Decaying Americana!

[rexbobcat]

It's so funny that I never realized that I seem to have sub-consciously created a themed set of photos over the past several months. I know it's fairly cliche, but these photos are a recording of a part of the history of a fairly proud society (small town Texas, USA), so I hope that justifies my clicheity.

I didn't put this thread in cityscapes and landscapes, because they're all centered around past Americana, but aren't necessarily urban decay.

The first four were taken in an old train station where my partner and I almost got arrested by a redneck. I'm amazed that NOBODY has taken advantage of this brilliant photo destination. I would absolutely love to find a model and photograph some urban portraits in this space.



1.


2.


This 3rd photo is of a furnace with several hatches like a crematorium...or the Holocaust. Really creeped me out.

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5.


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9.


10.

 

[Netskimmer]

Love number 3. The furnace looks like it has a facial expression wich seems to match the tone of the image.

 

[KenC]

5 and 10 are the strongest ones. If you can go back, try reshooting 5 one step back and one step to the left. The former will capture the top of the door and leave a little breathing room at the bottom, and the latter should remove that sliver of window above the stove. I think I'd also be inclined to crop the other window. In 10, the lower left corner could be darkened a bit, but otherwise it works really well as is.

 

[Derrel]

Nice work! KenC's keen eye regarding burning down that corner on #10 was impressive. His step by step directions of #5 I can see as being good advice as well. If, as KenC suggests that photos 5 and 10 are the strongest, I would ask, "Which photo is the weakest and might best be removed from this set?" My personal opinion is that #4 is the least-compelling shot. Anyway...overall enjoyable to look at and nice B&W conversions.

 

[rexbobcat]

I was thinking about that on number 4. I think that maybe I at one time did have the whole door on the frame, but when I straightened the photo it cropped it off. I have to check LR to see if I rotated and cropped. Yeah...number 4 is probably the weakest. the DoF is too shallow to really give enough interest or detail.