The Gas Station

The Gas Station comes from our “Western Decay” collection in our Surrealism Gallery. The original is a 35mm Kodachrome 64 slide. The lens used was a 35mm f 2.0 Nikkor.

s a child I loved mysteries, I read all the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. Like many

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children I asked a lot of how and why questions, and more often than not let my imagination run free with the answers. There was also an explorer in me that sought out the old abandoned buildings and searched for the clues to their past. It is this mystery and imaginative speculation of times past and untold stories that I have tried to capture in this image.

If there were stories to be told here, what were the clues? I decided to include four clues or compositional elements. The first, the gas pump with the sign “contains lead”, second, the Studebaker sign, third, the Dixcel sign, and last the horse and buggy seat in front of the door. I walked around the building for several minutes examining viewpoints and thinking about lens choices. I decided on the 35 mm focal length for it’s moderate wide angel of view and normal perspective.

The “contains lead” sign was small so I knew the camera position would have to be close for it to be readable. The tripod was set up in front of the gas pump. I physically moved the tripod and camera left to right to find the position where my four compositional elements where balanced in the frame. Then I moved the camera forward and back, towards the gas pump and backing off from the gas pump. This allowed me to find the distance where the size of the gas pump balanced with the size of the building. The closer the camera is to the gas pump, the larger it will appear relative to the building behind it.

The resulting composition achieved two goals for me. First, it passed my basic rule of composition; include everything that is important in the picture and eliminate everything that is not. I had just what I wanted in the frame.

Second, I wanted the picture to interact with the viewer, to encourage the viewer to explore. This is achieved by the building intersecting with the left frame of the image, providing a passageway for the eye to enter the picture. When the subject touches the edge of the frame a passageway is created for the eye to enter.

Once the eye enters the picture it is loosely drawn across the image because of the diagonal leading lines of the sidewalk. Diagonal leading lines typically move the viewer’s eye quickly across an image. The goal however, is to slow the eye down and give it time to explore the image. This is accomplished by using the gas pump as a vertical barrier along with the windows and door.

The air of mystery is further enhanced in Photoshop. After the obvious color to black and white conversion we altered the tonal range. The technique used is what we call “Painting with Light”. Basically we make a levels adjustment layer with a layer mask darkening the image markedly. The layer mask hides the darkness. We paint on the mask with a pressure sensitive pen revealing the darkened version. We use a Wacom Intuois tablet and pen, the more pressure we apply the darker the areas become. We paint with a very soft edge brush so individual strokes are not visible. If you are using a mouse, use a reduced opacity brush and go over the same area several times to produce similar results.

Our Painting with Light technique is very much like dodging and burning in a wet darkroom. The real power of these techniques comes when one realizes that the technique can be used to lead the viewer’s eye through a composition. The eye is always drawn to the lightest elements. By controlling the darkness and lightness of elements in a photo, the path the eye takes through a composition can be influenced. The eye usually will travel from one bright area to another in ascending order of luminance.

More than just leading the eye, this process adds an ominous feel to the image. I think of it as manipulating the image on the screen to evoke the same feelings and mood as when I took the picture. A bit of reality altering is required, to help fuel the imagination.

Although the finished image differs somewhat from the original, the emotions I feel are true to my original vision. The mystery is still there, and the explorer in me still asks many questions. The image can provide some clues but only the imagination can provide the answers.

Mike and Tammy Rice

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