Small Towns
I had a photography project in mind as I prepared for an upcoming show with my artists’ group. How about photographing a small town near my home and putting the images in an old window instead of in frames? I headed out early one morning to start gathering the images. There are a lot of quaint older buildings in this town, many of which are empty, and I had no trouble finding some I wanted to document. A beautiful old hotel with balconies and interesting stairs caught my eye. But, then, the scourge of photographers appeared in my viewfinder…..power lines.
Small towns have a lot of power lines. Big power lines, little power lines that are crisscrossing the street and each other. Now I have a problem. I cannot photograph these beautiful buildings without having a power line in each shot. Here’s what I was seeing.
But, as luck would have it, as I walked and shot, going down the street on one side and returning on the other, I started seeing reflections in the windows along Main Street. Beautiful reflections, distortions of reflections, and distortions in the old glass. You can even see distorted face shapes in these windows.
So, I kept shooting, excited about what I was seeing and how I could use them in my art piece. This is the result of many hours of shooting, planning, re-sizing, moving images around, printing more images to try out, on and on. I like it.
As I was returning home on one of the trips from my small town photography jaunt, I again noticed the scourge. I was traveling southwest toward a beautiful mountain view, but as in the town, my view was marred by the signs of civilization.
Patricia Temples Photography 