How I Shot That - Rivoli Theatre Building BW
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A photographer I admire has said many times, "Clouds are cool! I won't shot if I can't see clouds."
While I am not 100% sure that is true for every situation, clouds did make this photo better.
Besides the obvious clouds in view on this photo, there is something else that the clouds did that day. Normally during an afternoon walk, I am exercising futility in my photography. Broad daylight with the sun coming almost directly overhead is actually not a very good thing. Light coming almost directly down would have made the shadow from that little ledge at the top of the Rivoli building too much. But Wisconsin if full of weather changes. Cold, hot, windy, calm rain/sleet/snow (many times all at once) and of course sunny.
Since there is so much of this changing weather, I keep reminding myself, even if your walk doesn't provide a fruitful set of photos one day, does not mean another day won't provide something awesome. Just like this awesome September afternoon did.
Now, normally, a straight on photo of a building doesn't do it for me. But since the wind was blowing this flag around I really wanted to make it part of the photo. Funny thing, this flag is in a Bank parking lot across the street, it doesn't belong to the theatre at all. But for many here in La Crosse, WI, we love this theatre just as we love America. It only has two movie screens, a main one and a 'showing room'. You can order a pizza, get beer, essentially have a movie type dinner here. The main theatre even has a section in front that has tables. When you have a child's movie playing, it is the most family friendly place. When you are there for fright night type of a showing, it is the most fun. And when they decide to show an old movie (that they do frequently) you have a great date with the one you love.
So I had to include this flag. Like the movies, America is full of drama. Just as much as the sky was showing that day.
On this walk through town, I was trying something different. Normally, street photography makes you want to have a short lense. Most use a 20mm. Many times you will see me with the 50mm. But this day I used what many in the Sony/Minolta world call 'The Beer Can" lens. We call it that because it is the 70-210 f4 Minolta lens that has no optical stabilization and is just a straight and tall can shape. Almost the size of large beer kans from back in the day.
From where I saw this, I had walked through an alley from another block away, letting me see across this parking lot of a bank to have this reveal itself to me. Obviously, if I was zoomed in all the way, I would have been looking at the sign of the building, and forgetting about everything else. So this was most of the way out at the 70mm zoom. And I was using f4. After making sure my shutter speed was really high at 1/2000 of a second. This gave me the clouds a pop in shape, froze the flag in motion while giving me enough light on the building.
