It was after Hurricane Sally and I was out scouting our local area, when I ran across these gems. They both belong to the same gentleman and I thought, Wow, how often do you come across a scene like this. Of course it was middle of the day and I knew I had to capture these damaged structures in better light. My first though was a beautiful sunset or sunrise behind them, but only being able to shoot looking south, the clouds would have to be just right to be lit up during those times. Of course, our weather was not helping my vision, as we were having continuing days of cloudless skies at the time. I was sitting at home, when I thought.....I wonder how that old weather wood would look lit up by the evenings golden sunlight. Well, that sounded like a plan, so now it was just a matter of going out for the shot. A couple days later, I headed back to the location as the conditions were still good. As luck would have it, this location is a small strip of public land next to the owners property, so it was nice being able to go there at will. I arrived just as golden hour was beginning, set up the composition and waited for just the right light. Well, my vision was rewarded with this beautiful golden light illuminating the boat houses, just as I had hoped, and turned out to be one of my favorite shots.
While the beginning of golden hour was still pretty bright, I took the opportunity to shoot a couple of overexposed frames. I had conjured up this other vision while waiting for the glowing sunset light to happen, of a Black and White version of this same scene, and not just any B&W, but High Key B&W. High Key is when you make the highlights in the photo much brighter, letting the blacks really stand out. Again, things came together in post processing and resulted in this High Key image.
I took a few more shots and got this one of the left boat house by itself, it had the most character, but I much prefer the shots with both in the frame.
While we were packing up (a fellow photographer was there also) the owner of the boathouses came out and chatted with us for a bit. Seems he has been living there for quite some time, and this is the fourth time his boat houses have been damaged by storms. I guess that's the price you pay for living on the water here on the Gulf Coast. It wasn't long after I shot these, the gentleman began rebuilding the walkway out to them and thus removing the character that damage gives to old structures like these. With any luck, it'll be a lot of years before we see another hurricane, I hate to see the damage they produce and the heartache for all involved. At the same time though, when done artistically, the aftermath of the storms can make for some great images.
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