world is disappearing

I've always appreciated vernacular architecture, and truth be told, I wouldn't mind having a studio in a barn as long as there was air conditioning and perhaps a few more windows than this example. The roof really appealed to me and there is nothing better than listening to rain on a tin roof. And the scale of this structure is just right, too, nothing overly monumental here. A perfect example of a Southern barn. I saw this one on a drive through rural Alabama, and knew right away that I wanted to photograph it.