As of late I seem to be going from one day shooting thousands of images of an event to shooting almost nothing. Shooting nothing serious for days drives me nuts. But those are the times I try to get out of my comfort zone, slow down, and tackle subjects that have no deadlines, that interest me personally, but also will advance my knowledge and experience as a photographer.
It’s quiet here in Auburn right now. The calm before the fall-sports-storm, when you can get a table at a restaurant and find a parking place. But that makes street/people subjects challenging. In my ongoing series The Streets of Auburn Project, I have added a few from the “Alleys of Auburn,” but this is just a start of that point of view, or a first initial look at the alleyways, and I didn’t make it very far that day.
Why take images of an alleyway? (Which by the way is pretty much the question I get no matter what shot I’m taking, (1) why are you taking a photo of xyz, and (2) what do you do with all those images.) Well, photographically alley’s are great for working on composition, and often have super directional light, converging lines, shadows, and unpredictability.
It’s probably not super well known outside of the locals, but Auburn has some great alleyways, and I doubt they are the most photographed areas of the town either. Several of them were updated along with College and Magnolia on Toomer’s Corner last summer. Even though it’s been about a year I hadn’t made time to see what photo opportunities they might have until a few weeks ago. I didn’t get near the time I wanted to spend down there just about an hour was all I had, but I love the shot below of the jogger, one of my favorites so far, I just couldn’t decide which frame I like better, coming or going. At 7-FPS (frames per second) he was in and out of the alley in literally less than one second, two frames was all I was able to capture.
I’m not really counting these images towards my “street photography” project since most are void of people, but I love the alley over by J&M Bookstore. The colors and lines and uniqueness of the conveyor belt make it a fun place.
Yes, these two below aren’t in the alleyway, but the sunset on the back country roads was beautiful that night, and I had to include a shot from one of our favorite restaurants BurgerFi, especially for those who we not-so-randomly run into on Friday nights over there, you know who you are.
