Sunday, October 23, 2011

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Yesterday I dragged my boyfriend to an old junkyard I know of so that I could work on some photography. Actually, saying that I dragged him up there is a lie. He enjoyed himself, probably almost more than I did, probably because he actually knew what most of the stuff was and therefore it was more interesting. Not to mention we were going to go disc golfing and go to a pizza restaurant that has the best breadsticks ever. Who turns that down? No one.

This junkyard I went to is huge. HUGE. As in 50 acres huge. The man who originally owned it died a while ago and his grandson now owns it and is actually in the process of trying to clear the area out. Apparently he's sold quite a few things along with just selling items for scrap metal if possible. But even with all his work there is so much stuff at this place, it is insane. It would be an American Picker's dream, hopefully you know of the show. Which the grandson actually called American Pickers(or they may have called him, I'm not 100% sure how it went down) to have them come look at his stuff and hopefully buy some of it, but the show would have given away the location and he didn't want that. Yes, this is a mystery location, and I can't share.

Lee and I spent about two hours wandering around the place and we maybe saw... a third. I'm not really sure because I'm a horrible judge of distance, but I figure that's a good guess. I actually visited the place once when I was younger with some family and the man who owned it knew right where everything was. It's crazy how someone can know exactly where a specific item is in all of that stuff.

Anyway, pictures:
(For better quality, larger images click on them and they'll link to Flickr. Do eet)

van
[Sweet old van. Although the inside was FULL of egg cartons. I mean really. They were stacks of stacks of stacks of old egg cartons. I was leaning in for a closer look, then I saw a critter go running through the van and I was done.]
van mirror
[Had some fun with the mirror on the old van]
old greenie
[Some old car]
old greenie's grill
[The grill of the old car.]
another old greenie
[I think this is same type of car in the previous two pictures]
mafia car
[I call this the mafia car. It's got a hardcore bumper, then a metal hood think over the windshield]
mafia car front
[Apparently it's a Dodge]
mafia car front 2
[Basically the same shot, just different layout. I can't decide which one I like more]
mafia car light
[Playing with focus point in this picture and the following one.]
mafia car light 2
[I like the first one better.]
falcon
[Lee found this Ford Falcon and thought it was cool I guess]
chevy
[Old chevy]
plymouth valiant
[Hood of a Plymouth Valiant. This might be my favorite picture of the day]
plymouth valiant 3
[Side shot of the valiant]
plymouth valiant 4
[My depth of field was a bit too shallow, bummer]
ole blue
[Old blue something]
Steering
[Inside of some car...]
1957 newspaper
[Lee found some old newspapers. It's kind of hard to see the date, but its June 22, 1957]
1957 newspaper 2
[Food advertisement in the newspaper. I want bacon for 59 cents a pound.]
1957 newspaper 3
[Another old newspaper]
rusty thing
[Some old thing...I have no idea what it is]
leaf in a cup
[I thought this looked cool with the leaf stuck on the side]
dodge
[Dodgie dodger dodge]
truck steering
[Steering in an old truck]
truck bed
[The bed of said old truck, which was actually one of the newer vehicles in the junkyard]
another old truck steering
[Steering in another old truck, the back was made out of wood, crazy]
hide and seek car
[Oh hey look, another car! But seriously, there was easily 100 cars laying around in this place.]
Choc-ola
[Some cool old cans]
hubcap
[Would you like a hubcap?]
hupcap galore
[Oh the previous one wasn't the right one, maybe you can find what you're looking for in the wall of hubcaps...]
Glass bottles
[Some cool old pop bottles.]
Kist
[Majority were from Michigan companies too]
sunrise and 76
[The sunrise bottle was my favorite]
m&s
[I think this company was from Flint...]
radio
[Found this old radio in case we wanted to listen to some tunes, I'm sure it still works]
Dirtbike
[Some dirtbike]
tricyle
[I always hang up my tricycles when I'm not using them, don't you?]
old calculator
[Not really a cool photo, but this is an OLD calculator and it's awesome.]
Me
[Being dumb and taking a picture of myself in the mirror of an old laundry soap dispenser]
the hut
[One of the many buildings. There was a string of them and they all looked like death traps]
car and building
[An old car? That's rare]

Overall I took about 200 pictures at the junkyard. But of course many are doubles. I don't like taking just one shot of something in case if I made a mistake. Which speaking of mistakes I worked mostly in manual focus so of course I messed that up a few times. So after all my doubles, and incorrectly focused images along with the fact that I just don't feel like editing much, I ended up with 51 pictures that I uploaded to flickr. If you want to see all of them, just go here.

After the junkyard, Lee and I headed to Branstrom Park to play some disc golf. We went there once last year and hated it. Or at least I hated it. There are a lot of trees and I wasn't very good, so I ended up hitting about every tree possible and that was pretty dang depressing. I enjoyed the course more this time, although it's definitely not in my list of favorite courses.
For the first time ever I took my camera along and tried to get some pictures. I have very little experience with taking action shots manually so I just let my camera do the work because we had to beat the sunset so it didn't get too dark to play.

super putt
[This shot was cool. I was sitting right behind the basket when Lee made a putt. I was afraid I was going to get hit so right after I took the picture I dove off to the side, but he ended up making it, so I was safe. If you click on this to view a larger image you can see his disc right behind the top of the basket]
buzzbuzz
[Cool looking shot]
Walking
[Walking]
focalpoint
[You might have to click the image for a larger view of this one too. I like it because the focal point is the basket, which is what you aim for when you shoot. It's like a disc golf game in third person. Ha!]
forehand
[Forehand shot]
beertree
[Bottlecap stuck in a tree]
Basket_LS
[Basket of hole 2]
DSC_0255.jpg
[I liked the red tree]
DSC_0240.jpg
[Trying again to take more landscape shots with larger depths of field.]

Rest of the disc golf shots ova' here.

Comments. Comments comments comments. Why? Because I like feedback. I want to know if I'm doing good, improving. Getting worse, have things I could work on. Anything! My blog is a lonely place and could do with someone else talking other than myself.

3 comments:

  1. Your photos are great! I really enjoy looking at them and reading your comments!! Keep up the great work!

    -Laura Mosley

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Laura. But I thought you didn't comment on posts when I ask for comments haha.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Neato photos. I love vintage stuff, so this was a treat.

    Keeping postin' them pics...I love creeping. ^_^

    ~Nidya

    ReplyDelete