Tire Shop and Palm Tree. San Jose, California. June 13, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
An old and dilapidated tire shop with a single palm tree.
And now a break for something completely different from the Yosemite photographs I’ve posted for the better part of the past two weeks. Last weekend I had a couple hours of free time during the middle of the day – the toughest time for light, especially so close to the summer solstice. So I decided to go out for an urban walk and see if I could make some photographs that took on this bright and harsh light instead of trying to avoid it.
I have photographed this building before. It is an older garage that is now a tire shop. The building is, despite being painted and so forth, quite dilapidated – window and door frames don’t line up, the stucco is cracked and patched, and walls and roof lines intersect at odd angles. The paint job on the building couldn’t be more, well, boring. The building is roughly gray, with some blocky black lettering and the painted image of a tire. There is no vegetation and a plain sidewalk runs in front of it. The whole thing just seemed perfect for a harsh, midday light photograph.
G Dan Mitchell Photography
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What an interesting composition. I especially like the palm tree that looks like it’s growing out of the roof.
It might be interesting to go back and spend some time and see if anything interesting walks in front of that “black hole”.
You made to interesting comments. :-)
The palm tree is in that spot – and nothing else besides the building is visible – intentionally. The incongruity of the palm, the only green thing in the frame, above this building caught my attention. Also, I often do exactly what you describe when shooting subjects like this, namely watch and wait for a person to come by become part of the composition. I’ll probably try that at some point with this building.