What would you do with this?

[ChrisN]

I was out for a walk with my family on crown land (government owned) and I happened across this fire hydrant. This thing is firmly planted and appears to have been there at least since the early 1900's. It says CNR on the front (which is the Canadian National Railway) and I have later discovered that this area was slated to have a rail line put in and CNR went ahead and prepared the land with appropriate safety measures and then dumped the project. So enough history.
What would you do with this photo? What would you do differently? I am going to go and take more pictures of it as I feel it is a very interesting piece and I don't think I really captured it to make it interesting. This image is completely unedited other than resize. I am not really looking for critique, just comments on how you would approach taking the picture as I am going to reshoot it.

http://s86984596.onlinehome.us/chris/hydrant.jpg

Camera: Canon S50
Shutter: 1/200
F-Stop : 3.2
Flash: None

[mvrekum]

Nice hydrant. What to do for a reshoot depends on what else is there. Are there tracks?
Anyway. the first thing to do is blur the background, so open up your apperature end .... hold the camera straight :D

Martin

[Aleks]

needs flushing ;)

[Osmium]

Well, if I had a super-wide angle lens (14mm?), I'd get in close and slightly higher than the hydrant so that it fills about 1/4 to 1/3 of the frame width and such that CNR was very clear. And then try to get the background as a vista of vegetation. So that the hydrant appears small and lost...

[Penguin_101_1]

appropriate safety measures

Is there anything else besides this? I would maybe turn it into sepia when you get the shot.

[msol]

The thing with your sample photo is that it doen't really isolate the subject. There is too much interference with the tree and the background. Choosing maximum Aperture, will definitely blur the background, but the little tree seems to be very close to the hydrant. No way you get that blurry... unless you go for details (like macro). Zoom in on nice details of the hydrant and you'll automatically get very small DOF. Also you'll then be able to get a much better capture of colors and the rusty texture. Rusty metal makes such a great subject! Your sample photo has too much contrast (very bright sky and very dark left side of the hydrant) to bring that justice.
Also I would try a diffferent point of view. What happens if you step to the left 1 or 2 meters? Can you then get the little tree out of the picture? If not completely, you could ask a companion to *gently* bend it a little such that it disappears from the picture.
And, what if you would lay down on the ground and try the frog perpective?
Well, just some ideas. You'll have to judge what works best next time, but I would certainly try the macro idea.

[HKMonkey]

I agree with mvrekum in that the camera should be straight with the hydrant. I would take an opposite approach from Osmium. I would like to see it from a little more underneath the hydrant with the leaves from the tree out of focus. I think even though it is old, it can still be seen as an everyday object. Therefore, I think the best way to make it more artistic is with different camera angles, above or below or any other. It's just my opinion that I would shoot it from below. Try also at different times of the day to get interesting shadows. :wink:

[Lamplight]

What does the landscape around the hydrant look like? Perhaps you could set up to take a landscape-ish photo and simply make the hydrant an object of interest in the foreground. So it's not just a picture of the hydrant, but the viewers attention is obviously drawn to it first. Similar to when you see a picture of a mountain, and in the foreground are some little wild flowers. :) I'm imagining a rather wide angle shot, too.

[ChrisN]

Thanks for the replies. I cannot wait to get back out there and experiment a little.

I am willing to experiment in any way that I have resources (I am still pretty new to photography with this picture marking the 250th picture I have ever taken.

There is not a lot around, no tracks, just an open field with this tree and a few other trees in the background. I have a landscape shot that I took, but I took it from so far away that the focus shifted away from the hydrant.

I have one picture that is a little more centred but it seemed to blow out the sky and it bled into the metal piece at the top. I am the only one who know's it is there (there are no other tracks anywhere near here) and I may be able to get to it a few more times over the summer. I would like to get a good picture of it and frame it as a gift for a friend who is a FireFighter (so your suggestions will be taken extremely seriously.)

I might wait a few weeks to reshoot when the wildflower's (and the poison ivy :( ) are in full bloom before tackling it again.

The other safety measures have been removed (by vandals) and this little oddball appears to have survived.


I am off to Bon Echo National Park for the weekend. My intention is to double my picture count :) . I really have this itch badly (and its not poison ivy)

Thanks again everyone, I really appreciate the assistance.

[rick barclay]

Assuming that's the hydrant's original spot, there must be something around there the hydrant was meant to protect. Perhaps you could incorporate whatever that is in one of your next pictures.

[Penguin_101_1]

Do you have any website links?

[ChrisN]

There is nothing around. Empty field for quite a few acres and then there are trees, trees and more trees.

It does appear to be there on purpose as you can see a small portion of the underground piping and then about 100 yards down the way there is pipe that sticks up where another hydrant has been removed (forcefully)

I live close to the archives and spent a day looking at the history of this spot (It helps that I am an amateur historian ;) ). The rail line actually looks like it was supposed to pass through this very spot, but then makes a turn about 4 miles away and goes around this property. The tracks have long since been removed and there is nothing here but grass and trees. A friend showed an article about the rail plans and that it changed due to some problems with government restrictions. Sadly, the work started but never finished.

[ChrisN]

Do you have any website links?.

Like a gallery of my own? no, sadly I do not have enough pictures worthy of a gallery. That is a goal of mine though.

As for the other pictures of the area, they are on the camera. I can post them to make the scene easier to explain.

[Penguin_101_1]

I would love to see the pictures but do you have a link to where you learned all of the history. I like history.

[ChrisN]

Oh. heh. The history knowledge was gained in 3 different places.
1... The Simcoe County Archives. (Paper archives of the area that I live in. (half an hour in the archive gave me all the stuff I needed to know)
2... A friend of mine works at CNR in the IT department. 1 phonecall and he was able to divulge a lot of juicy details of the early 1900's train industry.
3... A local nursing home. I called the newspaper asking if they have any knowledge of a train running through this particular area. They told me that they might have a "been there, done that" source. After about an hour, they called me back and he agreed to speak with me. I sat with him for half a day listening to the stories of "the day". Most of the stuff he told me was second hand from his father as he was a child at the time, but it all coincided with what I had gathered before. (He invited me back another time, I am going to take him up on it, and bring my tape recorder)

As I said before, I loooooove history. If I see something old, I want its story to be told.
Feel good story for an abandoned Fire Hydrant :D

[Penguin_101_1]

I love Math, Science and New Tech, but I still love history. I also love photography and Computers.