Photos In search of decay

I went off in search of some great decay shots, but the weather refused to cooperate. So I donned the flashgun and decided to be a little more creative to see what I could get. What I got was a trip around some smelly fields full of cow pats and a maniac with a gun and hound hunting peo... squirrels and other animals. Fortunately the photos didn't turn out that bad given the somewhat overcast conditions.


This leaf was one its own, and curiously the only one with beads of water on it. I think it was water anyway...


This pond was stagnant, ahh perfect for some lovely decay piccies - or so I think. It turns out its rather difficult to take photographs of stagnant ponds that don't look... stagnant. So I decided to go low and let the flash do the work the sun refused to do. I think it turned out OK, but it looks like a rather nice pond rather than stagnant now.


Finally I arrived at my second pre-determined spot for getting some nice decay piccies. By this time the clouds had got together for a good natter, and the sun didn't feel like getting involved any more causing conditions to look grim. I had a bash at emphasising the front loader thing, but couldn't really get what I wanted. Time to be creative I think.


So here I am thinking I should be creative, but that would require me to be creative. Can't be doing that, so I just decided to turn the zoom wheel during a longer exposure. Later on I could say I was trying to show how tractors are heavy and cause things to shake when they go past or something. It sounded arty, so I'll probably get away with it.


This tractor had 'JCB' on it, so it must be fancier than the other one. Better get a shot of this one too, might get bonus points for showing off an expensive piece of kit. Hopefully no one will notice it's rusting away and that there's some funky industrial waste underneath.

At this point there were a lot of gun shots in the distance along with some barking. This was followed after a short interlude with two rapid shots and 'Come back here!' and some whistling. I get a phone call mentioning there's a nutter with a gun and that I should probably get to safety sharpish. And so my photography expedition ended.

Oh yeah for the techy-inclined, all shots come from a Nikon D80, Sigma 10-20mm and an SB400 flashgun. Well the flashgun wasn't used for all the piccies, but it was attached to the camera the whole time. It's weight might have made the camera steadier or something for the ones it didn't fire.

 

The flash works well for the first picture and gives some excellent colors, but the same setup doesn't look right in the second picture. The colors in the foreground don't match up with the sunlit colors of the background, and the entire middle of the picture is far darker than either extreme.

The zoom effect on the last two pictures is interesting. It's not something I've ever seen done before. Although, if the second tractor was rusting away you could probably have taken a normal photo of it and entered it as a POTM. Actually, you might want to toss the first blue tractor into the competition and see what comes of it.

 

I like the strong colours you've achieved in the first couple with use of flash, but I'm not sure they particularly depict this month's theme - maybe last month?

I see what you're going for in the first tractor shot but, as you say, not sure it's quite there. And funky effect with the latter two. Not tried that myself.

Btw, hilarious commentary throughout, thank you.

 

Thanks for the kind comments and constructive criticism You inspired me to search the archives to see if I missed something - and I did! Well, kind of.


I took the pond without flash, but the sky was horribly burned out. Might have to get some of those new-fangled graduated filter things. You can kind of see the green stuff that says 'don't drink, you'll die', but not too clearly.


More flash! It wouldn't do to not fire that thing every time, so here it is. A nasty, awful picture that has lots of tasty rust and everything else is just a mess. I'm ashamed to say I tried to take that angle 10 times - and that was the best one...


This I glanced over first time because it seemed to have just one colour - orange. The flash (yay flash!) caused the white balance to heat up, and initially I didn't like it. But after reading your comments, crazybob, I thought I'd have another look. Might have to toss the blue tractor in after all. Maybe I should explain first - because it doesn't necessarily say 'decay' at first glance. What I want to do is have decay that looks good (who doesn't!). The tractor in my opinion is pretty decayed, it's been poorly maintained, and is probably a death trap. But the leaves are pretty, and have settled on the unused tractor like a kind of blanket. The curved leaf bed thing kind of looks like those circular car display things too, at least to me. It's like 'hey, look at this dying tractor!'. Well... I like it! Constructive criticism (even 'omg you suck, the composition is so poor my grandmother can do better with her disposable camera') is welcome!

Oh yeah, I'm not normally flash mad But the ambient light was so painfully bland, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I have a disturbing attraction to eye-searing colours.

Hwulex, it's surprisingly easy to do. All the shots are handheld, the zoom seems to mask the shake completely even on a long exposure. Have a play! Feel like a kid once again, break all the rules!

 

With the blown out sky and not easily depicted green stuff in the first second posted image (errrr), you could try a polariser. This would have allowed you to remove the reflections from teh water making it easier to see the evil green goo.

Will try the zoomy thing at some point. I've seen it done before but never remembered to try. Good one to attempt at a sports event, I think - maybe one of the impending cycle races.

 

Had a play and came up with this:



Converted to greyscale and tweaked the curve a little.

 

woah, got contrast?

 

It's all or nothing for me I noticed elsewhere the winning photos tend to burn out your retina, so I had an attempt at the same:



Remember, it's only a good photo if it's burned into your retina for life!