can we change?

 

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With probably thirty-six or thirty-seven more courthouses to chase down, it feels like there is a possible end to the driving the back roads of Virginia. Probably not this year, but possibly '09  will see some kind of completion. Finality is a scary thing. There will be the inevitable reshoots of places such as Sunday's encounter with Prince George County.

The day started clear, which was not expected, and I was facing into the sun with it right above the roof of the new court house building. Gave that one up and went a short distance away to work on the older building. It became apparent that it's been a while since I've used the Sinar. It took a while to set up, then I realized the first exposure was aligned incorrectly, the second was still too low, and when I've gotten all exposures for the day back, I see that with the third exposure that my centerlines are aligned, but the rear should have been shifted to the right to include all of one of the peripheral buildings, and exclude the extra space at the left.

What I'm finding, and finding interesting as well, is that specifics such as this are slowly evolving and changing. As I get better with the material, when I'm presented with more unusual symmetry, it's possible to stay basically true to the dead on alignment with the tripod set directly in front of the primary entrance. But the lens can be shifted slightly one way or the other to include ancillary structures.

This worked out quite well in Southampton County where I was able to include the old and the new entrances from one camera position.

Multiple exposure stitches have also worked successfully for structures too large in locations where the camera could not be moved far enough away to include the entire building.

None of this was planned at the outset as I learn what works. The methodology needs to be allowed to evolve. The project was always the goal, not the end product of having the collection. It was to learn along the way. 

Update on Friday, January 18, 2008 at 02:38PM by KMW

What this ultimately means for me is that I need to pay more attention to what I'm doing. Be less mechanical in my approach to the subject. Too often I'm banging through the steps to get another notch on the gunstock, and move on to the next victim (county). After all, this is supposed to be an Art project, not simply a documentation or a trophy hunt.