The alley behind the New Windsor Hotel, No. 2

Posted by
Jeffrey (Scottsdale, United States) on 19 January 2018 in Cityscape & Urban and Portfolio.

Location: Phoenix, AZ

When I said I had gotten rusty in my comments about the last photo I posted, I meant it in terms of composing a photo, not operating a camera. (That process did indeed become essentially, but not completely automated some time ago.)

As I've mentioned before, I don't usually "work" a scene, taking multiple photos and deciding later which one of them best represents the essence of what I was trying to capture. Instead, I usually observe the scene for a few minutes until a composition suddenly catches my eye, at which point I then set up my camera and take my photo. (On a good night, this process works so well for me that I often lock-on to the composition I want as I'm approaching the scene, so no observation or contemplation phase is necessary.)

When I'm rusty, though, this process falls apart, as no compositions catch my eye, so I have to set up my camera, start taking photos, then review them to determine whether they are successful or not. I very rarely do my best work this way, but it's necessary part of the process or recalibrating my vision, if you will.

I ultimately took five photos in this alley and this was the second of them. And I'm not totally happy with any of them, so will likely need to revisit this alley on another night and try again.

A larger, higher resolution version of this photo can be seen here: http://www.canyonero.com/files/1516333116.jpg