The Allure of the Ordinary
When I decided to retire from Wall Street and pursue photography full time, I was most excited to travel to amazing locations to create sweeping, dramatic landscape images that would add greatly to my portfolio. My list of places to visit has expanded over the years; some locations are: Patagonia, the Faroe Islands, the Brittany region of France, anywhere in Italy, most national parks, New Zealand, Scotland, Valencia, Spain, and a return trip to Iceland.
During my first week after leaving my office for the last time, the pandemic took over our lives and put any travel plans I had on hold. I did manage one trip to Montana for a client, and I “volunteered” to drive my daughter’s car to Nashville, but my photography has mainly been limited to a 100 mile radius around my home. Partly due to this limitation, I have challenged myself creatively to point my camera at subjects that historically I would not have focused on. I have had some difficulty classifying this genre of photography, but I found myself attracted to relatively ordinary subjects that I normally would have passed by without stopping. However, I still make time to shoot immense waterfalls and some beautiful fall foliage. I am enjoying expanding my photography skills and training my eye to “see” the world somewhat differently.
This recent project has been inspired by artists such as Edward Hopper, Ed Ruscha, and a host of other photographers around the world that I follow on Instagram. Unlike my landscape images where I usually have a particular subject in mind, lately I have found myself driving through urban and industrial areas during both night and day hoping to be inspired by a subject or scene. This effort started during my drive to Nashville where I captured these images.
I usually visit my Dad every week in Connecticut and I have been leaving my house early to explore parts of the state that I have largely ignored most of my life in search of ordinary but interesting subjects. At times, I just shoot from my car, but when I can, I get out and work a bit more on composition — it largely depends on my ability to find a parking spot. Not surprisingly, I find myself taking a lot of bad pictures but that is the beauty of digital photography. I was tempted to clone out power lines in several of these images in Photoshop but instead chose to embrace the messiness and leave them in the images.
Ideally, I search for scenes that evoke a mood or a feeling — not an easy task as I drive around with one eye on the road and one eye scanning the area around me. On a recent trip in the Hudson Valley, I left well before sunrise to see if I could find some nighttime images that captured what I was looking for. There were a couple of motels that caught my attention and I was able to stop and set up with my tripod.
The above image on the left was one that I was particularly happy with. My instinct normally would be to not include the car on the left. However, including it helps to create some additional sense of humanity in the photo and adds to the story it tells. The fact that the windshield of the car was foggy, added to the mystery. By the way, this motel was one that, coincidentally, I had shot before. Here is an image I took last year on the way home from a landscape shoot at the same location.
Last week, I dragged my father with me on one of my photo adventures. We ended up driving through a part of New Haven that he had not been to in decades. It is an industrial area that no one really goes to unless they work there. Given my new artistic focus, it was fertile ground for me and is an area that I will likely check out again.
A number of these images are now being displayed at Vintology, a fantastic wine store in Scarsdale, NY. If you are in the area, please check them out. Say hi to the store’s owner, Dean, who has built a truly amazing local business in Westchester and is a valued part of the community.
