Lunch Break Special - Roll 123

I have said previously that I enjoy going shooting during lunch, taking opportunities to liven up the monotony of the work week and getting to be creative in a time-limited way. My map of the places I've photographed proves this fact, showing locations stretching out from Gene's in every direction; it feels at times that I've been everywhere I can reasonably get to and from within an hour! A couple of days after I went to Weko Beach, still feeling the afterglow of my experience that evening, I undertook one of these lunchtime shoots, grabbing my camera and heading north along Portage Avenue to see what I could find. I first stopped at South Bend Monument Works, a local business that had caught my eye with a wall of ivy along one side of their building, as well as the various headstones and statues displayed on the property. I was intrigued by the idea of photographing headstones that are not part of a cemetery, and I took several photos, exploring the artistic possibilities of this location and getting several that work well. The first looks head-on at a shed covered in red foliage, with boxes and monuments evenly spread throughout the foreground. Most compelling to me in this composition is the toppled headstone in the bottom left corner, raising more questions than it answers—why is this one alone sitting on its side, and why does it already have an inscription? I also enjoy the way that the trees overlook the scene, giving the impression that I had just stepped into a woodland clearing rather than a city business. In contrast, the second shot is definitely placed within the city, as I chose to focus on the SBMW sign, including the contextual details of the street and the building to flesh out the photo. I have learned that an interesting subject, such as this sign, is usually not that interesting on its own, devoid of its surroundings; thus, I like to build out a composition around the subject, adding other points of interest (here, the text in the window and the ivy on the wall) to better balance the photo as a whole. That intentionality paid off, and I find this image to be very compelling, satisfying my desire to photograph at this location!

Off of Portage Avenue, South Bend, Indiana.

South Bend Monument Works, South Bend, Indiana.

Continuing on, I found a faded, run-down building that grabbed my attention, and I stopped to explore this area, finding a lot for my camera to capture. Two sections of this building yielded excellent photos, one a pure Extraction and one almost so. In the Extraction, I focused on a green-painted window, my reflection barely visible in the background while flowing sections of white bounce between straight lines that mimic the edge of the frame. This is one of my favorite photos of the day; like the photo of the antique shop the week before, it feels different than the other Extractions I have made in the past, opening up new territory for me to explore! In the photo that approaches abstraction but doesn't quite reach it, I selected a larger area for my canvas, including a bit of the ground along with the wall of panels that interested me the most. In doing so I sacrificed some of the potential abstraction of this scene, but I think it was worth it—not unlike the photo of the sign earlier, the "Not In Front" text benefits from the greater context of its environment, making more sense when presented together with the panelling and cracked concrete.

Extraction—Portage Avenue, South Bend, Indiana.

Not In Front, South Bend, Indiana.

I employed cracked concrete to good effect in another photo from this same area, placing it in the foreground of the next shot to balance out a tangle of power lines in the top of the frame. This scene is absolutely one I would have photographed five years ago, but the way I approached the composition is more nuanced. A few years ago I would have likely tried to place the main string of objects (building, van, telephone poles, house) on one flat plane, with no attention to what's in the foreground of the image; here, though, I shot the same objects in a line moving from front to back, with the concrete and the power lines filling in negative space. This speaks to my growth since my early film explorations—I'm still learning, still moving forward, but I can see definite improvement in the ways I use composition and framing, and that excites me greatly!

Untitled.

By now I had shot eleven images, and still had more of the roll to shoot; I was using a roll of 220 film, which gives me twenty photos per roll instead of the usual ten. Normally I would prefer to only have to find ten photos in the space of my lunch hour, but since I was feeling so good about it I pushed myself a little more, hoping I could finish the roll in the time allotted me. I did succeed in my efforts, taking nine more photos before I went back to work, out of which three particularly move me. In the first I peer down a street lined on either side with telephone poles and fall foliage, an ivy-covered tower and an electrical substation anchoring the photo in the middle. The strong vertical and horizontal lines combine to subframe this image multiple times, and the "A" of the street sign on the right edge adds a fun little element of interest to the scene. Contrasting with this very ordered composition is the second photo, which is awash in bright colors and plants at every level. A lone telephone pole and the hints of a fence and a house are the only man-made objects here, mostly lost in the sea of trees, bushes, and grass that indicate to me that the natural world might be reclaiming what belongs to it. These two photos were taken within probably a hundred feet of each other, and the third image closes the triangle, facing towards the opposite side of the street that occupies the first image. In this shot I was drawn to an American flag in the window of a nearby house, choosing to place it between two prominent telephone poles in the foreground. In the right side of the frame a gas station and a billboard sit nestled amongst trees and buildings, while the blur of a passing car shows that despite appearances this was still the middle of a workday, and life was happening all around me. It was soon time to rejoin this normal flow of life, but I left feeling as good as when I started—even with the limitations of time and amount of film I had, I captured another piece of the Ordered World, adding several more solid photos to What My Left Hand is Doing!

Elwood Drive & Anderson Avenue, South Bend, Indiana.

Untitled.

South Bend, Indiana.