“The End” !!!  What?  Wait !! How do I take a photograph of the “the end” ? “The end.”  Of what?  The world?  What?  I’ll have to figure that one out before I’m finished.  “Old wood”, no problem that abounds in Natrona County.  “Lines”,  ok, I can do that.  “Animals”!!  Hey, this is Wyoming. There is wildlife everywhere, even in town. So, no problem. “Framed”, fine, that can be done but might be cliché.  “Chimney”??  Well, We might be able to find something.  “Orange”!! Oh, no.  It’s Fall.  How about yellow or gold?  Nope, it was “Orange” by decree of the president of the club even though I protested.  “Partner”.  Ok,  I can handle that.  Those were the themes the Casper Photography Association came up with for their annual photo scavenger hunt.

It was once again a challenge.  We picked eight themes and a partner, and we were to go out and figure ways to illustrate the theme in a photograph.  We could only use two pictures for each theme.   Consequently we were limited on the number of times we could click the shutter.  I can do this!  I know I can!  Even this old fuddy duddy can come up with something.  Fortunately, we weren’t expected to do this alone.  We could consult with our partner and we could explore the community together feeding off each other’s ideas.

I managed to muddle through the morning and come up with a few pictures that didn’t turn out to badly.  If it wasn’t for my partner, Denny, and his inspiration, I wouldn’t have done very well.

Our first idea was to go to the Oil and Gas Commission office where there is an old, antique drilling rig that was made of wood.  What a great idea for “old wood”!  As we were driving to take that picture, we passed a  flock of geese sashaying along the river bank.  Denny mentioned that maybe we could get our animal picture there, so I quickly found a turn around place and went back to where the congregation of birds were, grabbed the camera and jumped out of the car.  Denny was having some problems with his camera and didn’t get any shots because the geese quickly strutted off and out of site.   I did manage to shoot the one picture shown below.  After taking a gander at the picture I decided instead of “animal” I could use this as my “orange” picture because the beaks and feet of the geese showed so much orange. It was a stretch but if I didn’t get any others better I could also change my fancy and use it for the “animal” picture.

orange beaks and feet

“The end”  I imaged would be a very difficult theme to portray, but once again Denny saved the day.  He knew a great place.  We hiked up a blacktopped path after parking in a lot in Mills. It turned in a longer tramp than I anticipated as Denney has long legs compared to my shorter limbs. Keeping up with him was turning into a chore and I could feel my breathing get heavier as if I was chasing a deer. Oh, wait, it was Denny I was trying to keep up with. He walks like a deer runs, but finally there in front of us was the end of the tracks.  What a perfect place for our theme, “the end”.  Catching my breath I tried to conjure up a good composition.  Denny wanted to get both rails in his picture and the two signs on each side of the track.  He was right in his thoughts,  the track ends and the signs tells the rest of the story.  I was concerned the viewer might not be able to read the signs in the 4″ x 6″ prints we were going to use to show our creations.  Consequently, I used only one sign and the track ending.

The End

As Denny was photographing his vision of “the end”, I saw what I thought would be a not to bad picture of the theme, “lines.”

Lines

I would call these lines more specifically leading lines as the rails lead the viewer’s eye right to Denny who is the subject of the picture.  The rails are not really the subject they add to the composition by helping the viewer find the subject easier.  Even the railroad ties help in finding the subject in that they are the repetitive, monotonous pattern and the subject is the oddball, interesting shape.  No, I didn’t call Denny an oddball even though he might argue with that, but his shape is so very different (oddball) from the rails or the ties.   Consequently, he sticks out and is easily noticed, and that’s one of the things that make a good photo, the subject is easily recognized and seen by the viewer.

The last photo theme I would like to tell you about is “animal.”  Search as we might from whipping around the gravel road drive through at Garden Creek Falls, then careening over Wyoming Boulevard, and cruising around town, we couldn’t find any more animals since we spotted the geese.  Now this is Wyoming.  There is wildlife everywhere, so where to proceed? Racking my feeble brain, I finally suggested we drive up by the Events Center as usually there were antelope there.  No luck until we saw a two track dirt road with humps of yellow grass growing in the center.  Denny suggested we follow it, so I turned my Blazer onto the rough, pot hole-filled road.  As we crested a small grass covered hill, there they were, two nice bucks.  I eased the Blazer closer just knowing the critters would jump and skedaddle at any minute.  They hung around long enough for us to grab our pictures.  The best part of my picture below I believe is its simplicity.  I used my zoom lens to crop out and was fortunate enough  to be slightly down hill from the buck.  That allowed me to shoot up and skylight the buck against a beautiful blue sky.  The foreground grass adds to the simplicity.  Once again there is a repetitive pattern and the odd shape, the buck, stands out.  Denny was also able to capture a nice picture of a buck antelope.

Animal

Notice how the colors all go together.  The gold grass, the tan antelope, the blue sky with a few white clouds.  Simplicity, balance, angle, and color all go together to make this a nice photograph.

“The end” turned out ok but it wasn’t my best photo.  The “animal” photo probably was the best I did that day.  All in all. it was a good day of photography filled with challenges, some met, some not, but a good day.

Please go to my photo web site so you can enjoy some additional photographs of mine.   http://samsherman.imagekind.com/store/default.aspx