Page 13 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #2

IVERGENCE. I have never been be a visual contradiction, I had to think about
one to enjoy networking, as I am an space and time in a very different way. While I
D introvert by nature. I have, howev- had trained myself to screen out distracting el-
er, learned how to compensate for this, and ements in architectural photography, it quick-
should the need arise for me to take on a role ly became apparent that in construction pho-
that I understand and have played (the role tography I would have to learn to bring all the
of teacher, for instance), I can easily bracket elements together—that visual tension wasn't
my shy essential nature. For the purpose of extraneous to the emotional experience, but
growing the business, I decided I would attend rather central and essential to communicating
a local Chamber of Commerce networking the emotional experience.
event. It was at this particular gathering that Not long after this realization, we were
I met Donna Emmary, Marketing Manager for called to photograph Deacon Tower at Wake
Frank L. Blum Construction Company. Forest University while it was under con-
At first, I assumed that construction photog- struction. The documentation of "under
raphy would fall into the same genre as archi- construction" work was never of interest to
tectural photography, but quickly learned that architects, so this was a new experience for
it wasn't in the same category at all. While our us. At one point, as JD and I stood amidst an
architectural clients had looked for the visu- apparently random collection of steel, con-
al experience of space, line, and form, Donna crete, and wire, I felt a bit overwhelmed. The
was looking for the experience of the building usual keys I looked for when photographing
itself—how it came together, how it found its a finished building were missing. To make
place in space, how the process of building the matters worse, most objects had no context.
structure brought form and function together All the visual clues that normally help us de-
in a way that was essential, yet would likely termine where and how to photograph a fin-
never been seen or noticed by the people who ished structure were nowhere present. We
would use the finished building. could see the beginnings of rooms and halls,
In some respects, accomplishing this task but without walls, the space seemed to extend
was rather easy. I remember crawling into a forever. My eye would follow a collection of
pump room and looking at several rows of col- steel framing that would eventually become a
or-coded pumps and a neatly arranged web of hall, then continue out to the horizon.
pipes and valves. Conveying that particular ex- Objects exist in both space and time. Space
perience was easy. While at other times (and is defined by their relationship to each other,
quite frankly, more times than not), capturing and time is defined by their relationship to me
the experience was more complicated. as the photographer. When we create an im-
Our first assignment for Frank L. Blum in- age, the composition is based on two elements:
cluded photographing the new YWCA build- context and emotion. Context is the perceived
ing in Winston-Salem, NC. The structure had relationship of objects to each other. Emotion
been wedged into a morass of high-voltage is that which both informs the context and our
power lines, and part of the assignment in- response to that relationship. In our NyghtVi-
cluded describing visually how difficult it was sion methodology, we discuss three types of
to work within that space. Bringing together context: near, intermediate, and extreme.
the grace and beauty of the building and the How we determine context is a function of
emotional experience of its shape and form how we perceive objects around us, or as we
with the almost gritty, granularity of the pow- prefer to say, it is a function of how the world
er lines was not easy. In fact, as I stood across discloses itself to us. Standing somewhere
the street looking at what appeared to me to within Deacon Tower, the absence of walls

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