Experiencing Main St, Duncanville in evening light versus the morning light of several weeks ago produced a very different feeling in my body. The morning was a quiet, soft, reflective experience, while the evening was harsh with a slight feeling of unease. Maybe this had something to do with photographing with a friend versus being solo in the morning. But, nah, I think it was mostly due to the heat paired with harsher light.
I messed up my camera settings last ramble, ending with only JPGs instead of RAWs as well. For the non-photographers, this simply means far less ability to edit the final product – like coming away with large prints rather than the negatives themselves. So for this walk, I made sure I had my settings correct and came home with RAW files as well.
We walked a lot of the same route as before, leading to the capture of many of the same places in different light. This leads to different photo opportunities that just weren't possible before, and the ability to provide different looks of the same areas.
The light being so different this evening than it was in the morning demonstrates one of the main reasons I plan on shooting each place so many times in different seasons and times of day, for it leads to being able to tell a more complete story of each place than if only photographed once or twice.
There was so much more life in the evening than existed in the morning two weeks ago. At one point outside of one of the Main St developments, a couple with their newborn baby motioned for us to stop, interested in one of us taking their photo. No English. Just human connection. I've thought about adding street portraits as well – maybe that will be a future addition to this project.
For now the main change is giving up on the square format, at least on the website. The website is now getting the crop that I really want to show anyway.
The majority of the photos I'm displaying here are straight out of camera, or with really light edits. Soon I'll begin adding a page for each city with more careful edits. Edits ready for print. And with more carefully put together words that describe the place, at least how I've experienced it.
I consider these posts almost rough drafts ... ongoing work that lead to be more polished pieces. Rambles made from rambles.
By the way. I just learned that Duncanville has partnered with Better Block to re-imagine "a key stretch of the South Main Street corridor." This is awesome. Good for Duncanville. Now I have to go photograph it once or twice more before it changes in a major way.
