The Tank and Steps

This is The Tank, part of a facility near San Francisco Airport submitted

under the 'fine art' category. Your ratings and critiques are invited and

most welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

This is a really interesting image, especially with the harp-like configuration of the stairs and shadow on the larger tank. This was the thing that attracted me, but I felt a little distracted by the bright figure on the right (vent?). So I cropped it out - it's attached below (or above as the case may be). It really changes the image and I'm not sure whether I like the cropped version better - maybe just different. Does that little bright area on the right balance the big bright area on the left and provide some symmetry? Cheers.

I was faced with the same crop choice, but I felt the best way was to post the photo more in the original and let the members have a hack at it.

 

If I cropped it, then everything anybody who might have wanted to have tried would have been foreclosed. I am interested in both versions, as I am not an 'industrial photographer' or a 'photographer of industrialscapes' (if that's a word).

 

But I could be, and if I lived in the rust belt, I would be.

 

I like your version, and the balancing you're writing about seems to occur, partially, but with mine the brightness of the right helps balance out the darkness of the center, I think. It's all a matter of judgment; and there's no 'right way'.

 

Thanks for going to so much work; it's a big help.

 

John (Crosley)

I like to photograph old rusty stuff too. I hang around the San Mateo Coast a fair amount. Where is the tank? I'd like to see it myself. Steve

Just north of SFO, near a multi-story private parking garage north of the runways. It's surrounded by high fences with barbed wire, so you have to get up high to take a good shot at it with a telephoto (as this), and there are not so many shots you can get. I suggest late afternoon for this view.

 

It's a tank farm, possibly Shell. It's just south of Costco, but on another entrance/exit. It's not really very conspicuous at all, and you'll probably pass it by. Make sure you have at least a 200 mm for this, and a 400 mm would be very good, as you could take shots from a freeway overpass that would avoid the fencing more.

 

Hope this helps.

 

All my three shots posted yesterday were taken a short distance from Costco, South San Francsico. (no, I didn't shop there.)

 

John (Crosley)

John:

 

Not too much for critique, just to say I LIKE IT, very nice composition

 

JC

I like your initials.

 

And your comment.

 

Thanks.

 

JC

 

John (Crosley)

Although I went into the parking garage, I was on a service road when I took this photo, aimed up and over the Cyclone fenced topped with barbed wire. The road leads to a sewage treatment plant, I think.

 

John (Crosley)

Thanks, I'll explore the area next time I'm around there. By the way, you could just stop in to Costco, pick up a camera, shoot the tank, then get the digits developed back at the store - and save all that messy computer work. Cheers, Steve

And suppose the following (Pick any combination, Chinese menu style)

 

1. Return the camera and get a refund, no time limit still, unlike laptop computers and LCD/Plasma TVs?

 

2. Forego Photoshopping, in which case this photo would be a disaster, as it required careful balancing of whites and darks, through use of shadow/highlight filter, which one cannot do at Costo Photo.

 

3. I'm not a member, so if I 'picked one up' I'd be arrested; they would not take my money, and the only way I could get a camera out of there would be to steal it (which is something I just don't do).

 

4. Find the scene, find the Costco, find the cameras, acquire a camera, return to the scene, find the lighting has changed in the interim as its play through the steps has transformed destroying the central scene, decide to come back another day, come back another day, find it's overcast and/or foggy, wait for another week or so to get correct lighting, but then the angle of the sun has changed with the season slightly and the capture no longer is available until next Spring, if the sun will come out at the proper time of day to get the sun's angle correct.

 

5. Costco once destroyed some very valuable photos of mine, then made up a vile story to cover their asses, which has put me off my feed for using their services -- I once paid $150 twice a week or more to their photo department, but no more. Their outrageous lie has cost them tens of thousands of dollars in lost business, and no apology. Maybe if they'd apologize, I'd reconsider, but until then . . . .

 

6. I can get 20 cm x 30 cm for $1 in Ukraine = digital equivalents of 8 x 12s, for half the price that Costco charges, if I wish to get prints made (I seldom have prints made.) Quality is as high or higher with personal attention to each photo on latest and highest quality equipment.

 

That's a partial sampling.

 

All I need is Photoshop, a computer, and lots and lots of terabyte hard drives and viewers like you to view and critique. That's what I live for.

 

Thanks for enduring the above.

 

John (Crosley)

John, I've had my eye on these tanks in different places around Cali but have never stopped to photograph them. Very nice! The shadows do amazing things at different times of the day. Blessings!

I'd always seen these, but was never able to get close enough.

 

It took a tele lens here to approach this one, over a fence.

 

There are lots of possibilities, but many are now foreclosed because of security concerns.

 

Thanks for the nice comment.

 

John (Crosley)

Ahhh, your black and whites are killing me man (in a good way)!

That's a great thing to hear.  Bless you.

john

John (Crosley)