Nature's Way
Nature will always win, in the end, against all things, it will find a way. This small plant growing in the tail light of an old Oldsmobile as it is slowly rec...
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Nature will always win, in the end, against all things, it will find a way. This small plant growing in the tail light of an old Oldsmobile as it is slowly reclaimed by the world around it proves that.
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Apr, 2017Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Old Car City USA in Georgia. I first learned about this place, which started out as a car junk yard, while watching a video on KelbyOne several years ago. Acres upon acres of vintage cars left to go back to nature.Time
Thankfully I was visiting on a cool overcast day, which allowed me to shoot without harsh shadows throughout the day. Old Car City is open only during daytime hours and I actually arrived later than I had planned after a longer stop in the morning at one of the area's waterfalls. EXIF says 1:30pm, but I suspect that was still on CST time zone, so local time would have been around 2:30pm.Lighting
All natural light on this photo. While I was hauling around my flash units and colored gels for some additional lighting for some shots I took that day, this photo has no additional lighting.Equipment
This photo was taken with my Canon 6D paired with the Canon 50mm f/1.4. The 50mm is a lens that I admittedly do not use near as much as I probably should, but for this sort of 'portraits of automotive art' or some of my 'portraits of nature' type shots, it does come out of the bag from time to time. I was shooting hand held, at ISO200 and an f-stop at 3.2 to provide just a little extra DOF while still giving a plenty high shutter speed not to need the tripod.Inspiration
Old Car City is all about the patina and experience of seeing how nature takes over all things given time. There are old trucks with trees growing out of their grills, rusty patina covering cars of the 40's through the 70's. This photo seemed to take the entire experience and strip it back to its most pure form. A small plant growing out of the corner of an Oldsmobile taillight.Editing
Not a whole lot of post-processing on this one. Most of what was done is just enhancements to the contrast to bring out the greens in the plant and then enrich the brown tones with a bit more of a red/orange hue to compliment the green focal point. As with most of my photos, a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop were used to achieve the final look.In my camera bag
I am primarily a landscape shooter, and as such I carry a trio of Canon L-series zoom lenses as my primary set for landscape shooting. The 16-35 F4L, 24-105 F4L and 70-200 F4L are all fantastic landscape lenses that offer lighter weight than their faster 2.8 counterparts, keeping the weight of my bag down for longer hikes. Another mainstay of my kit is the excellent Breakthrough X4 series of ND filters. For days where I'm stepping further outside my comfort zone, I have a number of prime lenses from the 14mm Rokinon SP f/2.4 to a vintage Nikkor 300mm f/4 and many in between that might get swapped in or out.Feedback
Old Car City is an amazing place to explore, even if you don't have a camera in your hand, for anyone who has even a passing interest in vintage automobiles. And it's a perfect place to experiment and try many different styles and looks of shots on the cars there. From wide angle shots of entire cars, to more focused 'portraits' of specific elements such as this shot. Overcast skies certainly help here, as the entire area is quite heavily wooded, bright sun would create a lot of shadows that can make shooting very difficult. Overcast days also help bring out the colors and mood of the cars in their environment.
