Ball & Socket Manufacturing Co. | From Civil War Buttons to an Arts Complex

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This one stings a little. Not every location hands you a story worth telling and then slams the door before you can photograph it, but the Ball & Socket factory had other plans for J and me that day. The cold was the first thing I remember. A sharp Connecticut chill that had absolutely no interest in our ambitions. We worked our way into the inner courtyard, feeling reasonably optimistic, and then hit a wall literally. Locked doors on every side. No entry points that weren't either sealed or watched. The only building we managed to get inside looked less like a historic factory and more like a very long parking garage that had given up on itself. Even the boiler house was off the table. We circled, debated, and eventually made the call that every explorer has to make when a site is still secured and possibly still monitored: we walked. Some days you document. Some days the building wins. We never went back, and before we got a second crack at it, word came down that the complex...
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Current #Mood

Dark Opened Framed Window View of Buildings
The Darkness and The Light 

Dark Opened Framed Window with More Details
The Darkness and The Light Edit 2


I could not choose between the two which one I wanted to post. Decided I would share both. Now, that I look back on these edits. I was very into playing with the blacks and darks throughout the photo. Now, I am mostly about light and having the picture have more light rather than darkness. It makes the image lighter and more open. I guess this was how I felt in the beginning, starting off editing and now after many more months from the day I joined Instagram, I have gotten better with using my camera and editing my images how I've always wanted my images to be. 

 If you are struggling to edit images like your favorite photographer, stick with editing your images at least 2 hours a day. It takes practice and familiarizing yourself with Lightroom panels until you become comfortable knowing what a certain image needs right off the bat after importing. Remember, presets are just the base layer of an image. It takes a strong foundation to start with and some slight tweaking to finish the final image. 


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