The 52 Project, Week 23: I Think There's a Pattern Here

On yet another seemingly boring Sunday afternoon, which may after today be called “8x10 Day”, I took to the streets of Toledo, OH looking for an image. Not feeling adventurous enough to go all the way downtown, I started at the Toledo Museum of Art and started working my way east, in hopes of an interesting image. Having the same kind of photo on my mind as taken in Week 20, I knew this kind of image might take a while to find; two hours to be exact.

I still need to work on scanning these contact prints.

Finding the patterned building leading against the sloped street was the easy part, filling it with somebody was much harder. Quite hard to tell in the photo, but I was on the opposite side of a four lane, very busy highway. So even when someone/a group of someones were coming into the scene, that doesn’t mean a semi, school bus, or sedan wasn’t. >__>

After about an hour and a half of queer looks, honked horns, and explaining this camera outfit to passers by, I was done; something needed to happen quick. Just then, a small pickup truck pulls off the road, nearly up onto the sidewalk, which would have simultaneously ended my loaner 8x10 and this project. Turns out, it was the owner of the building that the Eastman Commercial had been staring at for nearly two hours.

“Oh crap, here we go,” I thought.

Judging by the manner with which he pulled in front of the shot, I wasn’t expecting anything pleasant. Fortunately for my optimistically paranoid self, he was a fan of all things antique, AND willing to “pose” for shot with his building. He pulled away, only to come walking back into my shot 15 minutes later.

That brings us to this week’s key issues.

Is this image too much like Week 20’s?
Is the feeling of the image compromised by the fact that the person was encouraged to participate? Is it still Street Photography?

Why are there no answers here? Much like anything else art, the answers to these questions are entirely subjective. But that doesn’t mean you out there can’t weigh in. I’d welcome your open and honest opinion, as comments and critique only serve to help the artist. Thanks for playing along.

Something Good: Having well over an hour to meter the shot, compose, recompose, etc., etc., the shot and its processing were more than controlled, even with a red filter on a directly sun-lit scene.

Something Bad: Aside from the drama llama that comes riding in from the aforementioned issues, there’s some obvious dust spotting on the negative itself. This is the result of a dust being trapped on the darkslide and migrating to the unexposed sheet prior to exposure. Drats. >__<

Something Learned: There’s really nothing quick about the large format process, and I think I’m really starting to like it.

Next Week: A deliberate and very personal portrait.