On Assignment: Martinsville, Virginia-Day Three

"The Church Star" by Wes Aldridge

Today was a monster good day for photography. Thank God cause I needed a day like this. I have been doing seasonal photography for my company for many weeks now. On normal magazine shoots, every other week I travel to a community to shoot an entire magazine full of portraits, product shots, landscapes, feature photography and sports. On the seasonal shoots, it is landscape only. The seasonal shoots really don’t allow much room for creativity and problem solving/shot planning, other than what time of day is best light for a scene.

I love to go to a place that has been deemed as having “nothing to shoot.” You know, small towns with a Main Street and a Hardee’s. Those kinds of places are my favorite to shoot. I love the difficulty in having “nothing to shoot.” It really forces me to think hard, and fast. I allot an hour per shoot, including set-up time and breakdown and travel time to my next assignment. That is a helluva deadline. Fun, fun, fun. I love the stress and pressure of turning “nothing” into a cool, interesting photograph.

Anyway, this shot is of an awesome, ultra-modern church steeple at 2 p.m. in the afternoon. I shot with a muy rapido shutter speed of 1/1600th of a second at f/11. Check out the cool star effect it gave the sun, not to mention the great silhouette of the steeple with a deep blue sky behind it. I even think the solar lens flares in the shot are great. I saw them while I was metering through the lens and thought, yessir, they belong there.