Murray’s Mill Photo Walk
Sep 14th, 2008 by John Setzler
The Murray’s Mill Harvest Folk Festival is coming up soon, and I was fortunate enough to get down to the Mill today for another project and got a chance to check things out. I made a quick shot of the mill (above) while I was there this afternoon, and as I was shooting it, I noticed something looked different. The mill has been painted and had a new roof installed.
This photo is one that I made on October 27 of last year (2007). The rusted roof is really what gave this photo a lot of strength with its reflection in the water. I suppose that maintenance of historic sites is important, but it will just take a few years for the mill to re-gain some of its antique feel in appearance on the outside.
I have been working on putting together a group of people locally who are interested in monthly photo walks, and the upcoming festival at Murray’s Mill is the site of our first event. HERE is a link to my original post on the Photo Walk subject, and it includes a link to the Flickr group where we are organizing the walks. Please feel free to join the Flickr group. It’s free and participation is not required.
The October Photo Walk will come up soon as well. Hickory’s Oktoberfest will be the site of the second photo walk. There are great opportunities for street photography at this event each year… Stay tuned…
The second image attracts me very much with its composition of triangles and lines - in original size it probably also has nice patterns and textures to keep the eye busy for quite a while.
It seems to be a broadly observed fact that the old and weathered things attract more photographers that the shiny new ones, but I have no explanation for this. OK, old surfaces offer more variation in color and texture, but there seems to be more to it. One idea is that older this kind of integrate into the environment, merge into their surroundings, give hope that nature can embrace them, while new things only shriek ‘here, me, look…’ regardless of their aesthetic value. Anyhow, I am subject to this preference of the old and weathered, too.