Rusted Plate - Why When And Where

In response to requests, I'm going to go over the images I have selected as long time favorites and why each image interests me enough to include it in any kind of 'greatest hits' collection, and a little bit about the circumstances of photographing it.

You likely know of my interest in photographing industrial subjects, especially abandoned or old industries. I'm not above going to museums to get access to such equipment and have had considerable success doing so in the past. I had photographed at Atlas Coal Tipple historic site in the past. This is the last surviving wooden coal tower in Canada and tours of the inside are available, which I have done previously.

The coal tipple is located east of Drumheller, in the Alberta Badlands - eroded pillars and canyons along the Red Deer River. This visit was a twofer - I'd been photographing the landscape and decided to pay a visit to the museum once again. It was late in the day and it was actually closed and though I could have hopped a very low fence, I chickened out, not wanting a confrontation and noticing a number of cars parked at nearby houses. Fortunately lying around in the forecourt of the museum grounds were a number of mining machines, all too heavy to be stolen.

I spent a delightful hour wandering around looking for interesting shapes. In this case a 3X5 foot flat steel object lying on the grass. Being flat it tended to shed rain, like many old things it wasn't perfectly flat and had two low spots which collected rain and rusted differently in these depressions and that is what makes the image. As the puddles dry a series of concentric rings form and show different amounts of rust.

I like the image because of it's almost pure abstract nature - it's a direction in which I have been moving in the last few years. The colours are attractive. To me it has a bit of an astronomical look to it with two suns approaching. Alternatively you can think of it as a nude (ok, with a lot of imagination). It might even make you think of a couple of cells in an electron microscope. The two circles are just enough asymetrical to interest me - had they balanced perfectly the image would have been really boring.

This is a recent image so I can't tell if it will have staying power - the 'my favorites' is always going to be a dynamic list - with images being added, others dropped off. I'm not fixed either on the idea of 24 images so adding a new image does not necessitate dropping another.

The image was photographed with my 1Ds2 and 90 mm. lens, using shift to create a 3 image stitch. This was then slightly cropped to get the final composition. I could just as easily stitched with any normal zoom, but I did have the opportunity to match plane of focus with the surface of the plate without standing right over it and blocking the light.