School

Late Sunday afternoon, I packed up my equipment and headed off to the old Bloomfield Academy building on Main Street in Skowhegan to take "school" photos.  Bloomfield Academy was one of the original schools here in Skowhegan, first organized under the Charter of Massachusetts in 1807. The academy served Skowhegan and the earlier towns of Bloomfield and Milburn.  Over the past eight years, I have been involved in the conservation and restoration of the historic photographic collections that soon will become part of the Bloomfield Academy Museum.  Upon arrival, I noticed that the beautiful old building recently had a new color added to the front of the brick and white schoolhouse.  Someone had decided the old building needed bright pink paintball spots from top to bottom. With the sun beginning to set behind the building, the light falling on the front was flat and shadowed.  Poor lighting conditions, pink spots and all, I took the picture.  For my first attempt, Challenge, School, Photo 1 is a "crop" of just the top angles of the old school building.  By converting the flat, color version to a black and white image using the desaturate tool, adjusting curves and adding contrast with Photoshop, the photo was now acceptable.  

 

Inside the school, an antique desk and chair sat in a classroom.  Sliding the desk and chair forward into the available light coming through a westerly facing window, I composed Photo 2.  Challenge, School, Photo 2, shows the cool, bluish tone of the light reflecting on the metal nails and chair base. While the highlights were striking, the angle of looking down onto the subject from the top of the ladder was just not ideal.  

 

The next attempt, Challenge, School, Photo 3 was achieved by using horizontal composition and fill flash.  Light from the flash rendered the image flat but enhanced the warmth of the wood tones. Again, as in Photo 2, the composition was ordinary.

My final attempt, taking the shot from the floor, at an angle, including a bit of the old chalkboard for some color, worked and the image came together.  The natural light was softer now with the setting sun, but still reflected the cool, bluish tones of the metal hardware.  Warm highlights of the wood tones in the desktop and floor, now complimented the dark contrast of the chair and table base.  In addition, the diagonal lines of the wood floorboards lead the eye from the right, bottom highlight, through to the top left, green segment of the old chalkboard.  This is my best photo of the weekend challenge series; therefore, I am submitting the still life, Challenge, School, Photo 4 as my "school" photograph. . Phew!