This follows Shirley, a series of photographs I made in 2023.

In this post we will pick up where we left off, starting a new phase of these pictures made over a short period of time.

We now are just to the right of the house, presumably what is their yard. We are looking in the same direction, but we are dealing with some depth, although contained by the hill at the back. The center of attention here is the trellis with off-season vines clinging to the structure. The snow on the lower left frames the photograph and seems to lead us into its middle space with various items scattered haphazardly around.

Here, we've turned a few degrees right to make our first photograph that isn't constrained by being a flat plane image. Presumably we're seeing into the immediate future of where we're heading, the light yellow house and at least one   truck with a partly obscured sign on it saying "Fuel".

But the big reveal here is that very long fence, forming a "T" shape at its bottom with another facing the street. The picture is defined at its edges by my effort to fit all of the fence in the frame. Of course, I'm standing there with the camera up to my eye thanking my lucky stars for the quality of zooms these days, in this case a 24 to 70mm.

I believe in my earlier days I wouldn't have strayed far from the rule of having to work in parallel planes with the subject. While still doing that here, I am looser now. So many rules and requirements are now gone, freeing us to do as we wish, to work to the needs of the subject and the photographs we make. 

Last one, breaking with another tradition:

This almost square photograph is an affront, planal as in the earlier frames of the series but absolutely inescapable as there is literally nowhere else to go. In contrast to our first house, this one is clearly empty, one hint being the realtor's lockbox on the door knob. As full of life and occupancy as the first house was, this is empty and a little forlorn.

So, here we are, at the end of the second post of the pictures I made in Shirley in the end of winter 2023. Of interest might be that this is a series intended to be viewed as prints. I made the prints quite large at 25 x 17 inches to allow all of the details to be seen. Next up? Shirley 3.