Extraction Revisited!
One of the principles of composition that I love to teach is extraction, the pulling of details out from the entire scene. I was fortunate to travel up to Harlan, Kentucky yesterday to shoot some at an coal company property. There is wealth of color and detail images. I used a FX sensor DSLR with a 24-120 and a point and shoot for most of these images, bet you can’t guess which are which!? Think about what a small area some of the images are and imagine pulling details out of the overall scene! Some are straight shots, some HDR & some Topaz Digital filters.
These are chits, in the early days of mining each miner would take a number brass disk in the mines with him each day, when he came out of the mines at night he would replace it on the board, it was how they knew who was out of the mines and who was still inside.
My good friend David Middleton, a great teacher in the photography field once said, “If done properly, a photographer will spend 90% of their time looking for great subjects in great light, and 10% of their time shooting!” I agree! I hope these images give you food for thought as you explore with your photographic eyes!
the pilgrim
PS: A big thanks to Homer and Terri for getting us in to the property!
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 31st, 2011 at 1:56 pm
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You’re right – at this size I can’t tell which camera is used – (although I think the first one is FF – too much detail for a small sensor) – question is, can you tell at 16×20 or full screen? All photos look good at this size either way! I so appreciate you teaching this – never appreciated this type of photography or thought of myself enjoying it before I meet you – couldn’t even spell extractor – now I are one!!!
Grace be to you, Bill, in 2012! I know you will advance the kingdom of photography – and, more importantly, the Kingdom of God! May it be your best year EVER! I so appreciate you!
Looking at the photos I assumed this was a coal mining museum. From your comment it sound like it’s not open to the public. What a fantastic place to shoot. Kind of like an Eastern version of Bodie.
I’d hate to guess which photo was shot with what camera. I’d probably get most of them wrong.
Boy does this remind me of my years Pastoring in Hazard and Pikeville area back in the 80s. I was working on a D.Min at the time on “Ministry in the Appalachians”. It was more a sociological study of life in the Appalachians and was a wonderful time learning everything I could about the area, getting to know the people, history and untamed beauty! Not a day goes by that I don’t reflect on my time there. My only regret is that I wasn’t a photographer at the time. My simple point and shoot at the time just doesn’t do justice to the images that are in my memory and wish I could have captured.
God bless, Kentucky!!
Howie