Secret Gate

secret gate, originally uploaded by poketypatch.

"Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun."
— J.R.R. Tolkien

I had a few extra minutes to kill today, so I decided to drive around looking for something interesting to photograph. I passed a country church with old iron fencing that was buried in the snow. The photo above was taken from inside the car, through the front window glass. I took a couple of shots with the window rolled down, but thought that the glass added a dreamlike quality to the image.

Taking photos from behind glass, give a photograph a new feel. Some people use windows that are wet with rain, or are dirty, to add such texture to their photography. Another way to get this result is to use photoshop processing and add a new textural layer on top of the original image.

In contrast, here is an image that I took outside, focusing on the gate. It is SOOC (straight out of the camera - which means no post-processing.) Even though it is a photograph of the same gate, taken at the same time of day, it has a completely different look to it. My focus is set on the gate and in turn gives a nice blurred background of trees and sky.

In the next shot, I moved around a bit and used the red church door as my background. The red contrasts nicely with the green vine growing on the gate. I like this angle zooming in on the gate. You really get a feel for the curves of the fence.

These shots (and some others of the actual fence) were taken in about 5 minutes. They illustrate how just moving around, changing your angle, or adding unexpected elements (like shooting through glass) can make an ordinary object come to life in many different ways!