All Brick All Day, TMAX 100 • Part 1 | Story Behind the Shot

_{My favorite university house in the history Fort in Knoxville, just beside UT. Most likely horrific and destroyed by college students inside.}

Shooting TMAX 100 • 35mm with a 1976 Canon AE-1

I'm fairly new to shooting black and white, and still a complete novice in the darkroom. These photos are shown as-developed, by me, without any alterations.

While shooting this roll, @hobotang and I were rained on constantly. We'd get to a location, don our rain jackets, and cross our fingers. Much of our sky (main source of light, contrast, etc.) was bleak and flat.

But, where the sun was shining, you can see a massive difference in the photo's contrast.

Side note: I developed these with "reused" developer, whose lifetime I could not verify. So, the lack of contrast could be contributed to by the strength of the developer.

Keep reading for a little detail about each photo!

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Kendrick Place is a gem just off of Union x Locust in downtown Knoxville. It's a shotgun row of nice, but not too nice townhomes, making them somewhat affordable for the upper-middle class who'd like to live more spaciously in the city.

The plot which these townhomes sit is so small, it's quite easy to miss them. But, one need only walk out of their front door at Kendrick place and be instantly on the coolest street in Knoxville, Union Ave - home to Union Ave Books, Wild Lavender Spa, Pearl on Union [a very cool coffee shop!], and JC Holdway [hip, delicious bistro].

Not every photo I take is a winner! Not by a long shot - and while it's against the portfolio principle to share this mediocre work, I want to share that I was going for something - a story - and couldn't tell it in this photo.

This tiny balcony, which overlooks a small part of downtown, and nothing glamorous about that small part, has a cafe table for two crammed within its boundaries. I can only imagine what romantic outings can be had in this micro space, merely stepping through the door to your sitting room.

The Bowery, which I'm not sure is condemned or not (I don't know if they're sure, either) is part eyesore-part architectural curiosity that I am interested in seeing closer. It was once a nightclub (or is) and is attached to a large, windowless cement block building that is still a nightclub​ and a ratchet one at that.

By far the best exemplification of contrast in this development of TMAX 100. Barley's Taproom is a Knoxville staple, serving tons of beer, bar food, and fairly decent pizza. They all have - like almost every single building in municipal Knoxville, a lot of red brick to their name.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of red brick. It's nice, but it gets very homogenous and visually assaulting when it's all you see. Barley's does have some paintings on their wall, which breaks up the monotony.

It's worth noting that the lights you see flanking the top of the Barley's building light the whole wall up at night. The wall is clearly visible from the highway, so anyone drive East through Knoxville can see the monstrocity that is Barley's.

I was definitely going for something here. After @hobotang turned me onto the elements of design, which I'd never heard of, I became mildly obsessed with lines.

This roll will have a part two post, and that post is almost entirely dedicated to lines. Lines in architecture, in flora, in the sky, angles all around. But, the lack of contrast and the overall fuzziness of my focus lacked the punch I needed to make these line's as impactful in photos as they were in person.

I hope you enjoyed the Story Behind the Shot!

Stay tuned for part two of this TMAX 100 roll, and considering checking out more #cityscapephotography, the theme for Tuesday's @photocontests.

_{Note: These photos were taken, developed, and scanned by me without post-processing or photomanipulation on my Canon AE-1 35mm film camera.}

Hi, I'm Amelia! It's nice to meet you.

I'm a writer, minimalist, tiny home dweller, and maker living in East Tennessee, USA. You might have found me through the Ladies of Steemit curation initiative, showcasing the female voices on the Steemit platform. Let's hang out on the blockchain and see where it takes us.

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