Weekend Shot: A Hand In It
Some weekends,the Photo Gods look down with squinty eyes. They give you nothing, and you have to really work at it.
Other times, like this weekend, they throw at you explosions of color, interesting looks, varied domains.
Such was this past weekend for me. I had the chance to shoot a whole host of interesting things – well-used farm equipment, cute smiling kids, crowd scenes and landscapes. Big stuff and detail stuff.
Heading into Sunday afternoon, I thought I had already gotten my Weekend Shot. One or the other of two actually.
Then the family and I spent the day all within 10 miles of our house but two locations that gave me a lot of neat looks at things. Most of it detail stuff, old this-and-that’s that were rusty and crusty and look good when you pull that tone and contrast out of them.
Then we happened upon a blacksmith exhibition taking place at Historic Walnford. Maybe I’ve hung out with Joe McNally too much, read his blog too many times. One thing he’s instilled in my, whether knows it or not, it to always go for the hands. Smooth or rough, long or stubby, bejewelwed or plain, they often tell the story about our lives. Like our eyes. I, too like Joe, are drawn to the hands.
So as I stood chatting with this blacksmith, he continued to pound away, shaping fire-orange metal. I found out a few things. That’s he’s a member of the New Jersey Blacksmith Association. That he started by collecting blacksmith tools. Then, in the 1990s, he decided to learn how to use the tools he’s been collecting and has been doing it ever since.
While we talked, I zeroed in on his hands. He had a good face alright, under a broad-brimmed hat. But it was his hands that spoke to me. These are hands that are hardened by steel and forged by fire.
Literally.
A warm Sunday afternoon + fires and metal and flesh + Nik Color = This Weekend Shot
© Mark V. Krajnak | JerseyStyle Photography | All Rights Reserved 2013
JerseyStyle Photography 