Story Behind Image

Farm From the Road: The Story Behind the Image /  by Todd Henson

Farm From the Road (Mount Jackson, Virginia)

My brother and I were on a trip to see the Fourth of July fireworks from Skyline Drive, in Shenandoah National Park. We were curious what the valley would look like from the mountains. On our way there we passed through Mount Jackson, Virginia. We knew of a covered bridge in the area and wanted to see it. But the bridge didn’t end up the highlight of that drive, at least not for me.

We passed by the farm in the photo above, with the green fields in the foreground. Something about it caught my eye. As a kid I’d always been fascinated by the foreground blur seen from the passenger seat of a car. Something about the farm brought back that memory. So I asked my brother to turn around and drive down the road again. This time I had my camera ready, set with a slow enough shutter speed to allow the foreground green crops to blur while we drove by.

To capture a sharp view of the farm I panned the camera from the car, keeping the lens pointed at the farm while we moved by in the car. This takes practice. You need the right shutter speed to give the effect you want, and you need to keep your camera steady as you pan. My brother kept the car as steady as he could and I kept the camera as steady as I could. I used a shutter speed of 1/20 of a second, which in this light required an aperture of f/18 at ISO 200.

We probably drove over the stretch of road 3 or 4 times before deciding to move on. I’ve no clue what we might have looked like to someone at the farm. But I’m pleased with the results. It was a fun day, and we still had the fireworks to look forward to the following evening.

For this image we were moving slowly, maybe 35 miles per hour, and the subject was at a distance, so I was panning very slowly. But you can also try photographing subjects much closer to the car, or from a faster moving car, requiring you to pan much faster and creating much more motion blur in the foreground or background.

Have you ever photographed from a moving car? Give it a try sometime (just be sure you’re a passenger). It can be a lot of fun, and you never know what you might create.

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Waterfall in Autumn /  by Todd Henson

Part of the FDR Memorial showing a waterfall and quotation in autumn.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. is a large memorial with a lot to see. It has waterfalls and sculptures and is full of quotations from FDR. The memorial is spread out with different sections separated from others by various features. I think it’s really well done. I enjoy walking through it looking for new angles to photograph.

The photo above shows one small part of the memorial, with a waterfall and pool, a tree whose leaves are changing colors, and a quotation from January 9, 1940 from FDR’s second term. The quotation reads:

“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 9, 1940

I performed a lot of dodging and burning on this image trying to bring out the beauty of the location, enhancing the colors in the leaves and drawing attention to the waterfall and the quotation.

If you’re ever in the D.C. area, stop by and visit the memorial yourself. It’s well worth the visit.

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Driving Through the Rocky Mountains /  by Todd Henson

A view from the road while driving through Rocky Mountain National Park

A number of years ago I had the opportunity to spend a day in Rocky Mountain National Park.This particular photograph was created from one of the many scenic pull offs on the road that weaves its way through the park.

The sky was full of clouds and the light was always changing. At times you could see a storm in the distance dropping rain or snow. The view isn’t one of the iconic views from the area, but I still like it. It’s a very beautiful location.

These scenes seem to work well in black in white, so that’s how I chose to process this image. The photo then becomes about tones, textures, and patterns. It simplifies the image. I most often photograph for color, but lately I’ve been exploring black and white.

Give it a try with your own photographs. First try picking photos from your back catalogue that might work as black and white and experiment with different conversions. Then start looking for scenes that might look great in black and white and create images in camera with the specific purpose of later converting them.

If you photograph in RAW (which I recommend) it might be helpful initially to set your camera to its black and white or monochrome setting. This should only affect the JPEG that gets embedded in the RAW file. Your camera will still capture and store all the color information. Doing this will let you view the photo in black and white on the back of the camera and help you see how the scene might look in black and white. Later, when you import the photo into your computer you can work on it in black and white, or process it in full color. That’s one benefit of RAW: it records all the information. It’s up to you how you choose to process it.

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