The Cloud Factory

Exceptionally fine work, Gordon. Warm regards...

Very "Gordon" again. This oldish colour world is the key element for me. Looks quite old but i guess it is not.

A very wity title! I see it in two ways, the factory chimneys are touching the cloudy sky and the facory as a producer of " clouds" ( smoke....). very uptodate subject the globe is affected by. But aside from that, is the composition! The clouds really has an ambiguity, hard to know if they are sky cloud or done by the chimneys,( probably both) as every chimney has a group of its own...as usual you are doing wonders with this technic ! the blue sky and chimney colors, their placement on the frame are very well composed .

It's getting so I could identify one of your images in the dark, with a blindfold on and from five hundred paces! You have such a distinctive style. This has the appearance of being printed on cloth. Hell, knowing you, maybe it was. Very American patriotic too, what with the red white blue and sooty coloration. It's very intriguing and fun my friend, with some ominous thrown in for good measure.

Remarkable! This is so aesthetically appealing, and intriguing. As David said, it's unmistakably Bowbrick, and it does look as if printed on fabric, but I think not. If I'm seeing it right, this is most likely a "drive-by" with trees and shrubs blurred in the foreground, clearly in front of the smoke stacks. But however you did it, you've created another rich, fascinating and lovely image!

The capturing of a rare unsuspecting vision. These creatures are hard to sneak up on. Congratulations.

Joe;

 

Always nice to hear from you.

 

Tero;

 

Your are correct this is not old at all, it was taken last week. The reforested pine tree trunks in the foreground give rise to that brownish smear.

 

Pnina;

 

I meant this to be taken in both of the ways you suggested. The large white puffy clouds in the foreground were in fact coming from those stacks and the smaller ones in the back were up higher in the sky. This is a pulp and paper mill... a truly nasty contributor to the toxicity of the planet. Without even getting into how stupid of a choice of materials trees are for making paper, when annual plants like hemp can be turned into paper with a fraction of the pollution.

 

David;

 

I suppose that is a double edged sword. It is great to be recognized for having developed a style but like an actor being typecast you have to be careful how far down that road you want to travel.

 

I did think about the colours of the Stars & Stripes when I was working on this shot. Not patriotic however since my countries flag has no blue in it :)

 

David;

 

I am pleased that you like this. Your description of what transpired here is exactly accurate and no fabric was used :)

 

Jack;

 

Thanks, I had to put on my moccasins for this one :)

I love the pairing of this brilliant puffball of an ideal cloud fluffing itself in an idyllic sky with the soot, grime, and intensity of the foreground pollution and those smokestacks standing in the way, haughty things that they are. Likable, colorful, and distressing all at once.

It seems to see an old movie! Beautiful. Elena

The suggestion of man's imposition on the heavens is evident and well articulated here. I find the color palette appropriately jarring, almost surreal, in that the blues especially are so rich and free, suggesting such purity, that it's hard to imagine the polluted air it is representing. We should be, and are, more impacted because of this. Very well done. I actually find it reminiscent of the way Jeff often uses color, as if to elevate and accentuate what we might otherwise turn a blind eye to. The composition is well presented and well timed, strong and effective.

 

What did hit me immediately upon opening it was the strong pattern of the blur. That pattern being horizontal instead of vertical makes me more conscious of your movement as photographer than of the movement of atmosphere in the image itself. The somewhat defined linear nature of the blur itself seems to constrain the smoke a bit rather than allowing it to move. Certainly, the idea of blur makes perfect sense here. I wonder if you considered or played around with a variety of executions of it that said different things.

Jeff;

 

The incongruous aspect of that pairing of the foreground and background was what inspired me to work and this one.

 

Elena;

 

I had not consider that... but yes, I can now see this as an old reel of film with all the unsuing scratches and stains.

 

Fred;

 

I have been experimenting a bit recently with colour adjustments. My usual approach has been to pretty much leave those sliders alone however I am finding that since starting to use Lightroom, the more refined nature of the adjustments has made me more curious and experimental and i am enjoying this. This was shot with a polarizer so the sky was quite dark blue already The red I did adjust a fair bit.

 

The foreground blur ironically enough is caused by a red pine forest zipping by in front of the pulp factory. I understand your comment to suggest this would look better with the foreground blur less defined. I agree with that. This factory is something I am obliged to drive by any time I head for areas East of my place so I go by it often. I have shot this scene on several previous occasions and will continue to do so. I have a different version of this scene in my drive-by folder shot from a wider angle.

 

I have begun to work with some ND filters as well as the polarizer in an attempt to get the lens more open for these shots. Given the relative distance between the factory and the forest a wider aperture should be able to throw the foreground more out of focus.

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and suggestion I am appreciative.

Who drives? Seriously I concur with the others Gordon, a very rich, unique and well done image.

you're one of the few people I know who can really make this work. But even among the good there must be better ones. This is one of them because here everything comes beautifully together. I really think this is one of your best. I've looked at it a long time and enjoy it immensely. One for the book I should say.

Sam;

 

Thanks, my lovely and talented assistant Vida ( My wife for 25years ) does the driving for most of these. I still drive with the camera ready in the passenger seat when i am in the vehicle alone.

 

Ton;

 

You've got me doing galleries and now publishing books. I better get my butt in gear if I hope to live up to your expectations :-) ...... seriously though, thanks for the vote of confidence.

In case you should happen to drop by, I have attached a second shot taken a fraction of a second later which has the foreground slightly less sharp and defined.

 

This version also makes the source of the smoke more obvious than the previous version.

Thanks for posting the second shot. It isn't the clarity of the foreground that I was talking about. I happen to like the way that works in the original shot. It's the overall defined pattern of blur that I was referring to. The horizontal patterned blurring caused naturally by the speed and direction of your own vehicular motion seems not to communicate to me the potentially billowing/ethereal feeling of the rising of smoke. The pattern of the blur makes me think of the photographer's movement more than the movement that might be inherent in the atmosphere and smoke. It's a looser (and perhaps more vertical) blur that I was considering, a less streaked kind of blur. It's not the blur of the elements per se in the shot, it's about the overall feeling of clearly directional motion.

Thanks for the follow up and further clarification. I am not sure if a more vertical motion would work here, however you raise a very interesting point about the directionality of the blur. I do find myself increasing conscious of the emotive quality of the direction the motion takes. For example I have found that a wavy vertical blur can give rise to the sensation of slowly drifting downward.

 

I have this factory on my list of sites to fully explore this summer . I often drive by this place however I think it could be a good location to wander around and explore the potentials. When I am doing that wandering your comment will no doubt have some bearing on some of my efforts.

I love the second shot. Pollution is just plain pretty sometimes. (And I mean that in all sincerity).

I do know what you mean. I recall being at a friends cottage and seeing a pump jockey at a marina overfill a tank spilling gasoline into the lake. The sun was low in the sky and the gas spreading out over the water reflected a cacophony of rainbow colours which looked amazing and truly beautiful while simultaneously being completely disgusting. The multiplicity of life is ever present.

this is simply amazing. faved.