Eleanor Wing Final Photos

For this series, I photographed places at night that looked empty or abandoned. I especially gravitated to places that were mundane or liminal—-meaning they existed as a midway point between two actual destinations. By taking these pictures, I wanted to draw attention to the places often overlooked by presenting them as interesting or surreal. I thought the best way to give this effect was to photograph at night and use the artificial light to highlight the isolation present. My biggest problem by far was figuring out how to correctly take the photos at night and balance the brightness of the artificial light with the overall darkness. At first, I didn’t use a tripod and the images were very low quality and I struggled with the light balance to make both the lights and surroundings visible. Also, I wasn’t completely sure how to achieve the mood I was going for, but I started looking for inspiration in other photographers capturing similar subjects at night and how they composed their photos which helped a lot for my own photographs. I felt a little embarrassed taking photos of gas stations etc. at first so I was a little uncomfortable setting up tripods but once I got over that I think the quality of the photos improved. When I starting using a tripod it became a lot easier because I could use 10 or 15 second exposures which allowed me to capture more light and create more surreal scenes. I also started taking the photos with a darker light balance and then editing the photos with a lower contrast lighter blacks, which meant the artificial lights weren’t extremely blown out but you could still see the environment. If I could do this again, I would have liked to travel more in rural Pennsylvania to find more interesting places to photograph—-I went to Williamsport this weekend and on the drive there, I found loads of spots that I would’ve liked to explore and photograph in this same style. I’m pretty satisfied with this final set but I think my best photos came toward the end of the project when I started to get a hang of it and I wish I had gotten to that point earlier in the semester. I had a lot of fun taking these and definitely would continue with this theme although I think next, I would want to start exploring portrait photography as it’s something I’m pretty poor at and would like to improve.

Extras from Director Series: