Over the Top

Yesterday while returning from a day trip up north I swung by the location outside a small town where the bed of decayed linoleum tiles used as source images for the TileScapes series is located (shown below left). I had not been by there since taking some shots this past winter to capture the tiles frozen in ice and snow (example below right).

Nothing much seemed to have changed except some additional erosion of the tiles, and I was thinking there may be no need to come back here again - it struck me there's only so much you can do with this, and I already have a ton of shots from previous visits that I have yet to work with. However, since I was there, why not take a few more for the heck of it? This led to a quick walk around with my phone, and this time, instead of capturing the tiles at an angle to simulate 3D landscapes, I did some direct overhead shots reminiscent of aerial shots taken from a plane. The focus becomes more on the 2D compositional aspects of line, texture, and positive vs. negative space.

All in all, a quick, fun and impromptu experience that resulted in some interesting stuff. Maybe not things I would bother to frame but perhaps print out and paste into a sketchpad/scrapbook format, or pop into an "At a Glance" online gallery of things I capture when out and about. In this regard a smartphone is an indispensable tool when inspiration strikes (the best camera is the one you have with you). This encounter also reinforces ideas uncovered in a previous post about the value of repeated visits to the same location. You can always find something new to explore, and gain insight through familiarity.