Greenhouses

He must be mad??

My journey to and from photography assignment # 17

Being a bumbling, but enthusiastic amateur photographer, what do you do when your residence is flanked by pretty big lake and diametrically opposite, is thousands of kilometres of flat treeless agricultural landscape? Punctuated with hundreds of greenhouse complexes!!

Get frustrated and play online poker. Over walk the dog? Perhaps; or one can keep pushing outward in scope, physical and creative. Sounds noble, sensible, the smart thing to do. I wish it was so easy. What I find is I go through these monthly cycles of there is nothing left to shoot, don’t talk to me, I’m doomed, too Gee, perhaps that would be a fun project.

Well, I like to walk you through photography assignment # 17 and how I took what I thought was a pretty mundane subject and tried to find alternative visual representations, as best as I could conceptualize behind the lens. Just to be clear, I have no illusions that these images are going to make me famous or infamous (which would be more fun), even for 5 minutes.  What I am trying to achieve here is to simply demonstrate that there can always be another way to look at and present, what is normally familiar and boring.

To start off; let’s begin on where I live. It is as far south that one can get in Canada, in a small town called Kingsville, situated right on the edge of Lake Erie, in the province of Ontario. For reference, by car, I can be in downtown Detroit in about 40 minutes. And speaking of Detroit. Wow! Simply fascinating and definitely a photographers gold mine. But let’s get back to Ontario and Greenhouses.

Living in this local for the past 5 years, I have been up every back road, climbed over and under fences in No trespass areas, been out and about in rain, snow, fog, all on the hunt for that elusive self satisfying image. All of this time, driving by hundreds of greenhouses, old, dilapidated, new or under construction, with never a passing thought to their photographic potential.

Until, I did!

For better or worse, here are some examples of my greenhouse conceptual abstractions.

 

 I saw the track hoe on a daylight run, which looked uninspiring, but I knew that the greenhouses were awash in light and so upon return, early in the morning, I was rewarding with this image.

The next image caught my eye, as I am a big fan of leading lines. In this case, my standard operating procedure was to wait for the lake to deliver fun skyward and I show up with a camera. Since I wanted to capture as much of the roof as possible I brought along a step ladder and positioned it on an accommodating pile of dirt.

The same greenhouse complex affording me the following image. Normally the greenhouse have blinds drawn during the evening so as not to piss off the locals with mega light pollution. So, I waited for an unveiling, and what fun to see these floating humans suspended as they tended their buds.

On the chopping block. I love old building, tractors, rust and decay. With help from the app, clear outside, I got a lead on the mornings skyscape and liked the drama it afforded the old barn and its long time companion, the tractor. A year from now, I suspect the barn is gone and a greenhouse will repose there.

 

The photograph above, I captured by shear luck. Driving to another location; another assignment, I just happened to catch this dead greenhouse out of the corner of my eye. Amazing, I have not been in an accident yet, for all of the rubber necking I do driving.

The complex below provided these two images. The first I liked because of the rhythm provided of the awnings. I returned after scouting the location, when the sky provided some nice theatre. Popped by again at night with a flash, held it over my head and got the second image.

 

 

In this case, I came back to this location with the intent of using myself as the prime point of interest by positioning myself adjacent to the building side or in some other pose. I was about to wrap up, when this guy came buzzing through and luck gave me this shot.

 

The image above reflects my dedication to the assignment. It was my third time to this location and I made a point to be there on a Sunday when there were no construction workers and a suitable skycape was available.  I committed to this image, because my assignment required that I have at least one shot showing a greenhouse evolving.

I wanted to get at least a few photographs of the soon to be gone dead greenhouses in the region.

The first one was a classic scouting image. I will take these shots and view later on my iMac to determine visual potential. The image had a dead sky, but I liked the jumble of wires that remained of the roof. Again, when the gods of the sky delivered, I returned and used myself as the prime point of interest in the photograph.

          There is a lot more, but I think you get the idea.

Photography assignments will snowball and guaranteed; ones photography will improve and you sure will get to know the area around where you live.

Now the bad news. 

Since photography assignment # 17 has been concluded, I am again caught up in that feeling of being doomed and having to face the omnipresent spectre of the ‘nothing to shoot syndrome’. 

But then again, I did mention Detroit. Right?

Thank you for viewing. Additional photographic exercises in insanity, can be seen on my encrypted just for fun website, Michael O’Hara Photography (oharaphoto.ca). 

If you are a fan of mechanical graveyards and they’re relics, silhouettes, mannequins and so on, maybe there’ll be some images you will enjoy. 

Note: All photographs are copyrighted.

All of the greenhouses images that I liked are located at my Greenhouse portfolio.

This article was also published by the photography site 1ooASA