It’s Sunday evening. I’ve got my legs kicked up on the coffee table and a glass of wine sitting next to me. This is not just any normal Sunday evening activity. This weekend I earned this. I planned to go to Old Town, Fredericksburg for the Photo Safari assignment. It’s an interesting little town with some unique places and artwork.
Originally, I wanted to get there on Saturday morning before things got busy and the heat became unbearable. Since it’s the weekend and I was lacking the motivation, I missed my opportunity to get out of bed early to get things done. I made it downtown just in time for the Saturday lunch rush. The sun was beating down and the heat was relentless, I spent a few minutes to catch my bearings and then I was off.
My first photo was the fence at a child care center. They had taken the time to paint each fence panel a different color with different designs on each one. This really struck me as a place of joy for the little ones. I knew something was there but I struggled with the angles. The photo I ended up using was the best of the ones I took but I wasn’t completely satisfied with it. I know there’s a better photo there but my phone camera was at the limits of it’s capabilities.
I came across a construction crew working in a cellar of one of the historic building. I quickly explained to the foreman I was working on a project and that I just wanted to take a couple pictures. Well, this turned out to be a waste of time except for one where my camera focused on the light reflecting off of the dust. Another waste of time was trying to figure out the converging lines. I was messing around with different lens, looking for converging lines and things I could use. Then out of nowhere I spotted the sundial on the side of a building, what an awesome find for my scavenger hunt. Another surprising find was the shoes. I had comes to terms with the fact that I was going to just ask a stranger if I could take a picture of their shoe. Maybe I could do this without seeming like a creep, but it’s highly unlikely. While I was walking around and putting off the inevitable perv with a foot fetish encounter I came across a church or something. It had a sign on the door that read “No stranger here. Within these doors only friends that have not met.” laying right outside were a pair of white Reeboks. I was a little disappointed they didn’t have grass stains on them but oh well.
Shortly after the shoes and still walking around looking for scenes that I could use to fit the remaining requirements, I came across an alleyway I hadn’t been down before. There are no bars, restaurants, or any other establishments, so there was no reason for me to have traveled this path. It was dingy and rundown with trash debris piled up along the neglected back entrances to buildings.
My favorite picture from this photoshoot was “No Parking” photo. To me it was a complex photo. Here I am in a beautiful historic town, in a dingy alleyway. There is a beautiful building with historic stone and brick work on all sides but in the back is a hodgepodge collection of scrap wood. A door with no hinges and padlocks on both sides. Finally, the hand painted no parking sign. It’s seems ridiculous to me that in the condition of this space, that parking would be the line in the sand that the owners would be taking a stand on.
