Ideas Needed - This is not quite right.

Keep going back...different times, seasons, mood, camera, film and weather will produce many results...
When I traveled for work I would visit places I'd shot at before just to see it in a different light...never regretted doing that...
 
you need some detail in the sky if you are going to keep with B&W, I would try a wider angle lens or a lower angle.
There was a place near me a bit like this that i always wanted to photograph but never did, the wreckers got to it first.
It's still a nice photo :)
 
light changes everything. go early, mid-morning, mid-day, mid-afternoon and late on a very bright day. the light will be correct at one point ...
 
I agree with the people that said, yes there's something there - and use a wider lens more closely.
I try to keep thinking perspective when I approach an inanimate object/still life. Get lower/higher, tilt the horizon, no horizon, make the composition interesting because the subject looks like it should 'work'.
 
If in doubt, get in close and go for texture. While the present image's concept is sound (a gate representing something that is no longer there) bear in mind that representing something that has been lost is notoriously difficult to achieve.
 
I want to thank everyone for their thoughtful comments. It's really interesting - I had thought of most of these suggestions after I developed my film - it is just really nice to hear other people validate what you are thinking.

What was most helpful to me were your comments about lighting. I have about decided that a great subject in crummy light yields a crummy image. I also have decided that a plain subject in great light can yield an interesting image. The magic happens when there is an ineresting subject in great light. I revisited the location in late evening yesterday and was wishing I could move the sun a few degrees to the north to change some shadows. It occured to me later that will happen about the summer solstice, so the comments about revisiting the location at different times is well taken.

peterm1 - your thought is the one that concerns me most, and one of the reasons for my post. My greatest doubt was whether there was really potential for a valid image. I had concerns that I was projecting some idea or emotion in a way that was not supported by the subject.

In any case, this is a helpful discussion. This is the sort of thing that I know for a fact is helping me grow as a photographer.
 
SciAggie said:
I stopped this weekend to shoot an old abandoned farm house. This old house has probably sat empty since the '30s 0r '40s. At one time there was a fence arounf the house property. Now all that remains is the old gate - the fence is long gone. I found it interesting that the chain that forms the latch was still secured.

I believe there is some potential for a powerful image - there is a stark and lonely despair about the place and I didn't quite capture it. Should I come back when there is more contrast to the scene? Frame it differently? Or just skip it - it's just an old gate. What do you think?

gate_to_nowhere_1_small.jpg
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It's not lonely enough. There still is too much to wonder about because there is still crops in the back, there's a tree line but also a horizontal plank on the gate. You cannot line them up, but also cannot neglect the similarity in horizontal lines in the subject and distance.

I would try to find a point of view further away and use a longer lens. Use DOF to isolate the subject a bit so the division between the plank and the gate does not correspond so much with the division in field, crops and trees. It's too uniform now.

Keep it at 5.6 in a 135mm lens. Get 1/3 of DOF in front, 2/3s in back.

Either bring 2/3s of sky in it (frog perspective) or leave sky out altogether, but not let it dissect the gate where it does now.

Use bracketing to shoot a series of shots once you like the composition. There should be one combo of set aperture, shutter and light that will expose correctly for either the shadows or the highlights. Can't say what would work best. That combo will pop off the negative strip the moment you see it. It should have good tonal scale and provide a good base to develop the image from.

This is a dry field right? Brown grasses? I'd bring an orange filter then. It would lighten up the field and wood, but darken green crops, trees and sky.

I'd bring a tripod and also try to get to the lowest shutter speeds and highest shutter speeds as well.
 
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I went back and tried a few shots from different points of view. I still consider this an ongoing process. I have also decided I'm not crazy about the tonality of my images - but I'll tackle one problem at a time. Does anyone like these any better?

p196647258-3.jpg
 
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the trees bother me. this image should be stark raving STARK, lonely, bitter perhaps. the kid's point about the horizontal lines is important. use them to emphasize a horizontal line on the gate.
 
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