Pictures

Ok...so I took some pictures of a road. I don't really know why, I guess I always liked streets and chutes, avenues...highways especially. I spent a lot of my time growing up on roads and am always able to let my mind open up and just think when I see them. I often think that there is some kind of connection streets and roads have, kind of like the whole six degrees of separation thing. Anyway my "process" of taking these pictures was more or less random. I walked out of my house, around my neighborhood for fifteen minutes until I found a street i thought I could do something with. My first shot was taken from the bottom of a hill

This one was taken with my tripod extended to full height. I like the way I mess with the angle and it makes the slope of the hill almost invisible, at least until the very end. But even so one can't tell that it's a hill I'm shooting, the road does almost appear to curve instead.
From there I went to the top of the hill for this image:

This one was shot from a low angle to hide the hill yet again, though not as successfully. I do like the triangle the trees create just off center on this one.
I was preparing to get a shot of the hill from a high angle on the tripod to reveal just how steep it is but then a car came turning onto it. I figured it would be a good idea to listen to Ballenger and attempt to run with the unexpected. So I took several shots at different zooms trying to follow the car until it was out of sight. The following is an edited group of  all the pictures taken while it drove down the hill.

As you can see another car joined the first on its trip downhill. With the higher angle on the tripod you can see a much steeper hill than before. I also like how the angle of the shot makes just two trees appear to be a canopy all the way down the hill and rest of the road.
The next two images are taken from an angle off of the road and higher up from the addition sign. I was trying to catch another traveling car as it was right in the cross of two trees...I didn't quite get it right the first time and the second time didn't work out either...

 

So after that I felt I kind of ran out of ideas of what to shoot for this road...and tried a low angle of the street that bordered it.

 

I like this one because of how low it is and the constant painting and repainting of the yellow line in the center paired with the angle makes it look somewhat distorted. Looking at it now I feel like an animal that has just been blinded by the headlights and is trying to cross the road still.  

I also tried to get a picture of this road from the border of someone people's back yards...It doesn't work out to well though.

 

You can't see the road from such a low angle so this was a bad shot and seems unrelated. But I do like the way the ditch slowly takes form before your eyes.

As luck would have it as I decided to start down the hill back home or in search of another photo opportunity a friend (Matt) happened to drive by, see me and stop. I talked to him for a minute before he offered me a ride home. Rather than do that inspiration...or insanity (which is which?)  struck and I straddled the closed door/open window of his car and told Matt to drive down the hill! I took the last few images while hanging the majority of my body outside of Matt's car while we sped down hill.

 

 

 

 

I think what I learned form this assignment is forget having a plan, just do stuff and let how awesome and random my life is lead to hilarious events with epic results. Or something about the importance of improv...I like my way of putting it better though...