Photographing Pieces of History

 I've love photographing history. Doing so requires not only photographic skill, it requires a solid grasp of the historical significance of what you are photographing. Putting the two together in a meaningful photograph is a challenge, especially one that serves to hold within its frame what that significance represents.

So what classifies as a photograph of history. Well, it can take many directions depending on the photographers interest. For me, it includes such things as vintage cars, airplanes, locations, and even old barns. Some of the most meaningful historical photographs for me include vintage aircraft. I love their form, their performance, their connection to events, and their connection to our personal lives. Capturing them beyond simple snapshots of one sitting on a tarmac requires you look at the photographic solution from beyond the ordinary. 

Using artificial lighting can transform their appearance. But it takes more than that. It requires placing your camera in a position that captures not only the form, but in such a way as to bring to life their performance. Aircraft were designed to fly and your photograph should capture them in such a way to represent that unique element. 

Their are so many angles from which to capture their history. I am so thankful for the organizations that restore and maintain vintage aircraft.

Vintage cars are perhaps my second most favorite piece of history to photograph. Not unlike aircraft, vintage cars retain that same style and form that is so indelibly ingrained into our collective memories. American cars of course are my favorite because so many of them I grew up with and around and even drove at one time or another. I love old cars. They not only possess unique shapes and forms, they represent pieces of history we all lived through and can appreciate.

Oddly enough, even things like old barns are perhaps my third favorite type of historical photograph. Many barns are well over 100 years old and they can be found across almost any rural area. Some are still in good shape, many are falling down, but each possess their own unique contribution to the historical landscape.

The setting in which they reside enhances their historical impact. Often I will be driving around and out of the corner of my eye catch an image of an old barn tucked away into the base of a hillside across a field. I love that kind of scene.

Included within the realm of old barns as historical photographs are old homesteads and homes. 

Their settings often reflect that sense of place, the kind of places that reside deep within our mind and heart. The kind of place where most of us wish we could reside.

Sometimes looking through the barn becomes the photograph. It is those simple yet rustically powerful images all of us have seen at one time or another. Lighting of course makes all the difference. one cannot help but wonder what kind of history has played out within and around these old barns. When they were first built, they were someone's dream, and now possibly 100 years or more later, that dream has played out across time to enhance our personal vision of what the rustic world represents.

Photographing pieces of history can elevate your appreciation of the subjects you are encountering. Thinking of them as pieces of history opens your personal vision of how to capture them toward new and unique creations.