You see the final product of our photography excursions and hopefully, marvel at the beauty of the places we visit and the story we try and tell through out pictures. What you don't see are some of the challenges capturing these images!
Photography is often a creative adventure - creative in the sense that it takes time to find the locations, check out the scenes, and then look beyond what you "see" to capture what else is there. We have had many moments when we would be walking through a city or out for a drive and I would abruptly stop, snap a few pictures, then continue along. Early on, Maureen would say, "What did you see? I didn't see it?". "Just wait until you see the final product", I would say. We are past those Q&A moments, now, and both of us are always anxious to see what comes of it when the photos are out of the camera and into the digital darkroom. In another blog, we will show a few of these, "Huh? What?" moments.
This blog is about the times when we have been "miles from anywhere", out on a country road, standing on a street with no one present, and from nowhere, someone appears and says, "Hey, what are you doing!?" These usually never start out as a friendly, "just curious", encounter. Although we are on public property, people tend to get upset when you are taking a picture of their "stuff". We talk-through it and generally get them comfortable with the process.
Here are some photos of those moments. We have included a brief "set-up" description of the event.
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| 1800's Old house and solitary tree |
OLD HOUSE & TREE
Wisconsin State Highway 10. Near Appleton. We had driven by this old house several times. This time, we decided to pull over and take some shots of this fine old building and its companion, a weather-warped tree. It screamed for a black & white treatment! No one was around for miles. We just stepped out of the car to start taking the pictures and a car pulled up. "What are you doing?" Taking pictures we explained. "This is my grandfather's house. It's dangerous. You can't go in there" "We aren't", I said. "Well, it is going to be torn down. You can't walk on the property", she said. "We aren't", I said. I proceeded to take the shots, she proceeded to stand by me and "protect" the house and make sure I wasn't stepping a foot off the road. We didn't. Finished, we hopped back in the car and away we went...with the lady following us to the next town!
GRAIN SILOS - Near Appleton Wisconsin
Highway 10 (again). We found this old grain silo structure along the road. No one in sight. About 1/2 block away, walking out from a Country Store, a man came at us in a hurried pace asking what we were doing. "Taking pictures of this old silo", I said. "Why, what's wrong with it!?", he said. Back and forth we went.
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| Grain Silo |
GRAFTON WISCONSIN - OLD STONE CHURCH
Again, fabulous deteriorated old stone church that we thought would make a perfect photograph. No one around. Parked the car, started taking pictures. Out came a man from a nearby house, screaming mad, threatening, very disturbed and confrontational. It was his old church. "What are doing with these pictures?" "Are you making money from my property?" "You can't take these pictures - this is my property and you can't take a picture." Ugly situation. This one ended with no agreement other than us walking away and getting in the car, with the pictures.
Later, once I processed them, we put a photo of one of the shots in a frame and drove it back to the guy's house to give it to him. We just drove onto his drive ... and out he came, barreling toward us. "What are you doing on my property?" (He seemed to have forgotten who we were from the day before). In the end, he seemed to appreciate getting the photo. His main issue was that in the past, people used his church for wedding photos without asking permission (walking onto the property as well) and others have "made money" from it. We were cool in the end! Still, a tough guy with some protection issues.
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| Remants of an old stone church |
In other blogs and from time to time, we will have more stories along these lines. As we always say, there is no end to being surprised about how people react to you when you are standing there with a camera!
