This is an important photo for me, whether or not I like it (and I'm not sure yet).

This is the first picture I got up before dawn to take. Maybe inspired by the reading I've been doing lately on luminous-landscape.com, maybe by my inability to render the scene well otherwise, maybe just by a desire to feel like I was working hard at this, I got up at 5am and hit the road at 6. Took a few pre-dawn shots at the site of the demolition of my brother's middle school, then rode over to Hixson's where I got this just as the sun reached the bottom of the building, leaving the parking lot in shadow.

I don't know if this picture works (ask me in a few weeks), but if I'm going to get one in this location that does, I think this is it.

I was motivated to start taking Lakewood pictures by the local library's photo contest that they've launched to populate a gallery space in the new main branch that just opened. Of course, it's motivated me to work outside of the boundaries of the contest as well - I've taken some pictures that are representative of Lakewood to me that they would never accept, and this has turned into a personal project that just might yield a contest-ready result (it might not at all!).

Anyway, I mention the contest because it demands extremely large print sizes, compared to what I'm used to thinking of - 12x18" or basically A3, which is at the limit of what my camera can handle (so it demands technical perfection and getting the shot right in camera, because I can't crop), and has forced me to think of compositions that can hold up at such a large size. It's been good practice.