"Central Valley Decay"

A retired oil derrick wastes away in the Central Valley of California. This is a common site when wells are tapped out or money isn't available for repair or disassembly. A blend of two exposures to bring forward detail of the rig with it's wonderful colors. Thanks for any conversation!

Who said heavy industry can't look beautiful!  I have a theory that in the right light and at the right time even the most mundane places can look amazing. I think that maybe this is a classic example of that theory. Of course it's the guy behind the camera's job to capture the event, and theres no doubt that you have done it justice. The sky is just awesome!

Very well done Mark!

Best Regards

Alf

Wonderfully atmospheric.

very interesting industrial documentary with emotional touch. It looks some kind of surreal lika a huge animal, an elephant walking over steppe. Regards, Burak

This looks like it stepped out of a Stephen King book/movie! I almost expect the thing to move  ;) Beautiful and surreal, great eye Mark.

Warm regards, Pamela

Is a moment when even this kind of subject can be so interesting,splendid sky colors,regards.

Thanks Alf, Bill, Burak, Pamela and Radu! When I first put this up, I didn't think it would get much love. If you stray from the conventional landscape, i.e. majestic mountains, lake reflections, coastal seascapes, waterfalls and slot canyons, you can get killed on this platform. At one time, they had a "uniqueness" rating before they changed to just a single number. Problem was, the least unique were getting 7's, and work like this was getting 4's and 5's. I shoot these old oil wells to present something unique, albeit not so aesthetic. I agree with Alf. I have always felt that if I have a good sky, then just finding a subject of any kind will complete a formula, if you will. No doubt, the interest level for something like this shot at midday under a cloudless sky would be weak, but so would a mountain or seascape for that matter!

Mark, I see that you are doing a bit of recycling of locations too. I liked your earlier ones and this is up there with them.

Thanks Jeff! If I didn't recycle locations, I wouldn't be taking pictures lol! I have a small collection of "go to" locations I revisit often within 25 miles, this one happens to be about a mile from my house. The better locations are in the foothills and will soon be coming alive with wildflowers. I hope I will be getting out twice a week during that tome!

This is really one of your better pump-jack sunsets!  Wonderful composition, and the exposure and post-processing blending simply could not be better.  Superb work, Mark!  That sky is just magnificent.  Thanks for sharing this with us.  Cheers!  Chris

P.S. I will contact you soon, and we can set up a couple of foothills wildflower trips.  I recently purchased CS5 and am looking forward to playing around with it.

Thanks Chris!! That would be excellent, considering we haven't been out to shoot together since summer of 08 I believe. Woah dude, that's a long time! I also purchased CS5, but it only operates on my laptop. I will need a pentium for the desktop, so the only way to use it is to hook the laptop up to the monitors and the digital tablet, which of course is just plain inconvenient. Such a difficult life lol!

Beautiful

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