My Trip to the Museum
I’m a photographer that believes in daily practice. I want to practice my craft with purpose and regularity in hopes of making some astounding images that will capture people’s imagination, at least for a little while. Street photography became my first love because it allowed me to go out and shoot what I saw. It gave me that daily opportunity that I was looking for. Yet the more I did street photography the more I realized I need a little more planning to give myself the best chance of taking stronger images.
I live in a mid-sized town called Macon, GA. I love Macon: it’s my home town, and it's where my family and friends are, but it's not a large city. Atlanta is just up the road and one of the things I really love about street photography is when subjects are isolated alongside some unique architecture or highlighted by hard light and shadow on something like a big empty street. Atlanta has people, architecture, and opportunities for taking some great street photography. So, I decided to take some weekend trips up the road to Atlanta to see if I can take some photos that look a little closer to the ones taken by photographers I admire.
I went up once to a place called Ponce City Market and got some pretty good photos, but nothing that really took my breath away. So, I thought about it and realized I needed to go bigger and find something that would make me say “wow” like when I looked at shots by someone like Alan Schaller. So I googled up some great architecture in Atlanta to find something with potential.
I settled on the National Civil and Human Rights museum. It had a unique exterior with big leading lines and long rectangular windows. I thought about how this exterior really captured my interest just from some pictures on Google and how great it would look if I positioned my subjects at just the right spot. I looked at the big rectangular windows and thought that maybe around mid afternoon some hard light would streak through and if I could catch a person sitting or standing in it, that could make for an engaging image.
What I got was better than I expected. I took what I consider to be some of the best images I’ve taken up to this point in my career as a photographer and will be sure to continue this style of research and execution in my work. I don’t want to leave out that the museum itself was eye opening, heart wrenching, informative, and really a fantastic place to learn about the people involved in the civil rights movement along with the continued struggle of humanity to treat each other with dignity and respect. Thank you, kindly.
-Tarver Petersen
